Getting started
Before getting started – consider how you will manage your time
Video clip transcript:s
Dr Iain Garner, Principal Lecturer in Psychology: When students come to me and they want to start the dissertation process, they are often very nervous about what to do. They are at a loss of how to start this mega piece of work as they perceive it. In my mind, there are two basic approaches. I advise them to think, what are you interested in? What from your degree has made you think again? Or think, that's challenging, I like that or I don't like that. I like to run that alongside another question. What access to a research data or database, or participants have you got?
Shawna McCoy, Lecturer in Criminology: I think many students make the mistake of thinking that a dissertation begins in the 3 rd year. One of the things I encourage the students that I'm involved is to be thinking about the dissertation whilst they're doing their 2 nd year of study and be asking questions themselves about what it is that they are interested in? And is there anyway that I can start to look at that during the summer? So in the time you have off, can you volunteer for an organisation that you are able to do your dissertation on. To look at, in relation to access to individuals that you are going to need. Who do you want to talk to about a specific question that you might have.
Christopher Crowther-Dowey, Principal Lecturer in Criminology: I think the process begins at the end of the 2 nd year when they identify an area of study. That to me is the right time. I think it's also right that they don't start to engage in any detailed activity until the start of the 3 rd year. It is possible that we can encourage them to work during the summer. But then they go off on a tangent. And then they have to be reigned in. I think it's important that they have that face to face contact. A contact which is intensive to ensure that they are not straying or wandering off. Their is an argument for them to be allowed to roam, but then they have to be reigned in and they might find it more frustrating if they have done two to three months of work during the summer.
Dr Iain Garner, Principal Lecturer in Psychology: So in my mind the student needs to be working on two fronts; that of, what questions interest me and what access to data do I have?