To be gutted at this grade for my dissertation proposal?

[goodgradeshavewine]

I'm in my third year at uni and worked so hard at my research and inquiry module, I worked really really hard and found it fairly easy because I'd been putting in the work for it.

Anyways I submitted my dissertation proposal 4 weeks ago and got results back this morning. I thought I would at least be mid 60s as I truly thought it was a well put together and thought out dissertation plan. I only got 60 %.

I'm totally gutted, I know that still leaves me in the 2.1 range but only just. I'm frustrated because my other module that I didn't follow nor understand I got higher results for both my assessments in that. Overall for this term I am sitting at 63 percent.

I'm just so upset and like demotivated now. At one point in the feedback he says I spoke in a detached manner and that it must have been difficult for me to write in the third person. I literally have an email from him confirming I was to write in the third person...on top of that my friend that really rushed hers got a first. We have different markers but the marking just seems so random at my uni.

AIBU to be so gutted about my grade? Am I being pathetic?

@BertramLacey

How funny. Uni doesn't get 'harder' in terms of grading each year. If you handed in a piece of work for a module in first year and got a 2:1, you'd still get a 2:1 if you decided to take that module in your third year instead. They don't go 'oh you're a third year now so we'll give this piece a different grade' 😂 you're working at a 2:1 standard, or you aren't.

Not at the universities I've worked at. You extrapolate for the extra years of study. I wouldn't expect a first year student to be working at the level of a 2:1 third year student - otherwise there wouldn't be much point in all the training. First year work looks very different from third year work, or it should. You expect an extra two years of intellectual development and study and mark accordingly. It's laid out in black and white in the marking criteria that you allow for the year that you're marking.

This^. A 2.1 in first year demonstrates the potential^ to reach 2.1 by 3rd year for final assessment, not that the work is equivalent to 2.1. 3rd year work. Knowledge and its application is cumulative. Critical thinking and articulation develops over the course of study.

The marking criteria according to the SCQF would in itself be less demanding/ more lenient for first year than third year though.

I think it's either that or there are radical differences in marking between subject areas.

OP, in terms of your question about whether you’re cut out for this and whether you can improve from here, that is exactly the point of setting this type of assessment! It is in order to evaluate your ideas, approach, knowledge, skills development and wider reading at this stage in your degree programme, and to get you detailed formative feedback that you can implement as you write the actual dissertation. Focus on doing just that.

I have worked as. University lecturer in the past and think judging by the feedback 60% seems a fair mark. It is still 2:1 as you said but at the lower end.

It sounds like your dissertation proposal was quite broad strokes and didn't drill down into one particular aspect of alcohol, so it was hard to find your research question and how you engaged with it within the scope of your research. There is an interesting thread on here about the WHO and women's alcohol consumption, which would make a fascinating starting point - although, I don't know your discipline.

It also sounds like your proposal was quite descriptive - again presenting an issue about how you will critically engage with your research question - and often you listed rather than explored and unpacked key ideas which is 2:2 level work. There seems to have been a lock of analysis and grappling with the often conflicting issues that alcohol can present. Sometimes, I found, when students found an assignment easy then they hadn't challenged themselves and in the assignments where they achieved higher grades it was because they were grappling with a higher level of work.

The academics feedback is not terrible and doesn't make me think you have any reason to feel disheartened about your eventual mark. You just need to be more critical, work out your research question, narrow your scope so you feel less need to be descriptive and drill down on that particular issue. Make a choice about whether to write in first or third person (in line with accepted academic standards), it is an academic skill to write in the active third person and you can speak to study skills at your university.

If it offers any comfort, I got a low 2:1 for my dissertation proposal and ended up getting the eventual dissertation published in a decent journal. Just take this on the chin and develop the dissertation, nobody has it in for you - he sounds like he wants to help.

@Tooshytoshine my research question is 'have alcohol use rates increased during COVID 19 in adults with alcohol use disorder (25 - 60) in the United Kingdom, and if so, why?' That was in the title page.

My title is ' A comparative analysis of alcohol use rates amongst individuals with alcohol use disorder pre and post COVID 19 in the United Kingdom and establishing the factors relating to those rates'

He didn't make any comments on these but had said when we'd talked one to one that they are fine. I didn't gather from his feedback that I didn't focus my proposal, because I feel like it's been very focused in the aspect of I know exactly what I am trying to find and achieve. Do you think I need to be more specific?

I want to also highlight the fact that there was failures in policies during the pandemic as many groups such as AA ceased providing support groups or had them online, however, not everyone was able to join online so many people were left in the middle of a pandemic, isolated, bored, lonely, stressed without the support they were accustomed to. Feels to me like they were very much forgotten about.

@BertramLacey could be that, I supppse bit id like to think not...!!

It's a great topic - it is timely and a new perspective. Is this a public health degree?

I would assume you have a word limit of below 20,000 words so it is quite a large topic and that you had limited space to outline your arguments in your proposal and were compelled to describe rather than analyse would indicate to me further limitations need to be placed upon it. It's a tweak rather than a wholesale change - it is managing the expectations of the reader or researcher. If I were to type in keywords into Google scholar what would they be in order to find your research title and would it give me what I wanted?

From the information I have it will work well - comparative data sets (watch your data collection methods - likert scales plus free text are often less unwieldy for a blend of qualitative and quantitative data) and then a thorough critical analysis in a few focussed areas, which seem to be challenges of online usage and lack of existing support networks, as public health services in local authorities were diverted to the crisis of the emergent pandemic and tertiary providers were forced online. I would be tempted to put a time scale on it, from March 2020 until...

In your introduction ensure you show your decisions on what to include and exclude - acknowledge the other factors but state you have chosen to focus on x,y,z - manage the expectations of your reader throughout. Have a magic thread that goes throughout that every other argument leads back to - if you are focussing on the challenges of online usage as a key failure that exacerbated alcohol misuse then put this in your title or research proposal. If you are looking at government policies, LA policies, third sector organisations policies then put this in your title. I would concentrate on one or the other, or be very careful on how they interlink so they aren't parallel strands of argument that don't intertwine.

Speak to your tutor again and see what he says - if he is happy then follow his advice. Wide topics will never get a top mark as they can never provide sufficient analysis...

I want to also highlight the fact that there was failures in policies during the pandemic as many groups such as AA ceased providing support groups or had them online, however, not everyone was able to join online so many people were left in the middle of a pandemic, isolated, bored, lonely, stressed without the support they were accustomed to. Feels to me like they were very much forgotten about.

Don't make the mistake of assuming your results before you carried out the research.... Until you've done the research you don't know any of that. It's entirely possible that alcohol consumption went down and that online AA meetings were a massive success.

@iamagruff

See to be honest, it doesn't seem to me as if you are cut out for university with a grade like sixty percent, in third year your grade should be AT LEAST late sixties. Cut your losses.

@goodgradeshavewine Please ignore this poster. They are talking absolute shitte. For example I failed exams in my 3rd year of undergrad.

I now have a PhD and work in professional research.

As it stands you are on a 2.1, you have all of your final year to come and final dissertation.
A 2.1 is a good degree and is acceptable into postgraduate research and very acceptable for employment - depending on what is your preference.

If I were you I'd ask Mumsnet to remove that title because it will now flag in turnitin as plagiarised when you submit your final project

and that online AA meetings were a massive success

They were and are. I know someone who’s only ever attended online meetings and became sober without any “real life” meetings at all.