Your Undergraduate Dissertation in Health and Social Care

Nicholas Walliman, Jane Appleton

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781446246863
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Forschung im Bildungswesen

Your Undergraduate Dissertation in Health and Social Care provides a practical step-by-step guide to both the theoretical and practical aspects of the process of doing an undergraduate dissertation, equipping the reader with all the skills necessary to plan, conduct and write up a research project successfully.

This is a revised edition of Nicholas Walliman?s best-selling Your Undergraduate Dissertation, which has been specially tailored to the needs of those studying health, social care and related subjects. All the central topics are covered, with comprehensive information and guidance on crucial issues such as ethics, research governance and appraising the quality of the evidence. Relevant ?real life? examples are also included, drawn from a wide range of settings.

This guide offers a genuinely accessible and supportive source of advice that will be welcomed by undergraduates in working towards their final year dissertation in health and social care.
SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

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Chapter 1

What Is a Dissertation?

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Chapter contents

• Why do I have to do a dissertation? The point of independent study
• Evidence-based practice
• The main components of a dissertation
• What will impress? Seeing it from the examiner’s point of view
• The marking criteria
• What should I do next?
• Where to find out more
• Further reading

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Why do I have to do a dissertation? The point of independent study

The dissertation is commonly the last component of a degree course, or a module taken towards the end of the undergraduate course. After having, over the years, been fed with lots of information, guided step-by-step through various assignments and tested on your knowledge and understanding in examinations and during clinical or practice placements, you undertake the dissertation as an exercise in independent study. It tests your ability to educate yourself, to demonstrate your expertise in collecting and analysing information, and to come to conclusions based on solid argument. It also gives you an opportunity to show how well informed you are, how well organized you can be, and how you can make a clear presentation of your work for effective communication.

The big difference between this and your previous work is that you will be doing the dissertation on your own. Your dissertation supervisor will provide you with support and some general guidance, but most of the decisions about what you do and how you do it will be yours. This not only gives you a lot of freedom to pursue a particular interest, but also enables you to put your own individual talents to their best use. This will inevitably require some soul-searching and evaluation of where your strongest talents lie. It is really up to you to make yourself shine in your best light!

What you are required to do can be termed ‘research’, as it is about finding out new things (even if they are only new to you), making sense of these, and presenting your findings in an organized and well-argued way. As with any research project, there must be stated aims at the outset, and some kind of achievement of these by the end. With the increasing focus in health and social care on evidence-based practice, the dissertation component provides an ideal opportunity to consider a pertinent clinical question for practice.

This type of work obviously presents lots of opportunities, but also some dangers. The point of this book is to guide you through the process of doing a dissertation in health and social care, and to explain and discuss the options you might have at each stage. It will help you to make informed decisions that you can build on in order to produce a successful outcome. It should not be all hard slog, but it will present some serious challenges in terms of your knowledge and understanding of your subject matter, and of your abilities to organize and motivate yourself. However, undertaking a dissertation can be one of the most satisfying processes to go through – and come out of at the other side.

Evidence-based practice

Evidence-based practice has gained considerable momentum in health and social care practice in the UK since the early 1990s. It is defined by Straus et al. as ‘the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients’ (2005: 280). Evidence-based practice involves not only using the best available evidence, but combining this with the needs and preferences of the client, and the clinical expertise and judgement of the health and social care practitioner (Straus et al., 2005). It is about ensuring that finite resources are used for those health and social care interventions and care activities that are known to be the most effective and safe. Evidence-based practice is a systematic process that starts by identifying a clinical question, gathering relevant evidence, appraising and evaluating the quality of that evidence, and then using that evidence to underpin decision making and practice.

It is important to point out that evidence informing practice comes from a number of different sources, not just research evidence. Indeed there is a substantial amount of practice for which research evidence is not available. ‘This does not mean practice for which there is no evidence is wrong, but that the evidence does not exist in a formal [research] way’ (Coles, 2008: 19). Where research findings are not established, evidence might come from policy directives, experts, practice experiences, theory that is not research-based and from the experiences of clients, patients and carers (Le May, 1999).

So what relevance has evidence-based practice for the undergraduate dissertation? The concept is of central importance for a number of reasons. Over the course of your undergraduate studies, you will undoubtedly have become an informed consumer of evidence-based health or social care practice, developing skills in critically evaluating contemporary evidence in your subject area. You will have developed a questioning approach to your practice and studies and it is likely that you will have identified several practice questions that interest you and issues that have challenged your thinking. The undergraduate dissertation provides you with an opportunity to consolidate these skills and examine a practice issue that has really caught your interest. This might involve examining an area of practice through a comprehensive literature review, challenging an aspect of practice by examining the evidence in the area or generating new knowledge to increase understanding about health or social care practice. Evidence-based practice is a central feature of all these dissertation examples, it is about finding the evidence and then putting that evidence into current health and social care practice (Clare Taylor, 2000).

The main components of a dissertation

Although dissertations come in many types, shapes and sizes, there are some aspects that are shared by most of them. Of course, the subject and how it is dealt with will have an enormous influence on the form and appearance of the finished work. However, as all dissertations are an exercise in academic research, there will be certain components that are regarded as essential for them to have academic credibility. A standard type of dissertation in health and social care will probably have the following components.

Preambles

• A title – this provides the briefest summary of the dissertation.
• An abstract – a slightly longer summary of the dissertation outlining the main issues, the research question, methods of investigation and conclusions.
• Acknowledgements – an expression of thanks to all those people and organizations that have helped you in the funding of, or preparation and writing of the dissertation.
• A list of contents – the guide to the various sections of the work.
• A list of illustrations and figures – if this is appropriate.

The main section

This is usually a series of chapters or sections. A typical example contains separate sections consisting of:

• An introduction to the dissertation.
• Some background to the research that reveals the issues to be researched and the work already done on the subject.
• A statement of the research problem or question and an explanation of how the research work was carried out (i.e. the methods used).
• The results of data collection and analysis.
• A discussion of the results and what they mean.
• Some conclusions based on the results.
• Recommendations for health and social care practice, education and/or research.

The add-ons

At the end are sections that provide important information on aspects of the work:

• A list of references – fuller details about all the publications and other sources that you have cited in the text.
• A bibliography – other literature that is relevant to the study but has not been directly referred to in the text.
• Possibly some appendices (supplementary information such as letters of support, ethics committee review information, participant invitation letters, information sheets, consent forms, detailed literature search strategies, questionnaire schedules or data extraction forms, etc). These give examples of your methods of working and/or further background information about issues that are important to your work, but not so central as to warrant being included in the main text.

In addition we always like to see some kind of illustrations, diagrams or summary tables in things that we read. Not only do these enliven the appearance of the page by breaking up rows of solid text, but they also can encapsulate ideas or issues in an incredibly compact manner.

What will impress? Seeing it from the examiner’s point of view

In order to be awarded a really good grade, it is obviously useful to understand exactly what the examiner will be looking for when giving marks. The following list will indicate the main areas that gain marks in any dissertation, regardless of topic. These areas will be discussed in detail in the following chapters of this book, with many handy hints to help you achieve the best possible result. The list is not presented in any order of priority, but focuses on three areas that the examiner is likely to focus on:

• first impressions of the thesis;
• quick review;
• detailed reading.

Then follows a list of the main assessment areas and the sorts of questions that the examiner will be asking him/herself.

First impressions

Presentation How does it look? A neat cover, practical binding and well-designed page layout all give a favourable impression to start with. Remember that your dissertation will be on a pile with all the rest, so comparisons can easily be drawn with the others. Your examiner will be naturally better disposed to the more attractive submissions.

Organization A brief scan through the dissertation should give an immediate impression of how the work is organized. This means clearly headed sections, page numbers, easily spotted chapter divisions and a logical arrangement of the sections of the study. The examiner will feel much more comfortable with work that is easy to navigate. A clear structure is a strong indication of clear thinking – a markable aspect of the work.

Length Should conform to the requirements. A dissertation that looks too thin or too thick immediately rings alarm bells for the marker. The former will be difficult to award sufficient marks and the latter will be a daunting task to wade through. Studies that are over the word limit are likely to attract a penalty. When submitting your thesis you should state the number of words used (excluding references and any appendices).

Figure 1.1 On the pile with all the rest

Quick review

Abstract A very useful, brief introduction that should never be left out. Summarize your whole dissertation in 150–200 words, including main conclusions. Not an easy task but good practice, and again demonstrates clear thinking.

List of contents Situated near the front of the dissertation, this gives a simple overview of not only what is in the text, but how it is organized. It will also provide a useful navigation tool for later finding the page numbers of the different sections.

Main conclusions One of the main points for doing a dissertation is to come to some conclusions based on the research. The final chapter should spell out the conclusions extremely clearly so that they can be picked out by the examiner by simply scanning through the pages. He/she will check that the conclusions relate exactly to the research problem or question.

Reference list This will be a measure of your background reading, both in depth and in scope. You will impress your examiner if the relevant journals and books are cited, but will not if your list is padded wit...