Extended Project Qualification (A*)

I conducted this independent research project to complement my undergraduate academic study of law and develop my project management skills and ability to analyse, synthesise and present complex information coherently. Final outcome was a paper on "To what extent does British contract law disadvantage women, the feminine and the private sphere?"

Below is my reflections on my work. Scroll to the bottom for an outline of the project requirements, process and outcomes. 

Learning & Skills

By completing this project, I have learned how to conduct a research project in law from start to finish and I have gained many interesting insights along the way.

One insight I gained during this project was that not all sources are equally valuable to your project. While this seems obvious at first, the implications that it had for my project were quite significant. I treated all the sources on my list as the same and assumed they would all be relatively valuable. When I understood that's not the case, I became a lot more selective with my sources and chose to use the most valuable ones. This can also be understood by applying the Pareto principle - 80% of my content came from 20% of my sources. 

When I complete another research project, I will compile a selective version of my main source list and use these sources first to provide me with impactful relevant research.

Reviewing sources always takes a longer period of time than I planned for and a good principle I found for working with that was to time myself going through two or three sources (that reflect the level of depth and length of work that I would be reviewing for research) to identify how long it takes to read and make notes. I intend to apply this principle in future.

Another insight I gained from this project is that planning techniques such as Gantt charts aren't very effective for non-collaborative projects. A lot of the project management software and programmes promoted online are designed for projects that teams need to coordinate together. I tried a lot of different planning techniques throughout the project and this has given me a clear understanding of what works best for me on a personal research project. 

What works best:

• clear structure that identifies the topic areas I want to explore with my research
• a calendar of key milestones (maybe scheduled in for a couple of weeks earlier than their actual date)
• a weekly planning record with a list of tasks to be done that week and then an explanatory note on what I actually did complete. (Use this to adjust plans for the upcoming week. One mistake I made while using this technique is to write in two or three weeks of plans as a time and this brings up the same issue I had with other techniques - when a task is missed, everything based on that in the upcoming weeks needs to be redone so too much time is spent on planning.)

To summarise, the simplest planning techniques were the most useful, particularly if they only planned ahead for a short timeframe.

Me centre and supervisor emphasised the importance of planning but my application of this was quite extreme because despite being an organised person who regularly plans in detail, I ended up doing even more. I would advise future students to identify what their natural tendencies are with planning and only take on the advice to 'plan, plan, plan' if the student would not have done that otherwise. In other words, prevent overplanning getting in the way of your progress.

What new knowledge or expertise have I enjoyed or found valuable?

Through the course of this research project, I have gained deep extensive knowledge of how contract law disadvantages certain groups based on historic gender roles. One area in which I have developed my knowledge and would like to continue to do so is the ways in which law interacts with vulnerability. Jonathan herring's work was particularly useful for this and I intend to read his work in my spare time afterwards. I was really pleased to come across many different legal scholars who examine vulnerability and human relationships in the context of the law because it has changed my perception of the legal field. I was previously somewhat disillusioned by the legal conceptualization of a person as one that had to be independent and self-centred, as our current law promotes. After engaging with a growing body of scholarship that aims to change that, I feel a lot more hopeful about the potential of the law to interact with human realities as they are rather than dictating what they should be. The influential voices I have discovered, such as Herring, Diduck and Eekelaar, will definitely form part of future research I undertake, whether that is a passion project or an academic pursuit.

Needless to say, I have learned a lot about contract law and this will greatly help me when I study as part of my undergraduate degree. Something interesting I've learned is that there is a lot more scope for interpretation an understanding within the law then there appears to be as well as that, I've developed a keen interest in understanding the intersection of feminist politics and the law, and an appreciation for how the law interacts with gender. This exploration will broaden the frame of reference within which I understand and study law at degree level. Other skills I developed during this project that will be helpful at degree level are the citation of legal sources and navigating legal research, which initially I found quite daunting. Overall, this research project has been intellectually stimulating and has provided me with greater confidence on subject knowledge for my future legal aspirations.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of my project (including planning and organisation)?

One of the strengths of my project was the thorough planning I undertook at every stage. At any given point, I had a clear idea of what my next step was to completing the project and an estimate of the amount the deadlines I should work towards. Although I switched between different planning techniques, the plan itself remained clear. As well as that, I reflected on the progress I was making regularly both alone and through discussions with my supervisor. This allowed me to adapt to the different situations that came up along the way, which would otherwise have prevented me from completing the project in a timely fashion. I often recorded or did these reflections in writing which I saved on my digital notebook in a section titled 'Prep'; I could then refer back to this when I was confused about why I had made a particular decision (like changing the wording of the title at Mid-Project Review).

The same digital notebook also contained a 'Research' section where I made notes and each page was dedicated to one source, to ensure I knew what source to reference afterwards. For part of my notes, I colour coordinated my notes based on the sections they matched of my initial section-by-section plan. Although this was incredibly tedious, I find that it allowed me to synthesise my research very easily when it was time to write my report, despite the changes I made to the plan.

By selecting parts of my research from each source that related to each topic of my final report plan and turning that into a coherent report, I significantly improved my synthesis skills. I developed my ability to synthesise and collect data through the research too as I realised I could not make notes on everything and so chose what was useful, discarding or disregarding the rest. The final notable strength of this project is the detailed subject knowledge derived from research. This can be best attributed to me starting with a clear vision of the quality (for example, in terms of detail) I wanted in my final product and keeping that in mind as I progressed.

By undertaking the EP, I significantly developed my time and project management skills. Although clear detailed planning was one of my strengths, I made huge improvements in this area too as I learnt that simpler plan-making techniques provide me with greater clarity and allow me to focus on the research integral to the project, rather than spending an unhelpful amount of time planning and replanning.

I think the execution stage of my project was where I made the most mistakes. The amount of content I planned to cover in research in the given amount of time was beyond was I actually managed to achieve. Despite the fact that I have still created an end product I am pleased with, I think I would have saved myself considerable time and energy if my original goals matched the timescale of 90 hours and 5000 words. While planning and writing my report, I have excluded certain sections I researched for with the realisation that I can continue this at a later date. The project I submit must fit the restraints given and so I can put certain topics aside for detailed research when I develop the project further in a personal, rather than academic capacity. This also highlights one of the weaknesses in this project. I attempted to research too great a breadth of topics in depth, which resulted in scope creep. For this project, only depth was required and so I could make a greater attempt to do this in future, although it would take further examination to identify how this would be possible in this research question or another. My first draft was just over 10,000 words and I had to cut this down significantly for my final draft. What I found most helpful in doing so was selecting the sections that were the most directly linked to my argument and added unique value. For example, I removed a section on the Contracts Act 1999 because that already has a lot of legal scholarship on it so I wasn't contributing anything valuable and my supervisor suggested it wasn't as relevant to my report as other sections (like on prenuptial contracts).

One weakness in my completion of this project was that I didn't properly research the referencing system I applied. I applied APA because that was the centre recommendation but this wasn't suited to a humanities subject because of the discouraged use of footnotes and preference for in-text citations. When undertaking another research project, I will research the referencing system properly before applying to ensure I don't have to waste time and energy making changes after writing the first version of my report.

When I undertake such work in the future, the most significant change I will make is to research the basics of the field before diving into any other research. I believe that this approach will simplify the research process, saving both time and energy. Additionally, having a foundational understanding will allow me to gain deeper insights from the sources I review, as I will be able to approach them from a place of knowledge and more effectively distinguish between opinions and facts. This approach will also reduce the chances of being misled by opinionated sources and mistakenly assuming their content is factual.

What advice would I give to others undertaking such a project?

Compile a large source list and then select the sources that will provide you with the most valuable content and review these first. It is likely that you will not have time left afterwards or will not feel the need to review the other sources. Also, when reviewing sources, you do not need to go from start to finish for the entire source and that is not a failure on your part. Choose the most relevant sections by reviewing the contents or index and if that doesn't provide you with enough information to choose, read the first and last sentence or paragraph of each section to decide whether you will benefit from reviewing all of it. I found it helpful to create a really brief essay plan and then categorise my sources with that, identifying the areas which I didn't have enough research for and then using the relevant sources. This is not a technique that works for everyone or for every field and should only be applied if you have a clear vision of your final product. I cannot emphasise this enough - choose the sources that are relevant and valuable, not the ones that you are most comfortable exploring. In the long term, pursuing the illusion of progress is not productive.

Aims

Choose and design an extended project

Develop and improve my own learning and performance as critical, reflective and independent students

Develop and apply decision-making and problem-solving skills

Extend my planning, research, critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and presentation skills

Develop and apply skills creatively, demonstrating initiative and enterprise

Use my learning experiences to support my aspirations for higher education and/or career development and transfer skills to other areas of study.

Project Process

As stated in the Specification:

"carry out research to enable them to sufficiently develop project aims and objectives to make a formal project proposal • document their planning and research within the Production Log • meet with the supervisor at specified meetings to discuss the project process and issues • carry out the project by achieving the aims and objectives they set themselves • prepare and give a presentation about the project product and process (including a question and answer session) • evaluate the project process • submit evidence for assessment (production log and project product)"

Assessment Objectives and Outcomes

Clear identification of the topic to be investigated or researched and clear evidence of appropriate aims and objectives for the proposed project title. Detailed project plan, with clear evidence of monitoring progress of project work against the agreed objectives.

Evidence of detailed research involving the selection and evaluation of a wide range of relevant resources. Critical analysis and application of the resources with clear links made to appropriate theories and concepts.

Appropriate decisions are taken and appropriate data is collected and thoroughly analysed. The project plan is fully implemented and the outcome is fully realised to a high standard and consistent with a candidate's finally agreed plan. There is clear evidence of appropriate changes to or development of the initial project plan or title or aims and objectives, with clear and appropriate reasons for any changes. I communicated my findings fluently in an appropriate format, synthesising information from a variety of sources and present them within a logical and coherent structure which addresses closely the nature of the task.

Detailed and careful evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the completed project in relation to the planning, implementation and outcomes, and my own learning during the project. Material is consistently relevant, well-structured and appropriately presented. I clearly communicate their findings and conclusions which are based on sound evidence and judgement.