Themen für die Masterarbeit bei der «Gerontopsychologie»
- Informationen zur Masterarbeit
Betreuungsperson der Masterarbeit: Prof. Dr. M. MartinIn der folgenden Übersicht finden Sie Themenbereiche, Einzelthemen und ev. extern betreute Einzelthemen vor. Bei Interesse wenden Sie sich bitte an eine der genannten Kontaktpersonen.
Bitte fügen Sie Ihrer Bewerbung für eine Masterarbeit neben einem kurzen Lebenslauf auch ein ca. einseitiges Motivationsschreiben bei, in welchem Sie erklären, warum Sie sich für das Forschungsprojekt bewerben.
Die Masterarbeit darf erst nach Rücksprache mit der/dem Ko-Betreuer/in gebucht werden. Empfohlen wird, die Masterarbeit parallel zum Forschungskolloquium 2 zu buchen.
Übersicht der Masterarbeitsthemen dieser Professur
Durch Klick auf die einzelnen Themen werden die Detail-Informationen angezeigt.
offen:
Cognitive Failures in the Daily Life of Older Adults
Beschreibung: Background and Aim
Cognitive failures?such as forgetting names, misplacing objects, or losing track of intentions?are common in older age and can negatively impact emotional well-being, independence, and quality of life. Despite their frequency and significance, these everyday memory and attention lapses are often understudied outside of controlled laboratory settings. Traditional measures typically rely on retrospective self-reports, which may miss the subtle dynamics and real-world impact of these lapses.
This Master?s thesis aims to examine cognitive failures as they naturally occur in older adults' daily lives. Using intensive longitudinal data, the project will explore how frequently different types of cognitive failures occur, how they are experienced (e.g., irritation, interference with daily goals), and what factors might predict or moderate their occurrence and impact.
Data and Methods
You will work with a rich, multidisciplinary dataset collected over six years from older adults living in Switzerland. The data include smartphone-based momentary entries, in-lab psychological and cognitive assessments, and passive sensing data (e.g., GPS, accelerometer). This enables a unique opportunity to study cognitive failures in real time and in relation to both subjective experience and objective context.
Possible Directions for Exploration
Your thesis may focus on one or more of the following areas:
Frequency and patterns of daily memory lapses (e.g., prospective vs. retrospective failures)
Emotional and functional consequences of cognitive failures in daily life
Associations with daily mood, stress, sleep, or activity engagement
The role of personality, motivation, or cognitive resources in shaping how failures are experienced
Contextual factors (e.g., mobility, environment) that contribute to or buffer against cognitive failures
Why This Matters
Understanding when, why, and for whom everyday cognitive failures occur can help identify early signs of cognitive vulnerability and inform strategies to support aging well in everyday life. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research that takes a real-life, real-time perspective on aging and cognition.
Language
The thesis will be written in English.
References
Mogle, J., Turner, J. R., Rabin, L. A., Sliwinski, M. J., Zhaoyang, R., & Hill, N. L. (2023). Measuring memory lapses and their impact on daily life: Results from two daily diary studies. Assessment, 30(5), 1454-1466.
Veal, B. M., Scott, S. B., Jim, H. S., & Small, B. J. (2023). Subjective cognition and memory lapses in the daily lives of breast cancer survivors: Examining associations with objective cognitive performance, fatigue, and depressed mood. Psycho?Oncology, 32(8), 1298-1305.
Kontakt: Dr. Minxia Luo, E-MailStatus: offen (erfasst / geändert: 14.07.2025)Emotionsregulation und soziale Beziehungen über die Lebensspanne
Beschreibung: Die ausgeschriebenen Masterarbeiten basieren auf bereits erhobenen Datensätzen aus den Studien Co-Sense und CoCoCap65plus. Die Projekte untersuchen unter anderem Prozesse der interpersonalen Emotionsregulation, soziale Verbundenheit sowie emotionale Dynamiken in Paarbeziehungen and anderen Dyaden im Alltag. Es ist auch möglich eigene Studien zu entwickeln bei Interesse.
Gesucht werden wissenschaftlich interessierte, kommunikativ starke, genau arbeitende, zuverlässige Masterstudierende, die ein ausgeprägtes Interesse an quantitativer Datenanalyse sowie an wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen im Bereich Emotionen und soziale Interaktionen mitbringen.
Geboten wird:
Enge Einbindung in Forschungsgruppe
Betreuung durch erfahrene Wissenschaftler:innen
Möglichkeit zur Mitwirkung an Publikationen
Zugang zu hochwertigen, alltagsnahen Datensätzen
Bei Interesse freuen wir uns über eine Anfrage mit einem kurzen Motivationsschreiben, Lebenslauf, gegebenenfals Zeugnissen und sowie der Bachelorarbeit an andrea.horn@psychologie.uzh.ch.
Kontakt: Dr. Andrea Horn, E-MailStatus: offen (erfasst / geändert: 30.06.2025)Initiative "Jedes Alter Zählt"
Beschreibung: "Jedes Alter Zählt" is a research-based initiative aimed at raising awareness, conducting research, and preventing age discrimination in Switzerland. Our goal is to identify all forms of ageism in Switzerland, make them visible, counteract them, and promote age diversity. A central element of our initiative is the digital platform https://jedesalter.ch.
We have four interconnected goals:
1. Education and Awareness-Raising We are developing a low-threshold, scientifically grounded e-learning program with freely accessible learning modules and information on ageism. Our aim is to reach people throughout Switzerland and encourage critical reflection on age-related stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination across different areas of life.
2. Research Through the platform, interested individuals in Switzerland can share their personal experiences and actively contribute with their data to our research. We analyze these real-life reports using machine learning to obtain a nuanced understanding of age discrimination in Switzerland. The insights gained will be presented in an accessible format and made publicly available.
3. Community Building and Empowerment Our platform gives a voice to those affected by ageism in everyday life. Users can share personal stories ? both negative and positive incidents ? thereby contributing to collective visibility. Through local events, workshops, and our network, we are building an active community that promotes and embodies age diversity.
4. Policy Recommendations Based on the data collected, we will develop empirically grounded recommendations for policymakers. The goal is to support long-term effective prevention campaigns and intervention strategies against age discrimination, for example, in education.
This thesis will focus on the citizen science aspect of the project (Goal 2) and investigate various research questions, such as:
1. How do people in Switzerland experience age discrimination?
2. In what contexts of real life does it express itself (e.g., workplace, finance, transportation, healthcare)?
3. What impact do age-discriminatory disadvantages have on mental and physical health?
As there will be more than one student working on the project, the specific focus of the thesis can be discussed.
Readings: Wallimann, M., Inerle, K., Ferrario, A., Benz-Steffen, E., & Demiray, B. (2025). Co-developing an educational platform against ageism with older adults: A use case from Switzerland. Educational Gerontology, 1-11.
Kontakt: Dr. Burcu Demiray, E-MailStatus: offen (erfasst / geändert: 30.06.2025)Learning "innovation and entrepreneurship" in later life
Beschreibung: In collaboration with ZHAW School of Management and Law, we have developed a blended course on innovation and entrepreneurship for adults 55+. We provide a blended learning environment that combines age-appropriate e-learning courses (via our e-learning platform) with on-site interactive sessions that foster the real-life implementation of learned skills, methods and tools (such as design thinking). We support learners to build teams and develop real-life projects that have a social and/or economic impact (e.g., volunteering project, coaching business) across a period of 5 months. This thesis will focus on the learning journeys, experiences and performance of learners in relation to their views on aging and purpose in life. As there will be more than one student working on the project, the specific focus of the thesis can be discussed.
People in the second half of life possess a wealth of experience and world knowledge. Our blended program fosters a dual societal impact by supporting adults to continue to make an impact, while enabling society to benefit from their wealth of experience and know-how.
Kontakt: Dr. Burcu Demiray, E-MailStatus: offen (erfasst / geändert: 30.06.2025)Short reminiscence therapy with older adults
Beschreibung: Over half of older adults living in residential aged care settings report significant levels of anxiety and depression. Traditionally, staff who care for older adults have limited education and resources available to assist them to respond to psychological distress in the moment.
We are commencing a project to educate staff on the use of an evidence-based intervention called music-assisted reminiscence therapy (MRT) to help address the varied psychological and emotional needs of older adults. This project is part of a grant awarded to Romy Engelbrecht (University of Queensland, visiting UZH until Feb 24) by the Swiss government and will be conducted in the healthy longevity centre UZH within the research group CoupleSense: Health and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation (head: Andrea B. Horn). It involves conducting training with aged care staff on the intervention and collecting and analysing mixed research data on psychological resources in aging and how they can be supported in a culturally sensitive way by short interventions provided by the staff. The master?s thesis will be conducted at the unit ?Gerontopsychology and Gerontology? in the psychology department at the University of Zurich, chair: Professor Dr. Mike Martin.
Your responsibilities:
? Support preparing communication between institutions and participants
? Support the implementation and development of written training resources
? Assist the research team to conduct a staff training program
? Assist with the transcription of data recordings
? Support the research team with mixed data collection and analysis.
Your profile:
? Currently studying psychology as a master?s student.
? Have an interest in Gerontology, or working with mental health and wellbeing.
? You have excellent communication skills, organisational skills, and attention to detail.
? You have advanced English and German Skills (Swiss German also highly regarded).
? Interest and/or experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.
What we offer:
We offer a collaborative and stimulating international research environment with varied work tasks and flexible working times. This project will offer the opportunity to learn practical and clinical skills in the evidence-based intervention of music-assisted reminiscence therapy from an international expert, and allow you to obtain experience with qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.
You will have the opportunity to develop your own research question within in the project. Though involvement in the project is expected as soon as possible, the planning of the master thesis development is open for discussion (co-supervisor: Andrea B. Horn).
Start of project
Immediately (the intervention phase ends February 2024; Master thesis time line open for discussion)
Applications should include: motivation letter, CV, bachelor thesis. If available: reference letters referring to earlier work (any). Applications are welcome as soon as possible best before October 15 2023.
Kontakt: Dr. Andrea Horn, E-MailStatus: offen (erfasst / geändert: 02.10.2023)
vergeben:
Validation of a physical activity sensor for healthy aging research
GPS-derived mobility and its correlates in old age
Momentary subjective age and its correlates
Activity engagement and health care utilization
Mobility and cognition in older age
Tiergestützte Ergotherapie im Pflegeheim: Steigerung von Wahlmöglichkeiten
Tiergestützte Ergotherapie im Pflegeheim: besonderer Nutzen von Tieren
Spezifische Emotionen über die Lebensspanne
Positive Psychology at the End of the Lifespan
Evaluationsprojekt "Artists in Residence"
Music Circles
HIER- Health and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation
Positive Psychologie am Ende des Lebens
Kommunikation in der Partnerschaft
Co-Sense-Studie
Did you sleep well last night? Daily sleep, activities, and cognitive abilities in healthy older adults
Evaluationsprojekt Music Mirror - Akustisch-biographischer Musikspiegel für Menschen mit Demenz
Narrative Onlinestudie zu gesundem Altern: «NOGA»
Schmerzstudie
Evaluationsprojekt Music & Memory
Evaluationsprojekt Flechtwerk ? Projekt im Rahmen von «Socius - Wenn Älterwerden Hilfe braucht»
Seitennummerierung