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(edited 2 years ago)

So I have conducted an online survey for my final year dissertation. The results are not exactly what I expected... In fact, it has left me in a position where I fail to reject any of my null hypothesis apart from one... this goes against what the existing literature says.

My question is, will I be penalised for going against what the literature says (I'm not confident I designed a very good questionnaire which is why my results are affected). Or will I be adding to the literature and providing another context? The majority of the work in my area has been done in the USA and my study is in the UK, so may show a different perspective...

Plz help!!

This is something you can discuss with your supervisor - but equally, it's also valuable to discuss possible reasons for your results in your Discussion section. You shouldn't be penalised simply for contradicting the literature, as long as you did a thorough literature review and tried your best to produce a reliable methodology. Nobody expects an undergraduate student to produce ground-breaking work, so don't beat yourself up about it.

Reply 2

bones-mccoy

Absolutely not. It's still possible to write a dissertation of a decent standard whilst having to reject your null hypotheses. It's not really about what your results show, more about your awareness of why your results may go against the existing literature. Including factors such as confounding variables and thoroughly investigating the limitations of your study will show an understanding of why you didn't get the results you expected. Including this, and also what further research could do to control for confounding variables, will help you receive better marks.