Resources › For Students and Parents What Is a Research Assistantship? Print Fuse / Getty For Students and Parents Graduate School Choosing a Graduate Program Tips & Advice Admissions Essays Recommendation Letters Medical School Admissions Homework Help Private School Test Prep College Admissions College Life Business School Law School Distance Learning View More By Tara Kuther, Ph.D. Tara Kuther, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Ph.D., Developmental Psychology, Fordham University M.A., Developmental Psychology, Fordham University Tara Kuther, Ph.D., is a professor at Western Connecticut State University. She specializes in professional development for undergraduate and graduate students. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on March 07, 2017 An assistantship is a form of funding in which a student works as an "assistant" in exchange for partial or full tuition and/or a stipend. Students who are awarded research assistantships become research assistants and are assigned to work in a faculty member's lab. The supervising faculty member may or may not be the student's main advisor. Duties of research assistants vary by discipline and lab but include all tasks needed to pursue research in a given area, such as: data collection, entry, and analysisreviewing the literature and other library workwriting reportscopying, filing, and collatingorganizing and/or cleaning the lab or office Some students may find some of these items menial but these are the tasks that are required to run a lab and conduct research. Most research assistants do a little bit of everything. Research assistants have a great deal of responsibility. They are trusted with faculty members' research -- and research is critical to academic careers. The benefits of a research assistantship lie beyond tuition emission or other monetary compensation. As a research assistant you will learn how to conduct research first hand. Your research experiences as a research assistant can be good preparation for your first major solo research project: Your dissertation. Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Kuther, Tara, Ph.D. "What Is a Research Assistantship?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-a-research-assistantship-1686484. Kuther, Tara, Ph.D. (2020, August 27). What Is a Research Assistantship? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-research-assistantship-1686484 Kuther, Tara, Ph.D. "What Is a Research Assistantship?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-research-assistantship-1686484 (accessed March 29, 2024). copy citation