Masters Dissertation Example

6.1.1 Conservation success 
It should be stressed that the measure of conservation impact considers uptake of findings 
only, and is not a measure of actual improvement in the status of the species. Inclusion or 
upgrading on the IUCN Red List, for example, does not constitute actual action (and is often 
in fact a sign of worsening conservation status), although the results suggest that findings 
based on species in any category of threat are more likely to be implemented (fig. 23). That 
only 51% of those whose findings had been implemented believed that there had been an 
improvement in conservation status underlines this point, although many respondents felt it 
was too early to assess impact. However, for single species studies conservation status was 
more likely to have improved if the findings had been implemented (section 4.5), in line with 
the findings of Boersma et al (2001) and Gratwicke et al (2007) that use of science improved 
species conservation. Although this is perhaps subjective, and those whose findings had been 
taken up would be likely to either be more aware or report a positive impact, opinions were 
mostly based on evidence such as long term monitoring trends (fig. 25). 
6.1.2 Journal level correlates 
That the two journals with the specific aim of influencing conservation practice, BC and O,
(fig 7.(a)) had the highest levels of implementation, and that significantly lower levels of 

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implementation were seen for research from BD, suggests that journal differences in the type 
of research being published (France & Rigg, 1998) could influence implementation. However, 
BD also had significantly lower levels of dissemination; shown to be one of the main 
determinates of implementation of findings. This, coupled with the fact that journal level 
differences were not significant in multivariate analysis, suggests that other factors were 
involved in implementation rather than the characteristics of the journal.
It would also seem that neither Impact Factor of the journal, nor the number of individual 
paper citations had any reflection upon implementation of findings, suggesting that although 
citations are a measure of how widely read the research is in the scientific world, this is not 
representative of findings being implemented into actual conservation action. Indeed, these 
findings are supported by the interviews with conservation practitioners, who paid no regard to 
citations and Impact Factor; regarding them as academic tools and suggesting that they found 
the lower impact journals of greater practical use (section 5.1). Although citation analysis may 
have its merits (in terms of the communication of methodological techniques to improve the 
quality of conservation research for example, a factor not sufficiently controlled for in the 
study) it does not appear to reflect the utility of the research in the real world, not even at a 
policy level.