Class Dissertation

The dissertation seeks to provide students with the ability to use research and planning procedures and techniques of investigation and planning, with scientific rigor and seriousness and, at the same time, stimulate the need and discuss scientific methods. According to these assumptions it is performed a systematic and complete work on a particular subject, detailed treatment and extensive in range. The realisation of the research paper requires the achievement of a bibliographical research that will define the rational theoretical work, the definition of a method, data collection, the analysis of the results, a discussion supported in theoretical rational followed and a conclusion.

Not applicable

The dissertation is organized in 3 stages, during which the student is supervised by a teacher, producing the following outcomes: Stage 1) Definition of the topic, basic literature review, objective and preliminary methods i. Report (10000 characters) ii. Poster presentation on an evaluation conference Stage 2) Critical review of the literature, method, report of the progress in data collection i. Manuscript with a systematic literature review or meta-analysis and the study method (research protocol) ii. Oral presentation on an evaluation conference Stage 3) Results, discussion and final text i. The dissertation includes: i.1. General introduction (10000 characters) i.2. Manuscript 1 - Systematic review of the literature i.3. Manuscript 2 - Experimental or observational research paper i.4. General discussion (10000 characters) ii. Oral presentation for the final evaluation

The students have 15h of classes in the beginning of the second year, to work and develop the specific methods and research techniques.  Weekly meetings are scheduled with the supervisors, and can occur individually or in seminar. The 3 phases allow, with progressive complexity and depth, the development and intermediate formative evaluation of the work. The evaluation conferences allow for this intermediate formative evaluation and also work as milestones. The final evaluation is done with a jury of at least 3 elements, and includes a 20 min oral presentation, followed by a period of 60 minutes of questioning from the jury, with this time equally divided by the student answers and jury’ questions.  The classifications are calculated through the following: 35% by the process for developing the dissertation and 65% by the quality of the dissertation document.

A bibliografia específica é definida pelos Orientadores de acordo com os temas e linhas de investigação.