Research Opportunities

This is an ongoing project. New research assistants will be recruited yearly.

The overarching goal of this project is to understand how couples change during couple therapy. We use couples’ responses to questionnaires that are administered throughout therapy as part of the Marriage and Family Therapy Process Research Network and/or video recordings from sessions of therapy to examine processes of interest. Each year we examine a different aspect of the change process. This opportunity is particularly useful for students interested in pursuing graduate training as a marriage and family therapist.

READY is a longitudinal study that aims to provide a comprehensive description of the transition to adulthood. Before applying please complete SFL 290 & Stats 121. RAs can receive credit or pay.

The Sexual Mindfulness Project examines how being more aware and less judgmental may be linked with sexual well-being.

An examination at how siblings influence one another in reaching important markers of adulthood. RAs should prepare by taking SFL 290 & STATS 121 (preferred).

Project MEDIA recruits new Research Assistants each fall. Students that are hired will take a 3 credit 403R class during Winter semester and will work up to 40 hours a week (paid) during the summer. The project hires a team of research assistants to collect data in Denver as well as a team that codes data and will stay in Provo.

This project explores parent-child sex communication as it relates to children and adolescents’ development of healthy sexuality. The project also focuses on adults’ healthy sexuality within committed relationships. We have cross-sectional pilot and measurement data, and in the Fall of 2019 plan to begin gathering longitudinal data to explore how healthy sexuality is socialized and develops over time.

In the CEC, we aim to understand how we make sense of the world around us. We investigate the development of social cognition and emotion understanding in infancy and childhood by assessing infants' emotion attributions, false-belief understanding, imitation/emulation, and false-emotion attributions using a multi-method approach, which includes non-verbal measures, behavioral paradigms, violation-of-expectation paradigms, and eye-tracking. We also investigate the role of context in emotion perception, especially as it pertains to how facial expressions of emotion are categorized and visually processed. Potential applicants are encouraged to have taken Research Methods and Statistics. Prior research experience is encouraged, but not required.

The American Families of Faith research project is a national research project involving in-depth, qualitative interviews with nearly 300 religious couple and families (500+ individuals) from all eight regions of the United States. We interview "exemplary" families with strong marriages and learn how they have overcome challenges in life, marriage, and parenting--and how their faith has helped them do so.

The MFT-PRN an Internet-based assessment system that can be used by MFTs and other systemically-oriented therapists across the country and the world. The system is designed so that the receptionist or therapist works with clients to complete the assessments before each therapy session. When the client checks in with the receptionist or other person designated by the clinic, the receptionist will enter their name in the PRN website (if it is the first session) or pull-up the client by their initials (if it is an established client). The receptionist will then scan the QR code that automatically pops up using an iPad or other electronic tablets (if preferred a computer could also be used). The appropriate assessment measures will then automatically be loaded, and the clients will complete the assessments. Once they are finished, the attending therapist will then instantaneously receive a clinical report of the clients’ assessments, and the responses will be automatically stored on a secure server. Data from all clients using the PNR are to BYU for use in publications and presentations.