Dissertation - A questionnaire survey of osteopathic students’ opinions about visceral manipulative treatment
The day the countdown began (17.09.2012)
Today was our first day of being fresh fourth year students, and everyone was happy to see each other until I mentioned the dreaded dissertation word! I decided to inform by peers in our technique tutorial that my questionnaires were available in reception and the library for those that wanted to take part and I was greeted with some very large huffs! I had made a decision in the summer holidays to print out all the survey packs and create the collection and deposit boxes so that I was ready on the first day of term before everyone else started being proactive with theirs! It felt good to be so organised though and I feel like it will be a gradual collection process rather than a frantic panic nearer the time!
Collection complete (13.12.2012)
After successfully collecting 123 completed questionnaires and inputting them into an SPSS spreadsheet, I decided it was best to book a meeting with Hilary Abbey as to where I go from here! Our meeting today was to discuss what I wanted to find out from my results and to test any hypothesis, which would determine what tests I use within the SPSS software. I was extremely grateful for Hilary's help because although I went to every CAE statistics class, the SPSS software still baffles me! We worked through my results together, using relevant tests and then printing off my output results to be able to interpret them over the christmas holidays.
Christmas holidays (14th December - 7th January)
Although it is the festive season, I am battling away with making sense of my results day by day! I am starting to see some interesting findings in my results and have started to write up my results section, highlighting significant results. Once I had worked out what I wanted to say on paper from the results, typing it up was easy and felt good to get it into my dissertation. I am on schedule, hurray!!
Discussion section (15.01.2013)
Today I dived into the deep end and finally sat down and started to write a discussion. I was dreading this section however found it ok once I had got started and seen some examples of how it should be structured! I have a meeting with my supervisor on Monday 21st January to discuss everything I have done so far...fingers crossed he approves of my work!
Completed and Submitted 01.03.2013
I hardly recognise my paper from when I started many months ago to today when I submitted it! A great deal of editing was done to ensure that I had discussed both sides of the argument without bias and analysed my results effectively! I thought I would feel relieved after submitting it but I actually feel extremely nervous! I am aware that I am not strong in factual writing as I am used to writing essays structured in the third person. Despite this, I think it is an interesting read and I have discussed many points that will hopefully be interesting for examiners! Fingers crossed!!