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Career Exploration

Social Science Research Assistants

Also called: Graduate Research Assistant, Research Assistant, Research Associate, Social Research Assistant

What they do:

Assist social scientists in laboratory, survey, and other social science research. May help prepare findings for publication and assist in laboratory analysis, quality control, or data management.

On the job, you would:
  • Design and create special programs for tasks such as statistical analysis and data entry and cleaning.
  • Provide assistance with the preparation of project-related reports, manuscripts, and presentations.
  • Prepare tables, graphs, fact sheets, and written reports summarizing research results.
On the job, you'll need:

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Engineering and Technology

  • computers and electronics

Business

  • administrative services
  • customer service

Math and Science

  • arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, or statistics

Basic Skills

  • reading work related information
  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

People and Technology Systems

  • thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one
  • figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it

Verbal

  • communicate by speaking
  • listen and understand what people say

Ideas and Logic

  • order or arrange things
  • use rules to solve problems

Math

  • choose the right type of math to solve a problem
  • add, subtract, multiply, or divide

Investigative

People interested in this work like activities that include ideas, thinking, and figuring things out.

  • Dependability
  • Cooperation
  • Attention to Detail
  • Independence
  • Adaptability/Flexibility
  • Integrity

Object or component oriented development software

  • Perl
  • R

Computer based training software

  • Appletree

Analytical or scientific software

  • IBM SPSS Statistics
  • The MathWorks MATLAB

Video courtesy of CareerOneStop.

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Bright.

New job opportunities are very likely in the future. This career will grow rapidly in the next few years.

Median Annual Salary: $50,470

Education

Bachelor's degree or master's degree is usually needed.