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During this year you will be supported to write a thesis relating to an aspect of medical education that feels relevant and interesting to you as an educator. You will be expected to focus your ideas and express them as a clear research question. This type of thesis is flexible, allowing you to carry out an original piece of research that involves either primary or secondary data or a combination of the two to explore your research question, from an appropriate study population.Ìý Alternatively, you can conduct a literature review style report. Primary data collection can use qualitative or quantitative approaches (or both), and will require ethics committee submission to UCL and potentially to your local NHS body.Ìý The literature review type report, would be unlikely to require ethics submission and also enables you to explore your area of interest.

Through taught workshops, 1: 1 tutor support and facilitated peer discussion, we will help you to decide on and refine your research question to ensure it is appropriate to the type of data you will be using. These discussions will support your choices regarding methodological approaches to sampling strategy, data collection, and data analysis, all of which you will be required to fit within a theoretical framework that is meaningful to your research narrative. Some previous students have successfully published their findings from their thesis work and presented their work at national and international conferences.Ìý

Thesis topics have included:Ìý

• Trainees’ and trainers’ perceptions of case-based discussion and ACAT as assessment tools
• Educational supervisors’ and trainees’ experiences of the e-portfolio
• Intended and perceived learning outcomes of student-selected components (SSCs)

Examples of titles of literature review style reports include:

• Comparing and contrasting effective mentoring programs for new consultant-grade Doctors.
• Exploring varying methods of training which are most effective in developing competence in electrocardiogram interpretation.
• An exploration of consultants conceptions of how students learn in the workplace and how these relate to their practice and contemporary learning theories.

Examples of previous MSc dissertations can be read in the RCP Medical Education Resource Centre.

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