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5 Research projects and dissertations 5.1 Planning your timetable 5.2 Choosing a topic 5.3 Making the most of your supervisor 5.4 Designing the project 5.5 Getting ethical approval 5.6 Running the project 5.7 Reporting and analysing your results 5.8 Common errors of interpretation 5.9 Writing up If you are taking a degree programme accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) you will undertake a research project or research dissertation in your final year. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your ability to work independently in an efficient and effective way. It will contribute a significant percentage of marks towards your final degree class, and requires careful planning and execution. It may also be important in deciding what to do next and could play a part in getting a place on a postgraduate course in psychology. This chapter will help you make a success of it. 5.1 Planning your timetable Time is likely to be one of the biggest issues you encounter with your project, and particularly so if it involves collecting data in an environment outside the
134 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS department that is not geared to your needs. Many potentially good projects do not get marks as high as they might because the student has not spent enough time on the final stages required for bring the report up to the standard of presentation required – usually that for a journal article. Swimming galas, nativity plays, inspectors’ visits, illness and staff holidays always appear when most inconvenient, and as a visitor in another working environment all you can do is smile and lump it. There may also be bits of bureaucracy at the university end, such as getting the necessary clearance and ethical approval, which can hold things up considerably (see the section entitled ‘Before you start’, page 135, for further details of these). A helpful exercise is to look at the timetable given in the course outline, focus on the handing-in date, and work backwards, remembering that there will be many other pressures on your time at this stage of the course. There will probably be specific course deadlines set for stages in setting up the project, starting before your final year, and the timetable of formal milestones might look something like this: Planning 1 introductory lecture and discussion 2 project application form, leading to the allocation of a supervisor 3 agreeing a research question 4 project synopsis 5 final project outline (protocol) for obtaining ethical approval Data collection 6 progress report form Writing up 7 seminar presentation (this may be part of the formal assessment and contribute marks to the overall assessment) 8 submission of drafts to your supervisor 9 submission of the final report Each course will have its own way of managing this and you should check very carefully what the precise requirements and dates are for your course – we are only trying to give you a general indication of how it works. These milestones are not just set to make sure you are getting on with the job. Comments from your supervisor or during a seminar discussion can play a very useful formative role in developing the project before you commit yourself by collecting the data or thinking about the analysis. If these stages are not set formally by your department, then include them in your own personal schedule. In our experience, a small pilot to test out your plan for data collection, whether it is laboratory or field based, while there is still the opportunity to modify things is well worth it. So build in some time for this too.
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Successful Studying Study Skills fo
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Study Skills for Psychology Student
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For Georgina Brennan, Julia Henders
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viii CONTENTS 4.5 Preparing and pre
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Skills for Successful Study series
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xiv SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE This
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Appendix 2 Answers to exercises Exe
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Appendix 3 Acronyms and abbreviatio
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Appendix 4 Glossary (See also Appen
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References Aserinsky, E., & Kleitma
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218 INDEX Blindsight, 189 Body mass
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220 INDEX GBR see Graduate basis fo
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222 INDEX Phenomenology, 196 Piaget
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224 INDEX t-test, 209 Turnitin, 84-
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