Due to technological advances, modern society is dominated by increasingly complex images. For instance, radiologists diagnose medical conditions from complex visualizations such as radiographs and computer tomography (CT) scans, and social scientists make use of graphs and animations depicting socio-demographic trends. These tasks require visual problem-solving skills, which refer to the detection and interpretation of relevant information from a complex visualization to come to a conclusion, decision or diagnosis. In modern society, this is an important but underestimated 21st-century skill.

The aim of this PhD trajectory is to answer the following research questions:

1.    What verbal and non-verbal actions do ‘masters’ in visual problem-solving take to help apprentices attend to relevant information and form a high-quality mental representation?

2.    What are the effects of the masters’ actions on apprentices’ attention allocation, understanding, and performance in a visual problem-solving task?

3.    What effect does additional instructional support in the form of verbal and non-verbal ‘cueing’ and ‘chunking’ have on the interaction between master and apprentice as well as on the apprentices’ attention allocation, understanding and performance when engaging in a visual problem-solving task?

We are looking for an enthusiastic and driven PhD candidate for this project with excellent academic skills, who can work well both in a team and independently. The candidate should have a relevant scientific background (MSc diploma) in (medical) education, psychology,(technical) medicine, health sciences, or equivalent.

Fixed-term contract: 1 + 3 years.

We offer a 4 year full-time appointment as PhD candidate. The first year will be a probation period, after a positive assessment the position will be extended for another 3 years, which happens in the vast majority of cases.
Your salary would be € 2.434,- gross per month in the first year up to € 3.111,- gross per month in the fourth year according to the PhD-candidate salary scale. On top of this, there is an 8% holiday and an 8.3% year-end allowance. Each year an evaluation will take place.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website www.maastrichtuniversity.nl > About UM > Working at UM.

Maastricht University

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 20,000 students and 4,700 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. For more information, visit www.maastrichtuniversity.nl.

School of Health Professions Education (SHE)/Department of Educational Development & Research

The Maastricht School of Health Professions Education (SHE) is a graduate school for education, research and innovation in health professions education. SHE provides high quality multidisciplinary research and teaching and helps to innovate educational programmes. By providing the basics, SHE educates future leaders and opens the door for better healthcare in the future.

The Department of Educational Development and Research (O&O) supports the development and innovation of bachelor’s, master’s and postgraduate training programmes within the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML), Maastricht University. O&O combines the redesign of theory-based teaching practices with investigating these practices in close collaboration with students, teachers, educators, leaders/managers, scholars and health care professionals. In designing innovative approaches to learning, teaching, evaluation and assessment, O&O builds bridges between theory and practice. Moreover, O&O innovates and investigates why innovative approaches that are preferably theory-based might work in a specific context for a specific target group with particular objectives in mind.