Dissertation

[Kierannex]

Hi everyone (not sure if I'm in the right topic, I'm new to this) but I've got to do my dissertation for uni and in struggling on what to do it on.

The topic I'm thinking (I'm up for change if this is too difficult to do, or is just daft haha) is the reason parents choose different childcare settings (such as nursery, child minder, grandparents & if anyone changed their mind & type of settings along with did their choice live up to their expectations and the problems /benefits) - my friend has recently put her daughter in nursery and I've been having lots of discussions about it with her and other mums.. but I don't know if there's any research to back it up or should I say I've not looked into it yet. Id love to hear your opinions.

Thanks!

Would be helpful to know your subject!

What are you studying, how long is the dissertation and how much time do you have to do primary research? You need to start in the library, not on mumsnet.

What are you studying? Yes, there is research about the pros and cons of different childcare settings - which is possibly a big influencer, but there will be other factors too.

Sorry guys! I'm studying primary education, not sure on the word count, we've not been given the details yet just been told to do some background research for ideas. I'm asking on here because I've seen other discussions going on and thought I could get some insight into it, I would be lost in a library before I know for definite what I'm basing it on. Thanks for your opinion though.

Just sort of by the by - when I did my degree and masters, both times I did a survey to get info to "play with" for my final project/dissertations.
I got more credit for the work put into gathering the data (my stats and data manipulation skills were not first rate) and passed when I think with a bog standard "essay" type approach I maybe would have struggled.
Your plan sounds good for survey/questionnaire data gathering, so it may well be worth asking your supervisor about it - it can really generate interesting results, especially if you can use whatever software etc your uni has to really get the best results from the data - you can produce loads of facts and figures from a relatively small sample too.
For my degree, I looked into the "dietary and smoking habits of students on the campus" and literally sat in the Student Union bar/cafeteria for five hours and caught them all with my questionnaire. I got LOADS of good responses and it was easy to get - I was heavily pregnant at the time and just couldn't have managed to get so much info any other way.