Psychology Dissertation help!!

Hello!

I am going in to my 4th year of undergrad study and so I need to be thinking about my dissertation.

Human trafficking is a subject I have become very interested in, and so, ideally, i'd like to write my thesis on this. Im undecided as to which route to take, but im thinking something like "Psychological effects on human trafficking victims" or "Recommended therapies for trafficking victims".

However due to it being a psychology degree, I need to gain approval from an ethics committee in order to undertake my research. Does any one have any ideas as to how to go about gaining approval? Obviously interviewing victims etc is going to cause unnecessary upset to the interviewee, but im not sure how else to collect data, so all advice is welcome and appreciated!

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

cat_2002_12

Surely your university will organise putting your idea to an ethics board? At my university we all had to submit proposals in October which went to the ethics board. I would strongly recommend you to reconsider though. You are going to have SO much difficulty finding people and how could you possibly do a "recommended therapies" thesis. I mean you aren't going to be able to observe therapy are you? The only way I could see you doing this would be to talk to these victims, ask what therapy they have recieved and then see whose outcome was best. But since you are not going to have time to observe them before the therapy I think this is very very unworkable. If you are interested in this though go and find any recent articles about this and see what they did and then base your research closely to what others have already done (as this will have to be ethically approved)

Reply 2

psychgal

Thanks for your advice!

The uni will deal with the ethics committee, but I will have to put forward a proposal, so perhaps my question was worded wrongly. How about, does anyone have any ideas how I could go about writing a dissertation on human trafficking, in which data collection doesn't involve any obvious ethical issues - such as dealing first hand with victims?

As I said, I am unsure of what my thesis is going to be - and therapies was merely an idea. I read a book in which a survivor wrote that CBT / hynotherapy / EMDR are possible ideas to consider, and so I thought about looking into the pro's and con's of those.

The problem is that i'm an undergrad and have never written nor been given any direction as to how to write a dissertation. My ideas may seem rediculous; hence the reason I am beginning my research (and posting on this website for help) in July instead of September when the semester commences.

I'll be sure to look up some articles and see if they can give me any guidance, thats a good tip; but if I can help it I dont want to reconsider my topic, because a primary issue with trafficking is unawareness and if everybody gave up on writing an academic paper about it because it was difficult, then the problem would never be solved! So wish me luck :smile:

Psychology Dissertation help!!

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