| Category | Dissertation | Subject | Education |
|---|---|---|---|
| University | University College Birmingham | Module Title | 1639 Master Research Project |
| Word Count | 15,000 Words |
|---|---|
| Assessment Title | Module Handbook |
| Academic Year | 2025-26 |
1. Success in the dissertation results in an award of a Master's Degree; without attempting or passing the dissertation, you may achieve a Postgraduate Diploma - as long as you have completed the taught modules.
2. Upon completion of the taught modules, you are given six months in which to complete the dissertation. We know that you will need six months in which to succeed, and so starting the dissertation late – not effectively using the first few months – usually results in the dissertation failing to reach the pass mark.
3. The dissertation is a challenging piece of work and, consequently, one that you need to ensure you have planned for and are working effectively on with your supervisor. Leaving the University to return home, starting work or simply not staying in contact with your supervisor will usually mean the work does not reach the pass mark: relying on communicating with your supervisor via internet contact only is very unwise and often results in poor grades or failing to reach the pass mark. You must have regular and planned face-to-face meetings with your supervisor. Should you not, your supervisor may well refuse to work with you.
4. Few or no face-to-face meetings with your supervisor is one reason for us requiring you to attend a Viva Voce. This is a formal examination where you will be required to demonstrate your full understanding and ownership of the work you have submitted. If you cannot demonstrate this, at best, we may not accept the work for assessment, and we may award a Postgraduate Diploma; at worst, we may initiate proceedings for plagiarism/academic misconduct. If you cannot attend a face-to-face Viva, we will continue with proceedings in your absence.
5. If you have non-EU status, the UK Visa and Immigration rules require that we ask for and keep monthly reports from your supervisor on both attendance and effort/work shown. We are required to pass names and details to the UK Visas and Immigration of those who do not make and maintain regular contact with their supervisor.
6. Any student who uses primary research will be required to keep and show, on request, evidence of all completed questionnaires, interview transcripts, etc., and will be expected to provide contact details of those who took part in the primary research. If you cannot produce these when asked to, at best, we may not accept the work for assessment, and we may award a Postgraduate Diploma; at worst, we may initiate proceedings for plagiarism/academic misconduct. If in doubt, please contact your supervisor.
7. Should the first submission not reach the pass mark, UCB will require you to either resubmit the work (in approximately three months - supervisors are not allocated for resits) or you will be required to repeat the module by attending all research lectures. Repeating the module will incur a fee and, in the case of non-EU students, will be dependent upon you being able to secure a Visa to study in the UK. The decision to resubmit or repeat the module with attendance will depend upon the grade the work achieves. A first submission that scores a low mark will be required to repeat with attendance or accept a Postgraduate Diploma.
8. To ensure academic integrity, any and potentially all Master's Dissertations students may be called for a Viva Voce. UCB may select at random any dissertation it wishes to discuss with the author. We do this to promote academic integrity and transparency of process. You must be available for this Viva, as if you are not, we may not be able to accept the work for assessment. If you have issues with availability, please contact your Deputy Dean for Quality and Student Experience before the work is submitted.
9. We want to help you. So please work with your supervisor as much as you can!
UCB evidence shows that starting your dissertation as soon as you are given a supervisor and having regular face-to-face meetings results in high pass rates and good marks. The opposite is also true. Any questions at all, we will be very happy to help.
A dissertation involves you undertaking research, which is defined as:
a) a search or inquiry;
b) an investigation and study to discover facts;
c) to search or examine with care.
You are allowed 15,000 words to inquire, investigate and examine with care a topic or question of your own choosing.
Dissertations, theses and reports have individual aims and purposes. Research itself, however, aims to acquire and offer dependable knowledge - knowledge that may be used by others in clarifying and advancing what is known and what is understood. For research to provide dependable knowledge, it should be carefully constructed, reasoned and clearly presented. For anyone to accept your work as dependable, you must strive to demonstrate that you have taken the most suitable, informed and correct approach. If such an approach is lacking, then why should anyone read and believe what you say?
To succeed, you will need good time management skills. Further, you will have to learn how to work on more than two projects at once; you will be expected to complete other items of coursework as well as work on your dissertation. If you try to wait until your other coursework is done before focusing effectively on the dissertation, you will find yourself in great and often serious difficulty.
Of course, you will have assistance. The role of your dissertation supervisor is outlined in this handbook. However, by way of introduction, your supervisor will assist in the design and organisation of the dissertation. They may only do this if you offer them ideas, suggestions, considerations and actual work; they will respond to what you offer them. Should you offer little, then this is what they will return to you. A dissertation supervisor expects to work with a student who comes to them with evidence of reading and considered suggestions and approaches. Quite simply, they cannot supervise a student who wants answers but does not offer their own possible solutions.
In the context of your programme of study, you are set the task of offering a dissertation for one major reason: being able to select a suitable and relevant topic or area for study; design the most appropriate means for its exploration; and offer a defended, justified and logical response to the issues identified, is the highest form of academic activity. The dissertation is a key mechanism through which the skills of analysis, problem solving, assimilation and presentation of data are developed. The dissertation is very possibly the only occasion where you have the autonomy to select your own questions and the means for approaching and evaluating them. Quite simply, you are exposed to the vagaries of unpredictability and independence, as opposed to being given questions, aims and objectives by a teaching team. Thus, we offer you the dissertation so that you can focus on your own study interests, construct your own study design and offer your own reasoned discourse. Such independent projects represent the MA or MSc in your awarded degree title.
This terminology is unfortunate, as students may think the connotations associated with ‘secondary’ research mean that it is inferior to ‘primary’ research. This is not the case. If anything, secondary research may be more important, as this is where you will find numerous sources of information on theories, concepts, definitions, arguments and ideas. According to Wittgenstein (1953), we should often stop and clarify the information we already have rather than strive to collect more. Consequently, a good dissertation will justify why primary research was required at all. Without such a justification, we suggest you do not design a primary research study. Normally, there is only ONE reason for conducting primary research, and that is when there is a gap in the secondary data, which can only be filled by primary research.
Often, secondary research is more challenging. Here you will have to read, understand and evaluate often quite complex theories and arguments, written in a formal and academic style. A dissertation that includes no primary research should still have a methodology. Here, you can still discuss the sample of the literature you used and why, and what methods you adopted to ensure that the literature used was of the most relevant and appropriate type.
In your context, a dissertation based upon secondary research has one essential advantage over a primary research study: secondary research allows you more control over your work from the start. A primary research design will involve you having to negotiate access to a range of people. Often, these people may be busy and difficult to contact. You must ask the question: ‘why should they give me their time and effort? ’ Further, ‘why should they fill out and return my questionnaires? We often have motivated students who cannot continue to work on their dissertations because they have not received back their questionnaires, or the people they contacted for an interview are now ‘busy’. Unfortunately, there is nothing your supervisor can do to assist here – apart from recommending you change your design (which may give you an extra one or two months’ work).
Should you decide that primary research is required, please ensure that you have negotiated access to the necessary people in good time to implement a contingency plan if you are refused such access. The lack of such a contingency plan is not only a common failing but also a serious one. If you cannot access the people you need, then you cannot do primary research. A dissertation that reports on only eleven questionnaires or only one interview will not be a good dissertation. It is strongly suggested that you do not undertake primary research unless there is a need to address a gap in the current body of knowledge.
Choosing a topic is one of the most difficult phases of your research and one that needs considerable care and attention. Misconceptions and difficulties encountered may be summarised as:
Believing that the topic has to be ‘big’ enough to fill 15,000 words
Although 15,000 words may seem a lot – you may never have written such an amount in one document – much of the wordage is taken up with: explaining the background and setting to the work; justifying why it is a useful area for study; reviewing what has already been written on your topic; explaining and justifying your methodology; offering summaries at appropriate points – all this may take up several thousand words before you even get to the discussing and analysing what you have found.
So, in light of this, please see 15,000 words as a reason for having a well-focused topic with a clearly defined scope. Please consider how 15,000 words may actually constrain your choice of topic.
Believing that you should choose an ‘original’ Topic
You should not. Indeed, it will be extremely difficult to find an original area. Even PhD theses are rarely original; the angle they take or the design they formulate may be, but the topic is usually one that has been studied many times before. Wanting a topic ‘no one else has done’ is futile and unnecessary.
Believing that you know the answer and wanting to ‘prove’ it
Quite simply, this goes against the whole purpose of research – refer to Einstein’s quote. This often leads to biased and unbalanced research with students ignoring – possibly subconsciously – evidence that may contradict what they want to hear or to read. If you are ‘certain’ that gender affects career progression, and want to use the dissertation as a vehicle to ‘prove’ that, then you will end up with a dissertation that displays poor academic rigour and instead demonstrates your own prejudices. Quite simply, you need to keep an ‘open mind’ and always be prepared to actively seek alternative answers and possibilities. The assessors will award marks for a dissertation that reasons based upon a range of evidence, and will deduct marks for a study that has failed to notice competing views of what a ‘correct’ answer may be.
However, if you are willing to maintain an open and inquiring approach, then setting out to test a theory or belief may be very useful. For example, if you believe that gender may affect career progression in the service industries, then set out to test whether or not your ideas hold. If, based upon a fair and balanced study, the result is that you alter your original belief – even prove yourself wrong – then you will have shown that you were unbiased and willing to consider all possibilities and evidence. This is always a positive feature of good research.
Of course, if your study shows that your theory holds, then all is well and good. The point is, you do not get extra marks because your theory is confirmed. The marks will come from how you went about examining the theory. Designing a study to test your own beliefs and ideas is a good way to frame a dissertation topic.
Believing it necessary to formulate a complex and ‘academic’ question
The dissertation is the only time during your course of study that you will be able to formulate your own questions, aims and objectives. If a teaching team sets an assignment asking you to: ‘identify, evaluate and discuss the role of criterion validity inherent in the psychometric interview technique in light of relevant psychological theory’, you may well have cause to complain about the difficulty and complexity of the task. Yet, year after year, we find students determined to set themselves equally complex and difficult studies. Some seem to believe that such a title/question will impress: it will not. Others seem to think that since this is to be their biggest academic challenge, then the title/question has to be ‘very academic’: it does not. Academic, as a term, has little if anything to do with extravagant words and highbrow questions and far more to do with formulating realistic and achievable areas for study.
We are not saying avoid a challenging topic – but we are saying ‘look before you leap’. If you set an ambitious, difficult and demanding question, and fail to answer it sufficiently, then you must accept that the assessor will deduct marks – however impressive the question sounded. We are assessing your research ability – not your desire to frame complicated and complex questions.
Finally, the biggest problem regarding choosing a topic: without doubt, it is leaving careful consideration, attention and thought on your choice of topic until you are due to submit your proposal. Be prepared to spend six to eight weeks focusing on a dissertation topic/question to achieve one that is feasible and practical. A feasible and useful topic is rarely located until you have undertaken a fair amount of reading and reflection. We often hear: ‘I work better under pressure’. However, the dissertation is a pressure that you have not yet experienced. Students do not perform well in the dissertation when they are under pressure - quite the opposite.
The research process starts with topic selection. Before you can formulate an exact aim and supporting objectives, the following must be considered:
Get the Solution of this 1639 Dissertation
Order Non-Plagiarised DissertationIf marketing is your weakest and least liked subject, there would appear to be little point in selecting a dissertation topic that will focus upon marketing theories and concepts. Proposing to examine economic impacts is unwise if your knowledge of economics stops at the demand curve. Similarly, if you have always done well in and found operations management of interest, then you may wish to follow such a theme through.
Do your strengths lie in a particular subject? Jankowicz (1995) suggests a useful way of getting started is to look at those assignments for which you have received good grades. If you have always found yourself comfortable and interested in information technology-related subjects, then explore how this interest may act as a vehicle for a dissertation topic. Furthermore, as long as it is related to your programme of study, please also consider topics that relate to your extra-curricular interests.
Opportunities may often lie in your having access: access to a leisure centre, school, tour operator, hotel, bar or retail chain. You may be working part-time in some such organisation, or you may have useful contacts there. Can your topic be related to or indeed based upon this operation? Will you be undertaking summer work in an organisation that may allow you to research what they do, how, when, and why? Consider all the opportunities that you may have.
Threats can take several forms. One may be the lack of time due to your having to take paid work. You may have other family responsibilities that could well affect the time available to you. We cannot solve such problems for you. However, you can minimise their impact by considering them, taking a proactive approach and planning accordingly – we have all heard
that adage: ‘if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail’. Quite simply, consider all perceived threats to your success and plan accordingly.
Following on, the available literature should be searched for articles that relate to an area in which you may be interested. By ensuring you make effective use of the varied search mechanisms the College makes available to you, any topic you may consider of interest will have many articles written on it. Please read and reflect on these for ideas.
This involves you putting down the very first ideas, links and possibilities onto paper. As the term suggests, there is no particular format here; rather, it is a case of your sketching your ideas onto paper so that you have something to work with. Be prepared to undertake several of these mind-mapping sessions – which can often be done effectively with the input of others – before a framework begins to emerge.
You can also contact other members of staff who can discuss your ideas with you at an appropriate time. Further, share your ideas with other students, who can speak from experience. As they are essential in formulating a research aim and objectives, the following section discusses measurement, theory and access.
Please note: Your Dissertation should not simply be an overview of the findings of other studies. Your dissertation must build upon the findings of existing studies by reviewing a different case study, using a different method and analysing the findings through an alternative theoretical framework. In some cases, students may also propose a new theory/model (or an adaptation of an existing model) as part of their overall conclusion.
As you will see by reading the marking scheme (see appendix), essentially, your dissertation is assessed by how well you achieve your aim and objectives. Consequently, it makes much sense to ensure your aim and your objectives are Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Realistic; Timed.
As a supervisor or a member of staff attempting to help a student with their aim and objectives, the key problem we face is trying to answer the question: ‘are the aim and objectives OK?’ The simple answer is, ‘we do not know!’ An aim and the accompanying objectives are only fine if they are achievable. Consider the following:
1) Aim: to evaluate the economic impacts of the Euro currency on Thomas Cook’s travel operations.
This may well be a ‘good’ aim to anyone more than comfortable with economics and with the financial and political issues that surround the Euro. To anyone else, the aim is simply poor. Often, we, as tutors, do not know if you can achieve the aim – you must explain to us exactly how you will achieve it. With this in mind, consider the following:
1. Can I clearly explain the terms and concepts used in the aim?
You should underline the key terms in the aim and explain to yourself exactly what they mean. For example: [the aim of this dissertation is] ‘to evaluate the impacts school councils are having on children’. For this, you should consider what ‘evaluation’ actually means; what an ‘impact’ is and how it may manifest itself; what a ‘school council’ is; and what is meant by the term ‘children’. Next, you should consider the three key areas of theory, measurement and access.
2. Theory and its application
As noted in the next section on theoretical frameworks, any dissertation that does not apply theory is not likely to pass. So, once you have your draft aim, ask yourself: ‘Which theories relate to my aim?’ In this example, which theories apply to school councils? See the next section for what ‘theory’ actually is.
3. Measurement and Its Application
If something cannot be measured, it is very difficult to accurately describe and discuss it. How, in the above example, will you measure the impact of school councils? Further, if this seems difficult, how can you measure the impact of such councils on children? If you cannot get past this stage, the aim is not a good one by any means.
It is very important to be aware that measurement is not just about quantification. You may successfully measure the impact of school councils on children by interviewing them or by asking their parents. The point is that you must have a strategy for measuring the terms or concepts you place into your aim. This brings us the issue of access.
a) What theory or theories will I be able to apply? Please be precise: do not simply say ‘economic theories’ as this is simply too broad to be of any use to you or your supervisor. You need to be able to name specific theories or models that may be useful and applicable.
b) What measurement will I use? With this aim, how can you measure the impact of the Euro on Thomas Cook’s operations? What information and data can I obtain to ‘measure’ and ‘judge’ my case study?
4. Access – practicalities and ethics
With your draft aim, consider exactly what you need access to. Please never assume you will be granted access to children (see chapter on ethics), to parents, to governments, to financial data, to anything at all for that matter. Unless you are at least very confident you will be granted access to the information or people you need, your aim will always be less than
suitable, let alone achievable. Additionally, experience has shown that if you are planning on undertaking scientific testing, you can assume that if the testing cannot be conducted on site and requires special external provision, it will not be approved. Any such tests you are considering would need to be discussed and approved by subject specialists in advance as they may require special booking arrangements for facilities and resources.
With theory, measurement and access in mind, reconsider the following aim: to evaluate the economic impacts of the Euro currency on Thomas Cook’s travel operations. Once you have explained what the key terms mean, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
c) What theory or theories will I be able to apply? Please be precise: do not simply say ‘economic theories’ as this is simply too broad to be of any use to you or your tutor. You need to be able to name specific theories or models that may be useful and applicable.
d) What measurement will I use? With this aim, how can you measure the impact of the Euro on Thomas Cook’s operations?
e) What access will I need to negotiate? If you decide you want to interview managers at Thomas Cook, how will you get their agreement? How will you access their financial data, for example?
Finally, please only have one aim – and no more than one! A good aim rarely takes more than two or three lines to write. One sentence should be sufficient. Further, do not use terms like ‘and’ or ‘also’ in the aim, as using these will almost always mean you have two or more aims. For example:
2) ‘to investigate the impacts of the Euro on Thomas Cook’s travel operations and to suggest suitable coping strategies’
Here, you have assigned two aims. Why make the aim – and therefore the dissertation - any more difficult than it should be? Remember, we will assess you on how well you achieve the aim, so keep it straightforward.
Objectives are simply the steps or stages you need to follow to achieve to complete the aim. As with the aim, these objectives should be simply written and concise. They should be achievable, and you should ensure that you have taken the same careful approach to wording the objectives as you have to the aim. You should write each objective down and then explain the terms or concepts you are using in that objective, and explain exactly how you will achieve each one. Consider the following example objectives – in this example, we have used the basic, generic steps used in all dissertations for illustrative purposes:
a) To clarify key terms and concepts and explain the key theories to be applied
b) To critically review the literature
c) To design an appropriate methodology discussing the measurement(s) to be used
d) To critically evaluate the findings
e) To draw conclusions and recommendations where appropriate
Please DO NOT use the above examples as objectives in your dissertation! They are designed as a generic guide for you to the sort of steps or stages your work will usually need to take. Your objectives will need to be much more exact and tailored to your aim. They should be content-based and specific to your aim (research question). Accordingly, the aim and objectives should be different across all projects. As a guide, consider the following:
a) Write down the things you feel you must do to achieve the aim
b) Try to reduce these items to four or five draft objectives: balance these items so that they may each take a similar amount of time, effort and words. You want to avoid having one objective that takes two pages to achieve and one that takes a dozen pages to achieve
c) Think about how you will achieve them (taking into consideration theory, measurement and access) and how it relates to the aim
d) Take these to your first meeting with your tutor. As a guide, consider the following example:
Aim:
To critically analyse the development of sport tourism in Hamburg with a particular focus on Hamburg’s City of Sport status.
Objectives:
a. To provide an insight into the development of sports tourism as an economic strategy for cities;
b. To compare and contrast the key sport marketing strategies employed by established European sport city destinations;
c. To critically evaluate Hamburg’s sport resources in light of the city’s overall marketing objective;
d. To provide strategic recommendations for Hamburg’s City of Sport status.
As previously stated, please DO NOT use the above example in your dissertation. This is designed as a generic guide ONLY.
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