-Support students to acquire research skills through independent research and project management by pursuing a substantial research project supported by a teaching and supervision framework.

-Support students to undertake a substantial, independent piece of supervised written work based on research into a topic of their choice. Help students develop their abilities to organise, plan and manage their own learning.

-Facilitate students in developing research skills and provides them with the opportunity to apply their knowledge to a particular topic which of interest to them.

-Provide an opportunity to design and carry out substantial independent analysis of data and/or other research materials, whether primary or secondary data or theoretical or methodological arguments.

-Enable students to exercise the inter-personal and time management skills required for independent re search. Provide an opportunity to frame and complete a substantial piece of writing.

(LO1) Identify an appropriate social science research topic

(LO2) Design a viable undergraduate dissertation project

(LO3) Source and evaluate relevant materials for the research question

(LO4) Discern, justify and operationalise appropriate methods to complete the project

(LO5) Apply critical and analytical skills to literature, policy, data or evidence relevant to project

(LO6) Develop and utilise time management and organisational skills

(LO7) Demonstrate the capacity to synthesise all research material and producea coherent, social science dissertation

(S1) Referencing and citing sources

(S2) Independence/initiative

(S3) Interpersonal skills (supervision, group work, research interactions)

(S4) Complete an independent project

Semester 1: A series of lectures to facilitate project design and planning. Indicative content: making a topic into a research question, literature searching, methods, understanding and writing aims, objectives and outcomes, designing a research proposal, ethics and ethical review procedures, planning and organising research.

· Semester 2: An intro/planning lecture, group supervisions and optional workshops. Indicative content: project planning, analysing data, presenting findings and discussion, writing and structuring a dissertation, originality, referencing, presentation.

•A series of interactive lectures will be delivered across the year (front-loaded in semester 1) to facilitate project design, planning and ethics applications.
•Six group supervisions will be scheduled across the two semesters.
•A set of optional synchronous drop-in sessions and asynchronous material covering the practicalities of social research methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups, observations, media analysis, and online research), literature searching, qualitative data analysis, quantitative data analysis, referencing, and ethics will also be made available for students to access as needed.