I am a psychology major going into my junior year in the fall (currently a sophomore). I was surprised to find that the head of the department was offering me and about 10 others research opportunities in his social psychology laboratory, with the potential for pay! I figured the offer was to the psych majors with the highest grades as it seemed selective. While i've had straight A's in my courses though, I'm a little anxious about actual research experience. Letters on a transcript measure how well you can read books and take notes, not how well you can work in applied settings. I know it's needed for grad school acceptance and I have planned on doing it eventually. Well eventually is now but I have no idea what kind of work i'd be doing or even whether or not I'll be competent at it. Can anyone explain to me what research as an undergraduate would specifically involve doing?
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The duties of a research assistant really will range from project to project, researcher to researcher. As such, we can't really tell you exactly what you'll be doing.
I imagine, however, you will be working with some or all of the other people who were given this offer by carrying out certain research duties. The social psychology lab is likely to have a number of different projects going depending on how large it is, and you will probably be working on one of them.
Overall, I imagine you will probably perform some data analysis (using a program like SPSS), entering data into the computer and running statistical analyses. You may also be involved in data collection - that is, going to the target populations and collecting the data needed for the research project (e.g. issuing questionnaires to participants or overseeing participants performance in the lab). You may be asked to do some literature review that relates to the project topic and perhaps even come up with some periodic reports on your progress, identifying any limitations and updating the rest of the group on what's been done.
I don't imagine they will expect too terribly much from you and will realise that this is all new for you. As such, while you may be presented with challenges, the work will probably be a great learning experience more than anything else. It's also possible that the researcher in charge may assign you tasks based on what you're comfortable with and/or better at. Once you find out what project you're working on, do some reading in your own time about the topic and any debates that surround it just to familiarise yourself with it and so you can feel more comfortable about your work.
Enjoy it, it'll probably be awesome. Oh and congrats! :D