NCI Courses

Each student will be assigned a supervisor. It is recommended to consult the supervisor on an ongoing basis both face-to-face as well as via email and other electronic communication media. Students are expected to make contact with their supervisor at least every three weeks. Students are expected to share their draft work in advance of meetings with their supervisor. Prior to their first meeting with their supervisor students are advised to send a copy of the research question and literature review papers submitted in semester one. In this way the supervisor can have an opportunity to read these in advance. The student can also indicate their current thinking which may have moved on from these submissions. Ethical approval is required for any research that involves human subjects. Students under supervision need to set out clear structure of dissertation with staging posts clearly identified. A clear dissertation proposal will be presented to the supervisor at the end of semester one.

At about week 7 students are required to submit a short document on dissertation progress and intent. The document will be discussed at a meeting between the student and the examiners. The student does not make a presentation but is required to answer questions on the research topic and question, the research method, data gathering, expected results and timeline for completion. This review will be marked with a weighting of 10% of the dissertation mark (the marking scheme is at the end of this document). The Interim Check Point Document to be prepared by the student shall be about 2000 words and it will address the following issues: • Background to the project • Statement of the research question to be addressed • Brief description of methodology and approach including ethical considerations • Expected outcomes • Major implementation steps and timelines The student will receive written feedback from the examiners. This feedback should be taken on-board by the student during the substantive work of the dissertation.

Students will submit two soft bound printed versions of their thesis. Two members of the Programme Board will be appointed to mark each thesis.

Students will furnish a demonstration / presentation of their dissertation. Two examiners will be present along with the supervisor – the supervisor shall not act as an examiner. The student presentation shall be 15 minutes followed by a question and answer session. Overall the process should take about 30 -35 minutes. Subsequently the Programme Board will convene a meeting to review the examination results and to ensure consistency in the marking.

Students may be asked to make changes to their dissertation by the examiners. One examiner will undertake to review these changes. The examiners must be satisfied that the necessary changes have been carried out before a mark can be awarded. Once the changes have been completed to the satisfaction of the examiner students may prepare for final submission. Students will also be required to submit electronic versions in accordance with NCI Submission of Thesis Policy.

Title Page See template for layout Declaration Declaration of originality of the work Contents Pages Table of Contents Abstract Maximum 300 words. The abstract should mention the problem being addressed, describe the method used (e.g., sampling, procedure, measurement), and briefly report the findings as well as conclusions drawn. Introduction This chapter should define the background to the problem being addressed and discuss the reasons for undertaking the research. Literature Review This should synthesise about 50 relevant articles (journal papers, books and web references – with access dates) in the area in question. This section is meant to demonstrate knowledge of current research activity by the candidate and it should contain a categorisation of the published work. However, it is not a chronological review of the complete history of research. Hypothesis/ Research Question This should give a detailed description of the problem area with a clear definition of the relevant issues, case studies and so on. Method This section should enable the reader to replicate the study. Thus, it should mention and describe - the sample: sample size, important characteristics of the sample (e.g., age, sex, background, expertise), sampling strategy, randomisation - the procedure: instruction, typical procedure, treatments applied, examples of material used (e.g., screenshots), ethical issues - the measurement: instruments used or applied for data collection, operationalization of theoretical concepts Results This section will present the results, either a statistical analysis or a qualitative analysis or both. Statistical results must be reported with significance level, test power and effect size (as appropriate). Discussion In this section further conclusions are drawn based on the results. Opportunities and limitations of generalizing the results are discussed. Future Perspectives This should give concluding comments on the research work and indicate directions that future investigations might take. References It is recommended that candidates use the APA or other internationally approved style. Here is an example of the APA citation style: Wilcox, R. V. (1991). Shifting roles and synthetic women in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Studies in Popular Culture, 13(2), 53-65. In the text this article can be cited as “Wilcox (1991)” or “(Wilcox, 1991)”. References to web sites must include the access dates. Appendices Instruments used, screenshots, instructions, etc.