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 6,000 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
|
| Academic year 2022/23, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
600
(
Lecture 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) |
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 students 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: |
Course secretary | Mrs Elinor Lange
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: |
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