Re: Final year research project/ dissertation

Louise B — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:43:57 GMT

Glad to hear it

I would pick a topic that:

a) Really interests you - you are going to live and breathe it for the next year so pick something that really will keep you motivated (every research project has some really low points, sometimes everything feels like it is going wrong, etc so you will ned your passion to keep you focussed on the good stuff and resolving the problems you encounter)

b) That has lots of information available. There is very little in the way of veterinary nursing research so, depending on what you study, draw on resources from veterinary medicine and human nursing (where appropriate). Also, draw heavily on other disclipines e.g. animal welfare, ethology, etc as appropriate for your area.

Good luck,

Louise

Re: Final year research project/ dissertation

Laura Graham — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:23:55 GMT

You have actually just switched a little light bulb on in my brain! Thanks! From your experience, are there any particular areas that I should stay away from when thinking of a topic? And is it worthwhile to introduce literature from human medicine, or is that irrelevant?

Thank you so much for your help :-)

Laura.

Re: Final year research project/ dissertation

Louise B — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 23:41:28 GMT

Hi,

This is the best module of all!!! You get to actually investigate your own area(s) of interest, find out something that it not already known and, if you do it well enough, write it up for publication (e.g. The Veterinary Nurse journal) and / or as a clinical abstract. Not horrible at all in my eyes.

Randomised clinical trials - fun fun fun Admittedly, carrying out trials as a veterinary nurse does limit what you can do (ethics, practical, resources, etc) but there are still plenty of non-invasive trials you can do. Randomised - simply means each animal admitted to the trial had an equal chance of being allocated to either of your treatment groups. Once you have decided the population you are going to sample, simply pick an allocation method such as every even numbered cat admitted to the trial goes into treatment group A, every even numbered goes into group B, etc. Your lecturers should be able to advise you further here on whether this is appropriate for whatever you do - there are more sophisticated ways but any basic research methods text book will give you advice here.

Every topic you think of has been researched to death??? Very unlikely given the dearth of veterinary nursing research published out there. I am assuming what you mean is that it is has been done to death by other undergraduates at your college based on a search through the old dissertations in the library. That is not the same thing - especially when you consider that most of the dissertations are unlikely to be particularly high quality - so don't let that put you off. Read them, be intensely critical and design something better!

If you want to do a study involving animal behaviour then I would recommend you start by reading "Measuring behaviour" by Martin & Bateson (authors' names might be the other way round) before planning a study. Surveys/questionnaires are often an easier route to passing the module but, in my experience, actual experiments (or clinical audits if you want to study natural variation - far fewer ethical problems) get higher marks when executed well. Also, try to make your study simple. Too many variables often makes a study messy, difficult to get an adequate sample size and difficult to conclude anything meaningful from. The best small scale studies are often very simple in structure. Also, before collecting any data make sure you have designed a study that can be analysed statistically, Statistics rock - but they cannot work miracles!

Good luck!

Louise