School of Psychology PhD Studentship: Using mixed-methods intervention designs to determine how using unit-marked glasses affects ability to adhere to government alcohol intake guidelines (2017)

Supervisor: Dr Richard de Visser (School of Psychology, University of Sussex and Sussex Addiction Research and Interventions Centre)

The supervisor's recent research has investigated ways of improving people's capacity to manage their alcohol intake. These studies have addressed knowledge of unit intake guidelines, motivation to adhere to them, and skills required to monitor unit intake. The successful applicant will work on a programme of research co-funded by Drinkaware which will examine the impact of Drinkaware's unit-marked cups. This is a continuation of recent research conducted in collaboration with Brighton & Hove City Council which provided evidence of benefits of using unit-marked glasses. Intervention studies may be conducted in various samples, including students in schools and universities and non-student adults.

Studies will used mixed-method designs using quantitative surveys to measure intervention effects, and qualitative interviews to assess responses to interventions and suggestions for improvements. The theoretical framework is the Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills model (IMB: Fisher et al., 1994) that has been applied in our recent studies of alcohol interventions (de Visser, 2015; de Visser et al., in press).

Applications should be made by Tuesday 10th January 2017. The award of the studentship will be based on a competitive process. If awarded, it would be a full-time studentship (funded for a duration of three years) covering tuition fee, and a maintenance allowance. The maintenance allowance is currently £14,296 per annum.

What you get

£14,296 tax-free bursary per annum, plus a waiver of UK/EU fees

Type of award

PhD studentship available for September 2017

Eligibility

Eligibility requirements for potential candidates:

  • This award will only pay fees at the Home/EU rate (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/brexit/). Candidates may not be eligible for the full award if they do not meet UK residency requirements. For full details of eligibility, please check the ESRC guidelines.
  • Candidates must have, or expect to obtain, a First or a high Upper Second Class Honours undergraduate degree, or equivalent qualification, and/or a Master's degree in Psychology or a related discipline.

Deadline

10 January 2017 23:59

How to apply

Guidance for applicants:

  • Application procedures can be found here.
  • Please submit an online application for the 'PhD in Psychology' programme, for September 2017 entry through this link.
  • State in the 'Funding information' section of your online application that you are applying for this studentship, giving the title of the project as above and mention the supervisor, Dr Richard de Visser, in the 'Supervisor suggested by applicant' section.
  • The proposed source of funding should be specified as 'ESRC or School of Psychology'.

Candidates should provide:

  • A research statement that briefly outlines your current state of knowledge, hypotheses that could be addressed, and an outline of potential methods. Your answer should not exceed 2 pages including references, be set at minimum 10-font type with margins a minimum of 1cm.
  • A current degree transcript(s) with full details of performance on all completed courses.
  • Two academic references.
  • An up-to-date CV.

Sponsors

The School of Psychology is one of the largest centres for the study of psychology
in the UK. We have nearly 40 academic faculty, about 100 research students and
the same number of postgraduate students taking Master's degrees. Our
undergraduate intake is about 250 a year, which gives us an academic community
of nearly 1000 people working in a rich and supportive learning environment.

Psychology is a diverse discipline and our size means that we span major
research areas in social, cognitive, biological, developmental and clinical
psychology. Psychology at Sussex was rated 10th in the UK for research in the
2014 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 91% of our research at Sussex is
ranked as world-leading or internationally significant.

Contact us

For queries with respect to the application process please send an email for the attention of 'Postgraduate Coordinator' to: psychology@sussex.ac.uk

To discuss the details of this PhD project further, please contact Dr Richard de Visser: rd48@sussex.ac.uk

Timetable

Deadline for applications: Tuesday 10th January 2017.

Availability

At level(s):
PG (research)

Application deadline:
10 January 2017 23:59 (GMT)
the deadline has now expired