DISSERTATION TOPIC
Explore strategies/intervention to increase adherence to physiotherapy exercise programmes in older adults with chronic MSK disorders

Assignment Guidance – 2019 BSc Physiotherapy Cohort

Module Learning Outcomes

1. Identify and systematically investigate practice issues relevant to physiotherapy
2. Critically appraise and evaluate the evidence in relation to an identified topic.
3. Develop a detailed research that meets relevant organisational and ethical governance protocols
4. Demonstrate advanced understanding of the processes related to research

Assessment Criteria
Research proposal: Format and content requirements
 The research proposal must be written in the third person, with an appropriate and consistent use of tense (i.e. present or future).
 A bibliography may be included in addition to the reference list, but it will not be marked.
 If a number of abbreviations have been used they must be included in a glossary, after the contents page.
 The title page, acknowledgments, contents page, references and appendices do not form part of the word count and should contain both your name and number
 You are required to include the following sections in your assignment

Title page

Please ensure that your chosen title summarises your chosen topic and the proposed research activity accurately and concisely. Remember, your project title is not necessarily the same as your research question, which must be phrased as a question.

Acknowledgments
Including these is optional.

Contents page
This is a list of the titles of each chapter and the section headings. It should include accurate page numbers.

An Introduction (500 words approximately)
You may wish to start this section by repeating the title of your study (in addition to it appearing on the title page). This section should give a background to your chosen research topic and a sense of why it is important and relevant. It should be understandable to both expert and non-expert readers, and therefore you may wish to define key terms. The relevance of the study to physiotherapy practice should be clearly stated. The section should conclude with a statement of the focus of the literature search.

Literature review (4000 words approximately)
The literature review chapter should provide sufficient detail about your rationale for the literature search strategy. For example, the sources and databases searched; the keywords and synonyms used; and the inclusion and exclusion criteria applied. You must include details of number of articles retrieved and the number that were included and excluded at various stages, before the final number of articles that you will critique was established. However, it might be that some of the detail of this information is best presented in the appendices, with a summary outline in the main text of the literature review chapter. You should be undertaking a systematic approach to your literature review but this does NOT need to be a systematic review.

Generally, you should concentrate on the most recent literature (published within the last 10 years). If you do include literature that is older a clear rationale for this should be provided.

Ideally the literature critiqued in this chapter will be grouped and themed in some way, using subheadings. However, remember that reviewing literature involves much more than just describing it; it is essential that you also include a critical analysis and evaluation of the literature presented, signposting this in relation to your chosen topic area. Critique can either be provided as the study is described, or after each study has been summarized.

Ultimately this chapter should allow the reader to see how your work can be viewed within the context of [any] previous work. The chapter needs to conclude with a synthesis, with you ‘bringing together’ the literature you have critiqued and providing a sense of what this overall body of knowledge is saying. Issues associated with the quality of the literature and how this will or may influence physiotherapy practice should guide the reader and will help inform your decisions in the proceeding section(s). A clear sense of a gap in the body of knowledge should be given. At the end of the literature review or at the beginning of the research proposal you should state the research question(s) and aims of your proposed research, which should be phrased to potentially address the gap in the body of knowledge that your literature search and review has identified.

Research proposal: (3500 words approximately)
This chapter details how you would undertake your proposed research study or service improvement project. It should begin with a justification of your chosen methodology and ‘world view’, before going on to detail the specific methods to be employed. Your chosen methodology will decide whether you present a research question and hypotheses or just a research question. For a research study the methods would include: details of the location of the research; a description of the participants and their recruitment; sample size and associated justification; the method(s) of data collection, identification of ethical issues (both process and principles), discussion of concepts such as validity, reliability, and trustworthiness, and details of the data analysis process. Please ensure that you refer to concepts relevant to your chosen ‘world view’ as this demonstrates your understanding of different research paradigms. Appropriate referencing should be used to support your decisions.

The level of detail in the proposal chapter should be such that someone else could reproduce your project. Where relevant additional information and documents can be included in an appendix. For example, recruitment poster, participant information sheet, consent form and survey, PDSA, GANTT chart and Fishbone diagram. Overall remember to identify and justify the methods to be used, with reference to appropriate sources

References (not part of word count)
Vancouver referencing

Appendices
These should include any additional information and documents that are not appropriate for inclusion in the main body of the proposal.

Reassessment strategy
Please refer to the School’s reassessment strategy

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