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Dissertation Module

Master’s Dissertation and Literature Review

Aims and Learning Outcomes

The aim of the dissertation is to assess students’ ability to conduct independent research and in the case of those pursuing post-graduate degrees leading to careers as professional psychologists in practice, to conduct research in real world settings.

The specific outcomes arising from this aim are that students demonstrate competence in:

  • Identifying a viable research issue or question pertinent to the domain of psychology they are currently studying. This issue may be problem driven (arising from a real world setting) or theory driven (guided by a clear research question and/or leading to conventional hypothesis testing) or both (most research has a problem context that will need to be formulated with reference to relevant theory and literature).
  • Designing a strategy for investigation (design, procedure, methods of data collection) that will address the research question and/or hypotheses that can be logically defended and is in accordance with the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences and BPS ethical guidelines.
  • Conducting appropriate statistical analyses that address the hypotheses and/or applying other more qualitative analytic method as appropriate to the research question. Studies that do not involve data collection are not acceptable; however there may be instances where existing datasets can be used for meta-analytic purposes or for additional analyses.
  • Interpreting findings – whether numerical/statistical or in the form of verbatim transcripts, with reference to relevant theory and/or previous research, in an informed and defendable way acknowledging their own role in the analytic process.
  • Coherently articulate the benefits and limitations of the research.
  • Identify the implications for future research and, where appropriate, also the practical implications with due recognition of the scope and boundaries of these implications.
  • Present these findings in a potentially publishable format in accordance with APA guidelines.
  • Present the findings verbally, discussing and defending them if required.
  • Self-organisation (project planning and scheduling, time management) and initiative (in seeking answers to questions, in conducting the research), including the ability to work increasingly independently and with initiative throughout the duration of the project.
  • Communicate with the supervisor in a constructive and proactive manner about the above, and with a view to develop a clear and workable modus operandi for supervision (that may mean discussing mutual expectations and process issues arising during the course of supervision).
  • Conducting and presenting a coherent literature review (the Literature Review assignment will assess this particular objective as a prerequisite for submitting the final dissertation – see below).

Contact Hours

Students are entitled to up to 10 hours of contact time with their supervisor scheduled as required to suit both supervisor and student. Contact time includes face-to-face meetings, telephone conversations, e-mails and reading drafts with respect to the project. Students are entitled to have feedback on their draft from their supervisor before the final submission provided they organise a suitable time for this in advance. Supervisors are permitted to comment on one draft only. Any additional supervision must be strictly negotiated by supervisor and student, but if there is no justifiable reason for this, heavy dependency could undermine the achievement of independent working and therefore also the final mark will reflect this.

Required prerequisite study

Undergraduate or equivalent research demonstrating competence in the basic research process.

A detailed research proposal including ethical implications must be submitted (see timetable).

Literature review between 3,000 – 5,000 words in support of the dissertation submitted in April (that will be attached to the final dissertation as an Appendix). Final dissertation: 8,000 – 10,000words.

Completion Requirement

Because the dissertation component of the Master’s programme is worth 60 credits, students are expected to invest a minimum of 470 hours in addition to supervision. These hours will include recruiting samples, fieldwork and liaison with key personnel as appropriate, data analysis, interpretation and writing up.

Dissertation Content and Schedule

The dissertation content must be appropriate for the degree course you are pursuing. If there is any doubt about this because the boundaries of a topic are fuzzy (for example, a study of receptionists as gatekeepers to seeing GPs could be classifiable as health or occupational research), students must defer to their supervisors before embarking on the research.
Students will normally make contact with a prospective supervisor in the Autumn Semester. It is the student’s responsibility to identify a suitable supervisor for the work and to submit a proposal for investigation.
The project’s timetable is within the jurisdiction of the student but must be agreed up front with the supervisor.
Students whose projects are problem driven must be careful not to allow the client to dictate the project such that academic standards are contravened. In this case, the student may be obliged to produce a client report or executive summary that can be attached as an Appendix to the academic dissertation.

The dissertation must be an original piece of work: students must demonstrate this throughout the project duration.

Assessment

Literature Review (pass/fail) and Dissertation (% mark)

Reading

Students must identify and obtain their own research resources as an integral part of the dissertation requirement. However, supervisors may recommend particular papers/books/articles as appropriate to the field and topic in question. Students will be expected to use the online databases to retrieve relevant journal papers, to make judicious and critical use of the unpublished literature and to use other sources of evidence as appropriate to the dissertation (e.g. technical reports, government reports).

Data collection outside the UK

In case where students collect their data abroad they need to design and discuss with their supervisor a programme of work that (i) plans ways of contacting the supervisor, and (ii) ensures that ethical standards comparable to the University standards have been adhered to.