Dissertation help

[identitytalks]

I'm doing a 'politics, society and policy' course.

I'm in 3rd year and working on my dissertation.

My main topic is alcoholism. I wanted to let explore 'Did Covid 19 lockdown have a larger impact on alcoholics compared to general population of the UK.'

I'm so confused though. I'm obviously doing a qualitative research. I can't figure out what to include in my dissertation.

How can you have your survey written when you haven't decided your research question yet?
If you are planning to survey individual alcoholics you will need your project to undergo ethical review as this is a vulnerable group.
If qualitative research are you going to be interviewing people? Interviewing alcoholics is probably not a suitable thing for a 3rd year undergraduate to be doing (unless you are older and already have experience in the field). Or how will you gather your evidence?
I would start by doing a literature review using pubmed or similar, this should give you an idea of what techniques are used, what sort of questions are asked etc. There are bound to be studies on the effects that other events have had on alcoholics, or the effects that covid has had on some other group.

How can you have your survey ready already when you don’t know what exactly you’re investigating and you haven’t spoken to your supervisor? Your aims and methods need to be established before you devise a survey. You will also most likely need research ethics clearance as you’re dealing with vulnerable people.

Could you do preliminary focus group surveys ?

Crossposted with @SnackSizeRaisin

Glad it’s not just me that finds this concerning.

A small pilot survey which would then shape your question.

I spoke to my tutor and he said he thinks it would be a great idea. I told him about th survey and he said it'll be fine

It depends on what sort of research you want to do. You could look at the literature on alcohol abuse and covid and see what sort of themes emerge. You don't need to compare it to another group.

I'm not a researcher, but you could see whether it would be possible to carry out some sort of survey work with self-identified problem drinkers to see if their experiences reflect the themes in the literature or if other themes emerge.

Impact could be positive (got out of a routine that had been unhealthy and managed to change their drinking habits) or negative (stuck at home and massively increased consumption).

This is just a BBC news report, but it gives a glimpse of how different people have had different experiences. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-53684700

I don't know if I'm thick or something
But I
Feel
I
Need
More than
This

I think the question you are asking would be something like Examining the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on quality of life for people with an alcohol dependency.

I’m not sure you would find enough data to do a comparable study at this point but you could do a qualitative study looking at impact using biographical accounts maybe?

Would it be easier to look at ‘impact of COVID and alcohol use in women’ or ‘impact of COVID and alcohol use in recovering alcoholics’ or something similar so you are taking a group of people ie men, women, alcoholics, students or whatever and looking at how COVID has affected their alcohol use/recovery.

OP, have you looked at the existing research in this space?

I am far from an expert and would defer to others on this thread, but having recently completed my MA dissertation, it was much easier to come up with my question/topic (and then, last minute, pull a different question out of thin air when Covid made that research impossible 🙄) once I had a reasonable idea of what was already out there.

You know you want to look at alcoholism and Covid, so have you been reading up on the topic to help you identify where there are gaps in the existing research?

Do a systematic review ?

Qualitative research doesn't usually compare things. It's normally used to get views of a small number of people in greater depth, in order to gain a deeper insight for example into the reasons for behaviour or why people have certain attitudes. You might use open ended questions or focus groups to encourage people to go into depth. The results are often presented as quotations, or themes that are mentioned by several people.
If you want to compare something, that would be quantitative research and could answer questions such as "what proportion of alcoholics felt isolated during lockdown compared to the general population" and you would survey a lot more people, but use closed questions.

I have the same concerns as Snacksize above - ethical approval, how are you planning to reach the alcoholics you are going to survey etc. Do you have previous experience in working with alcoholics? Also just an idea but you might find it easier to interview AA group leaders or people who advocate for alcoholics/work with them as they won't be vulnerable themselves. You need a good support and guidance from your supervisor on this. It is an interesting topic but needs considerate handling.

Thank you to those who have provided actual evidence.

I'm actually so confused by it all

@paddingtonbearsmarmalade

OP, have you looked at the existing research in this space?

I am far from an expert and would defer to others on this thread, but having recently completed my MA dissertation, it was much easier to come up with my question/topic (and then, last minute, pull a different question out of thin air when Covid made that research impossible 🙄) once I had a reasonable idea of what was already out there.

You know you want to look at alcoholism and Covid, so have you been reading up on the topic to help you identify where there are gaps in the existing research?

I agree - get reading around the topic. Look for unanswered questions, recommendations for future research, get a feel for what's already known. You might find that your question comes to you once you've seen what's already out there.

@Jenjenn I have that all sorted

It depends on what you are hoping to look at.
If its specifically the experiences of alcoholics vs general population then you would need to have data on both groups of people

Is it important to be able to compare them do the general population? Or could you ask people to say if they feel they are more isolated then pre covid? You can just also have it as 20% said they felt low in mood etc

If its qualative then you could do it based on a small number of case studies to get a strong narrative but lose your statistics.

If you want to compare it it might be worth carrying it out as quantitive

It might be worth thinking about what specific thing you are looking for. Ie is it mood or loneliness or access to services?

The idea is good, I think you need to just narrow it down to what you are actually interested in

OP is your dissertation a research proposal or do you actually have to conduct the research?

I spoke to my tutor and he said he thinks it would be a great idea. I told him about th survey and he said it'll be fine

So what's the problem then? Just do the survey that your tutor has approved and write up the results.

Can you start from the literature and work backwards? You have a really good topic and a potentially robust study. What impact are you looking at? Alcohol Support (i.e did moving to online support / phone calls impact recovery rates) , did lockdown cause an increase in relapse or was there an increase in alcoholism (for new people as it were), or did the new alcohol referrals mean more than males than females / young than old / single than married? If you narrow it down either by type of impact or population sample then you tighten up your question by default.

When is your deadline?

@Monr0e I actually have no idea...that's quite
Worrying
Eh

You'll need watertight ethical clearance to start with. Confidentiality is an issue here.

Rehabilitation centres may have some quantitative data about admission levels and access to aftercare.

Local rehab likewise, I.e. withdrawal, support, access to the internet as all this support has been available on Zoom/teams only and not everyone has the required internet access.

I'd start from whatever quantitative data is currently available and then work out some key research aims and objectives, narrowing down to a qualitative level. If it's an undergraduate dissertation you'll only ever be able to work on a small scale level so ensure your research design corresponds with this and pay attention to sample scaling.

Forward Connect might have some data which helps.

Hope this is of some help.

@identitytalks why alcoholism? Is it something you are exposed to much? Do you know much about it? Do you know ppl with addictions? Etc etc