Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Dissertation issues (Psychology)

To summarise, originally the study I was going to be doing was examining secondary data in multiple sets of time (longitudinal study). Unfortunately, shortly into my course, my supervisor informs me that they could not get a hold of the data, suddenly transforming my study into a basic cross-sectional study.

Since my study involved more biology than actual psychological theory, my study suddenly lost a whole load of potential hypotheses and turned into a simple X biological factor predicts Y. This has impacted the level of depth and insight I can write in the discussion. It feels like a replica of previous study where the ultimate conclusion is a:
Yes, as previous study has shown in the past. X predicts Y. There's nothing more to go on about it.

Not really sure if there's anything I can do any more here. Just finding it a little frustrating.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

returnmigrant

You need to go and talk to whoever is supervising your dissertation.
No-one here is going to able to talk you through a very specific and personal research dilemma.

Reply 2

nonswimmer

You should get proactive about fixing this problem and obtaining sufficient data to write a good dissertation.

While it may have been agreed that your supervisor would obtain data, carrying out the study is your responsibility. When you were told the originally promised data could not be provided (how long ago was this?) you surely should have looked at alternatives.

Make sure you take all possible steps to resolve this problem on your own terms, because you may find yourself on shaky ground if you want to blame your supervisor for a poor result in the assessment of your dissertation.