PhD position: Saying the right word at the right time

Infants and toddlers develop through exploration of their environment and in interaction with caregivers. This study focusses on naturalistic contexts, the home and centre-based childcare in a diverse sample of infants/toddlers. This provides insights regarding the effects of these contexts, while enhancing our understanding of the mechanisms of early vocabulary development, also in children from lower socioeconomic families, who often lag behind in vocabulary development.

Wat ga je doen?

Initial evidence suggests that the combination of exploration and human interaction, such that objects are named at the right time, during moments of so-called embodied attention (when children hold an object such that it dominates their visual field), may serve as main learning mechanisms in early vocabulary development. While previous research has been mainly conducted in the lab with middleclass families, this study focusses on naturalistic contexts, the home and centre-based childcare in a diverse sample of infants/toddlers. The aims of the project are:

• To understand children’s exploration behaviour and the role of caregiver’s labelling behaviour during moments of embodied attention across the home and childcare context;
• To study the role of exploration behaviour and vocabulary development with caregiver labelling as moderator across contexts;
• To investigate differences in child and parental behaviour related to the family’s socio-economic background.

Wat breng je mee?

We would love to hear from you, if:

• You have an (almost finished) (Research) Master’s degree in the field of developmental psychology, pedagogics, education, or a related field;
• You have excellent research and writing skills;
• You have well-developed analytical skills and you are preferably acquainted with Mplus and/or R;
• You have good social skills and affinity with data collection;
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills in English;
• You have a good command of the Dutch language or are willing to learn Dutch. This is a requirement for the data collection. We offer free Dutch language courses to help you learn;
• You are an active team member with good communication skills.

Your suitability is ideally exemplified, if:

• You have worked with children and/or families.
• You have experience with conducting observations.
• You are fluent in Dutch.

Wat bieden wij?

We offer:

• a position (0.8 FTE) for 1 year, with an extension to a total of four years upon successful assessment;
• a full-time gross salary between €2,770 in the first year and €3,539 in the fourth year of employment in scale P of the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities;
• 8% holiday bonus and 8.3% end-of-year bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave, and flexible employment conditions based on the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities.