Dissertation Help!

Hi, i am a year 2 student studying an Animal Behaviour and Welfare degree at university. We have recently been introduced to the proposal dissertation module. However i am struggling to come up with an idea. So far i know i want to complete a dissertation about dogs and thought about maybe something about human-dog relationships, or how dogs can help autistic children to develop social skills. I have no idea if either or those would be good ideas and just wanted any feedback or other ideas thrown at me. Any help would be great thank you!

Reply 1

alleycat393

You have a good idea but need to narrow it down. What has already been done in the field and what gaps are there. With the resources you have which gap can you address and how? Is there a tutor who can help you with this?

Reply 2

Klix88

Original post by Charlotte.1

The point of this module is that you get the start of an idea - exactly as you have - then you start reading around current and past research in the area. From that, you will start to get a feel for the subject and you should be able to narrow down the sort of question you want to investigate, probably with a bit of guidance from staff.

So what you're intended to do now, is get into a library and online academic journals, and start to research at a very basic level. If you're still a bit confused and vague after some reading (which would be normal!), then take a list of relevant or interesting papers/books to a member of teaching staff, and ask for their advice on how to focus.

Whether or not a topic is a good idea, will be guided by how much (or how little) research has been done, whether you can get to research data or build some more, etc. Your lecturers can guide you. This is what the module is about.