Psychology at Uni: conducting research

I am looking to study Psychology at uni (currently looking at UCL, Bath, Nottingham, Kent, and am still expanding the list), but I am not keen on the research part of the course - does the term ‘conducting research’ mean that you have to actually make and carry out your own study? Honestly this seems quite difficult, with having to find a big enough sample of participants.
I know that in most courses you have to do a meta analysis of sorts - collecting other people’s research and coming up with conclusions. This seems doable, and for me, preferable to conducting my own research.
I would find it helpful to know about everyone’s own experiences with conducting their own research project at uni - this would help me make my decision of which course to pick. Thank you

Reply 1

Kk_07

OP

2

Original post by Kk_07

I am looking to study Psychology at uni (currently looking at UCL, Bath, Nottingham, Kent, and am still expanding the list), but I am not keen on the research part of the course - does the term ‘conducting research’ mean that you have to actually make and carry out your own study? Honestly this seems quite difficult, with having to find a big enough sample of participants.
I know that in most courses you have to do a meta analysis of sorts - collecting other people’s research and coming up with conclusions. This seems doable, and for me, preferable to conducting my own research.
I would find it helpful to know about everyone’s own experiences with conducting their own research project at uni - this would help me make my decision of which course to pick. Thank you

I forgot to mention - another thing I am looking for is psychology courses with a placement year. From what I gather, most unis want you to look for your own placement, but they do help you with it, if I’m correct?
Those doing a course with a placement year, how difficult did you find having to get your own placement? I can’t image it would be easy, but it would be extremely useful to get that experience. Do you have to do a research project at your placement as well? I saw this in the course descriptions for a few unis and wanted to know what exactly this would entail. Thank you

Reply 2

University of Bath

Official Rep

13

Original post by Kk_07

I forgot to mention - another thing I am looking for is psychology courses with a placement year. From what I gather, most unis want you to look for your own placement, but they do help you with it, if I’m correct?
Those doing a course with a placement year, how difficult did you find having to get your own placement? I can’t image it would be easy, but it would be extremely useful to get that experience. Do you have to do a research project at your placement as well? I saw this in the course descriptions for a few unis and wanted to know what exactly this would entail. Thank you

Hi there, I'm Claire and I'm a second year psychology student here at the University of Bath! 🙂

It's great to hear that you're interested in studying here at the University of Bath! I can understand your concerns regarding conducting research- I'm not a big fan of this either! At Bath the course does have a heavy research focus, and you are expected to conduct your own research starting in first year. In fact, I had to write more lab reports in my first year than essays. However, they provide a lot of support on how to go about conducting the research, and subsequent guidance on writing up your findings effectively in a lab report or presenting your findings in a research poster. For example, in my first year I had to carry out a qualitative research project based on a research question formed from a proverb, then present my findings in a poster that was then presented in a conference setting. This sounds incredibly daunting- I was so nervous at first- but I was given a lot of support and I ended up doing really well!

Regarding doing a placement, Bath has one of the top university placement schemes in the country. Although you are expected to find and apply for your placements, you are given a vast amount of support! This includes help on writing an effective CV and cover letters, help with interview prep and 1-2-1 sessions and drop in sessions with the placement team when you need them. We also have a placement data base called MyPlacement, where the placement team will upload placements that the University have affiliations/connections with or where previous students have done their placement. So you aren't having to just go out and find the placements on your own! It's important to note that if you do apply for Bath, it is essential that you apply for the 4 year course and not the 3 year course (even if you aren't sure if you'd like to do a placement). This is because there is no way for you to switch onto a placement once you begin, but you can always drop the placement if you decide it isn't for you.

Whether you do research in your placement is entirely dependent on the placement you do. If you are doing a placement as a Research Assistant, you are obviously going to be involved in conducting research. However, if you do placements more relevant to HR and marketing, or even more clinical based placements, you're a lot less likely to be involved in research (though there still might be some component of it!).

Ultimately, research is a huge part of Psychology, so I would advise becoming some what comfortable with it as it is a useful skill to have.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask me anymore questions 😊

~Claire 🙂

Reply 3

eeeli

13

Original post by Kk_07

I am looking to study Psychology at uni (currently looking at UCL, Bath, Nottingham, Kent, and am still expanding the list), but I am not keen on the research part of the course - does the term ‘conducting research’ mean that you have to actually make and carry out your own study? Honestly this seems quite difficult, with having to find a big enough sample of participants.
I know that in most courses you have to do a meta analysis of sorts - collecting other people’s research and coming up with conclusions. This seems doable, and for me, preferable to conducting my own research.
I would find it helpful to know about everyone’s own experiences with conducting their own research project at uni - this would help me make my decision of which course to pick. Thank you

You will have to do some form of substantial empirical research project as part of any BPS accredited Psychology degree, though doing secondary data analysis like a meta-analysis is an option (though in practice I have heard of very few people doing this). I don't think meta analysis is necessarily an easy/easier option, to do it properly you have to systematically read through all of the research on a particular topic and hours and hours sat in front of your computer reading on your own is not much fun. You would also have to actually analyse it in some way which is more complex than just coming up with conclusions. I've done primary research and I've worked on secondary data analysis and they both have unique challenges.

I also don't think doing primary research is as bad as you fear. You will have had two years of research methods training before you get to this point, will have probably done some smaller scale practicals as part of the course which will prepare you for collecting and analysing data, and have a supervisor who knows their stuff and can guide you through the project. There also aren't the same standards as with published work - if you can't find a big enough sample then that is not a problem as long as you have some data to work with - for my project I only got about half the participants I wanted but I still got a high first for it. Many people these days do their data collection online, which makes getting a good sized sample fairly easy and quick.

Primary research does involve a lot of independent work from you but you'd be supported throughout and in most cases would not have to design a project completely from scratch but rather take on a project suggested by potential supervisors, which you then have room to make your own. I honestly wouldn't write it off at this stage, for many people the research project is one of the most interesting and rewarding parts of their degree, where they are able to develop lots of transferable skills, and depending on the project potentially publish their work/have their name on a wider published study that their research project was part of. My research project was in-person data collection that involved eye-tracking, physiological recording and facial expression analysis while participants responded to a task, also involving a clinical group. It was pretty ambitious and definitely a lot of hard work and things didn't always go to plan (it took me a month to get the webcam code working, some of my data analysis didn't work at first, my equipment failed occasionally) but my supervisor helped me through all of that and the experience I got with such a wide range of data collection methods and the transferable skills I developed (organisation, time management, problem solving, coding, data analysis, working in a team etc etc) was the most valuable aspect of my degree by far.

Any research project will be a challenge, it is the culmination of your three years of study so that is kind of the point. The rest of the course will give you the tools to be able to complete it successfully. University in general is challenging and difficult at points, if everything is simple and easy you're not learning much!

Psychology at Uni: conducting research

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