Writing thesis sections - Part 2

Shaping the research question and hypothesis

Choosing and justifying your methods

Demonstrating that your methods are sound and appropriate for your question will help your reader see that the results and conclusions you reach are valid and reliable.

You can present your overarching research approach or methods in a central methods chapter in your thesis. If you use different methods for different parts of the thesis, these methods can be integrated into the parts.

Choosing your methods

To help you in this process:

• Clarify your stance or paradigm as a researcher if relevant to your discipline
  • Are you an observer, experimenter or involved agent?
  • How would this affect your data collection and/or analysis
• Align your methods to your research aim
  For example, if your question asks about a quantifiable variable, consider a quantitative method for measuring it.

• Compare your methods to alternative methods
  Demonstrate that your choice best suits your investigation.

• Show awareness of potential confounding factors
  What are the biases or pitfalls? Show how you’re accounting for or guarding against them.

• Show awareness of your own assumptions
  For example, show how a chosen method assumes a relationship between variables, and why that is reasonable.

• Consider the type of data you’re collecting
  • How will it allow you to answer your research question or test your hypothesis?
  • What criteria and thresholds have you established for data collection and analysis?
  • What type of answer will you be able to generate if these criteria and thresholds are satisfied?

Asking these questions will help you design your methods to be part of a consistent line of reasoning that will take you from raw data to conclusions.

Analysing data and reporting results

In this stage, you educate your reader on what you’ve found and take them through how you’ve turned data into knowledge, which involves making reasoned connections between variables or different parts of the data. Reporting your results and analysis requires summarising key points or patterns in the data and how they’ve emerged.

Choose representative information

• Use only representative data and analyses to demonstrate the validity of your results.
• Decide what to include by asking:
  • What qualifies as representative data and why?
  • What does it represent?
  • How do I know if the representation is complete and correct?

Organise the information

• Capture categories or themes in the data that relate to your research question or hypothesis.
• Add informative headings and subheadings to help the reader navigate your results.

Illustrate your results

• Design any tables and figures to be understandable on their own and complementary to your writing, with clear, informative titles. These should illustrate the key evidence to support your results and make them easier for readers to process.
• When using tables and figures, think about:
  • whether they are necessary, and
  • which type of illustration best suits the information.
    For example, if some qualitative information is best explained in a paragraph with a subheading, you may not need a table or figure at all. On the other hand, to compare the trends of two variables over time, a line graph will be useful.

State the new knowledge

• Begin every data chapter with a statement of purpose.
• End it with a statement of how the purpose has been addressed, highlighting the new knowledge generated by the chapter.

Example statement of purpose - chapter introduction

The aim of this study was to understand the role of group singing in inpatient and community mental health settings in regard to the contextual and conditional factors apparent within these settings which contribute to mental health recovery. (Bibb, 2016, p. 139)

Example statement of new knowledge - chapter conclusion

Findings were presented as a grounded theory of group singing which was described as the way consumers can experience triggering encounters with music in their singing group and use the group conditions as coping resources to regain musical, emotional and social health. (Bibb, 2016, p. 211)

Start early and revise regularly

• Start writing your data chapters early in your data collection and analysis and review them regularly to:
  • Evolve your analytical categories or themes
  • Reflect on the new knowledge these chapters produce
  • Recognise, rectify or acknowledge limitations in your data or results.
  • Assess the validity and reliability of this knowledge: is it warranted by the nature of the data? Does it align with the aim and methods? Is the analytical process rigorous enough?

Synthesising and discussing findings

The discussion section shows your arrival at new understandings, insights, solutions or theories emerging from your data analysis, which requires high levels of synthesis and conceptualisation.

To write an effective discussion:

• Connect all your findings and key evidence and put these in the bigger context of your inquiry
• Answer the research question or hypothesis
• Position your research in the field and state your original contribution
• Acknowledge limitations of your findings to show your self-awareness and critical thinking as a researcher.

Examples of discussing original contributions

Read the following discussion examples showing statements of original contributions. Notice the type of language that carries these statements, some of which we’ve bolded to highlight the writers’ authority and relationship to their field.

Example 1

Thesis titled ‘Foreign direct investment in Australia: Determinants and consequences’ (Faeth, 2005, p. 308)

Comparing these results with previous econometric studies analysing the consequences of FDI [foreign direct investment] in Australia shows that FDI has a wider range of consequences than previously assumed. It has been shown in this study that employment growth, wage growth, labour productivity growth and industry concentration were affected by Australian FDI.

Example 2

Thesis titled ‘Doctors down under: European medical migrants in Victoria (Australia), 1930-60’ (Mody, 2018, p. 231)

This thesis begins to redress the silence that characterises the historiography on twentieth-century medical migration to Australia. In doing so, I have demonstrated that medical migrants today represent part of an unbroken and sometimes hard-won legacy of refuge, second chances and fresh starts inherited from the medical migrants who arrived before them.

Using disciplinary conventions

Although academic writing conventions are common to most disciplines, the way they are applied may differ. For example, some social sciences may require a full disclosure of a researcher’s paradigmatic alignment and its implications for their research, while other disciplines may put more emphasis on detailing the research procedure. Look at examples from your discipline and check with your supervisors if you have questions.

Reflect on the thesis core

Study an example thesis to observe how the author framed the research question or hypothesis, justified the research methods, analysed data, reported results and synthesised and discussed findings. Then, look at your own writing or plan for these parts.

Answer the following questions for both the example thesis and your own to help you reflect on how you are using disciplinary conventions in shaping your own thesis narrative.

1. Is the research question feasible, interesting, novel, ethical and relevant (the FINER criteria)?

2. Is the hypothesis disprovable, clear and specific? Can you identify the key variables in the hypothesis?

3. Is the question or hypothesis properly contextualised and justified?

4. What research methods does the thesis use? Are they conventional or novel in the discipline? How are they justified?

5. What measurements and/or thresholds have been established for the data collection and/or analysis? What are these measurements and thresholds based on?

6. Has a clear trail of methods been laid out to allow a reader to follow and/or replicate the research?

7. What new knowledge does each of the data/results chapters add?

8. What new insight, theory or solution does the discussion section of the thesis present? What’s the key argument and evidence for this claim to knowledge? Is this argument valid?

9. Is there a clear line of reasoning that leads from the research question/hypothesis to the methods, data analysis/results and discussion? How is the research question being answered?

10. How could you improve this thesis in the above aspects?

Final tip

Together with your research question or hypothesis, your research methods, results, discussion, analysis and synthesis show the reader your own work, which shapes your original contribution. These parts should constitute the bulk of your writing effort throughout your candidature. Use your disciplinary expertise to promote your own innovation, whether in ideas or expression.

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