Eye Tracking Research Assistant Review

At the start of the internship I was tasked with doing lots of preliminary research. I wrote a literature review on the research topic, which was to understand how young people today like to present themselves in games through customisable avatars, and why they care more about this than their real, physical appearances. I also helped fill out ethical forms and plan the testing sessions. After this, most of my weeks were focused on facilitation and recruitment for the sessions.

Yes, I was responsible for facilitating some of our testing sessions and setting up the eye tracking equipment. Often I would do this while the Lead Researcher was in the room, but I was also trusted with this should she not be able to make a session.

I gained many different research-based skills, including how to write a literature review, how to structure a testing session, how to appropriately facilitate a testing session, what questions are suitable for surveys and interview, and how to set up delicate eye tracking equipment.

During the first stage of research, I did not receive much support as the Lead Researcher was not present for my first couple of weeks. I largely did work on my own during this stage. However, when we were facilitating testing sessions I received a lot of guidance from her.

I was an intern for one of my lecturers, helping her with her personal research project. There were no other staff members and the entire internship was based on university campus, so there was no "company culture". I was in a comfortable environment.

I enjoyed it very much.

Yes