It’s important to note that what I'm talking about here only applies to what I've had to do this year for my project but it may change in the years to come. Also in psychology they refer to the dissertation as 'final year project' and those terms are used interchangeably though out both the course and this blog :).
The beginning of the process actually starts towards the end of second year. Within the research methods module, we had a mini presentation from the psychology lecturers who explained a little about the past research they've conducted and what their main areas of interests are. From this it's normally pretty obvious who you’re going want as your supervisor and you can then set up an appointment with them to discuss your ideas for your project before officially requesting them as your supervisor.
A few weeks later you have to submit a form detailing a rough outline of your project and who your first and second choice of supervisor would be. They usually try to accommodate your first choice as much as possible, but sometimes they can't, hence the reason behind also selecting a second choice.
My top tip would be to pick a research area that you're really REALLY interested in, as it really does help you, in term of motivation, if you're genuinely interested in it, otherwise working on your project can begin to seem like a chore! Additionally, it's always a good idea to pick your supervisor based on their research area, rather than which lecturer you get on best with. It may seem silly but lots of people have done it in the past and then struggled in terms of finding previous research as their supervisor isn't familiar with the research topic they've chosen. Obviously having a good balance of the two is the ideal situation :)!
For me making this choice was pretty straight forward, as where I had done research work in the past, into face recognition and eyewitness testimony, I was pretty set on having this as the topic for my dissertation. There was only one main lecturer who specialised in this area, so everything sort of fell into place for me :)
The next aspect of the dissertation is getting ethical approval, and this process is slightly more complicated as what it involves varies depending on what you're doing for your project and the risks associated with it. Unlike most other university courses, a psychology dissertation isn't just writing a loooong essay, it actually involves designing and conducting a piece of research, then analysing the results before writing it all up. Because this process involves the testing of participants, you need to get ethical approval before you're allowed to begin.
As previously mentioned this process can vary greatly. The majority of projects only need to get approval from the department's ethic board, but if it involves some sort of risk, or is intended to be conducted on 'vulnerable' people such as children under 16, this needs additional approval before it can be given the green light to go ahead.
In order to get ethical approval, you need to provide a project summary, risk assessment form, and the actual ethics forms themselves. As well as those, you also need to provide copies of all the forms and measures you intend to use within your study, such as information and consent form, debrief from, and all your questionnaires. (It’s not as easy as it sounds, trust me :p) This year there were numerous opportunities to submit your ethics forms, starting in July right though till like October. My advice, GET. THEM. IN. EARLY. I really really can't stress that point enough, and you have no excuse not too as you have the wholeeeeeee summer to work on them!
I managed to submit mine late August, which meant when September rolled around and all the new first year students started I was able to swoop in and collect the majority of my data before September was even finished. Where as some people I know left it till like the last submission date and they're still struggling to collect data now, even though our project is actually due in 3 weeks!! The problem with submitting later on in the year is that the majority of people's projects involve getting the first and second year psychology students to participate in the studies and after a few months of doing all of the third years' projects they just get bored and don't want to do anymore!! So try to submit your ethics as soon as possible and you shouldn't have a problem.
Lastly, once you submit your ethics you'll get it sent back to you with some type of pass. Either it'll pass straight away (very rare), or be sent back with a conditional pass (most common) which just means you need to make a few minor changes, normally it's just things like spelling or correct layout/format etc and your supervisor can just sign off these changes without it having to go to the board again. OR it could come back rejected, which means major changes need to be made, and it need to be resubmitted again before it'll get approved.
Mine luckily came back with conditional changes, as I needed to change the term 'participant number' to 'participant code' and correct one of my questionnaires as the last question got cut off when I formatted it, so luckily they were simple to change, and tbh as long as you put the work in before hand, the majority of them come back like that :).
Wow, I actually can’t believe how much I've written, and I’m not even halfway through talking about the dissertation!! Well done if you've managed to read all of that so far, but I think I’ll have to leave it there for now, and in my next blog I'll continue talking about the dissertation, particularly more about the actual testing procedure and write up of it :)
Ta Ta for now xxx
