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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences : Psychology

Postgraduate Course: Dissertation in Social Psychology (PSYL11092)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)
Course typeDissertation AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits60 ECTS Credits30
SummaryThe student will conduct a research project or placement in a field relevant to the study of Social Psychology.
Course description Students who have progressed to the dissertation element of their programme are required to write a dissertation of up to 6,000 words. 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 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 supervisor. Although your dissertation supervisor will guide you through the research process, you will find yourself having to learn a number of skills throughout the course of the dissertation. By the middle of the second semester (or fourth for part time students), at the latest, you should have discussed your potential dissertation project with relevant members of staff, and should be on the way to agreeing a dissertation supervisor.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1) 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 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) We recommend that a typical dissertation is around 6000 words long, excluding any appendices and the abstract. However, it can be shorter or longer depending on what is most appropriate for the particular project (the supervisor can advise on this). The dissertation will be marked based on the quality of the work and not on the number of words, and you should aim to be concise where possible. The maximum word count is 8000; exceeding this requires the supervisor's permission
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:
  1. design and set up a research project
  2. manage data collection
  3. apply appropriate analysis techniques to the data
  4. interpret and report data in the style appropriate for publication
  5. write up a dissertation
Reading List
Reading list depends entirely on the nature of the specific project and is agreed on with the supervisor.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Skills for accessing, synthesising and critical evaluation of academic literature
Skills for verbal and written communication, academic writing, and quantitative / qualitative data analysis
Autonomy, self-discipline and team-collaboration
Keywordsconduct research,research project,social psychology
Contacts
Course organiserDr Helena Radke
Tel: (0131 6)50 3437
Email: Helena.Radke@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMrs Elinor Lange
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: elange@exseed.ed.ac.uk
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