Tactics for final year projects
It is tempting to try and 'get started', and begin data collection as soon as possible.
BAD MOVE.
There are four stages:
1. Devising and planning a good project
2. Collecting data
3. Analysing
4. Writing up
(These roughly correspond to the main sections of your report: Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion). Stages 1,3 and 4 are where you earn your marks. If you do those really well, you will gain extra marks. Nobody collects data 'really well', except in rare case where a particular special technique has to be perfected. Data collection is a boring - but necessary chore - to which very little credit attaches. In professional research groups, data collection is delegated to very junior and inexperienced members of the team, and all the glory goes to the more senior people who do stages 1, 3 and 4.
So tactically, to get the best mark, you want to keep stage 2 as short and simple as you can, while still getting a dataset that is adequate for your purpose. Don't hurry from stage 1 to stage 2. And don't make stage 2 so long and elaborate that you cannot get on in good time to stages 3 and 4.
I have three 'golden rules' which help to keep stage 2 under control:
a) Don't run group tasks (somebody won't show up).
b) Don't run multi-stage tasks (some people will drop out).
c) Don't run participants individually, taking an hour of your time for each one, to stand over them administering the task. Not only will this eat up all your project time, it will eat up the time you need to do well in other modules, too. If possible, do something where a large number of people can provide your data simultaneously, perhaps at a time and place of their own choosing (like doing a paper and pencil task at home, for instance).