Postgraduate Course: Dissertation in Individual Differences Psychology (PSYL11033)
Course Outline
School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Course type | Dissertation |
Availability | Available to all students |
SCQF Credits | 60 |
ECTS Credits | 30 |
Summary | The student will conduct a research project in a field relevant to the study of human individual differences (e.g., personality traits / process, cognitive abilities, or related areas). |
Course description |
The course consists of preparing for, carrying out and writing up a dissertation, in collaboration with the supervisor. The topic for the project, and thereby supervisor, can be selected from among those offered by the Department; alternatively, students can suggest their own projects to available supervisors. Typically, the topic and supervisor selection are completed by January; planning is completed by the end of April and the whole project is completed by late July. Typically, the project involves setting up a rationale and hypotheses / specific research questions for an empirical project; collecting and analysing data, or re-analysing existing data, to address the hypotheses / questions; and writing the rationale, methods and results up, alongside a discussion and similarly to a journal article. The dissertation is up to 8,000 words long. Students can work in pairs to prepare for the project and collect data, but the dissertations are written and marked individually.
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Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites | None |
High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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Academic year 2020/21, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
600
(
Dissertation/Project Supervision Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 12,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
578 )
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Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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Additional Information (Assessment) |
The dissertation will report a piece of empirical research, and should normally be closely modelled on a journal article from the relevant area.
The word limit for the dissertation is 8,000 words. |
Feedback |
Supervisors, collaborating students and, where applicable, other staff members provide feedback on the rationale for the project, hypotheses / research questions, empirical work and data analysis. No formative feedback is provided on the discussion part of the dissertation as this will reflect student¿s independent work. |
No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- design and set up a research project
- manage data collection and apply appropriate analysis techniques to the data
- interpret and report data in the style appropriate for publication
- write up a dissertation
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Reading List
Reading list depends entirely on the nature of the specific project and is agreed upon with the supervisor. |
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Skills for accessing, synthesizing and critical evaluation of academic literature
Skills for verbal and written communication, academic writing, and quantitative / qualitative data analysis
Autonomy, self-discipling and team-collaboration |
Keywords | research project,Individual Differences,personality,intelligence |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr Rene Mottus
Tel: (0131 6)50 3410
Email: rene.mottus@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: Toni.noble@ed.ac.uk |
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