Folks: The posting below looks at some important factors to take into consideration when selecting a dissertation topic. It is from Chapter 4 Choosing a Dissertation Topic, in the book, The Dissertation Journey: A Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Writing, and Defending Your Dissertation, by Carol M. Roberts. Published by Corwin, A SAGE Company, Teller Road, Thousand Oaks The About page of the British Library EThOS service. Search across ,+ theses for free and order full text quickly and easily Feb 13, · A PhD concept paper is a paper written by a PhD aspirant to summarize the research project for the benefit of the dissertation committee that examines the validity of the project across at least four dimensions. They are: Does the candidate present his research aims and objectives clearly? Has the candidate shown his or her proficiency in understanding the theoretical aspect of the research area?
Choosing a Dissertation Topic | Tomorrow's Professor Postings
Waiting for inspiration is not the best approach to topic selection. Dissertation topics do not mystically appear. Some students attempt to find a topic that fits a set of already-collected data, a certain population to which the student has access, or a preferred research methodology.
This backward approach is also inappropriate and certain to irritate a potential advisor. The posting below looks at some important factors to take into consideration when selecting a dissertation topic.
It is from Chapter 4 Choosing a Dissertation Topic, online phd thesis database, in the book, The Dissertation Journey: A Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Writing, and Defending Your Dissertationby Carol M. Published by Online phd thesis database, A SAGE Company, Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, California, Fax:www. com Copyright © by Carol M.
All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. The first major challenge in the dissertation process lies in choosing a dissertation topic. Your choice determines how long it will take you to complete your study. For online phd thesis database doctoral students, it is an agonizing decision, mainly because of the uncertainty surrounding it.
Has it already been adequately researched? Is it worthy of investigation? How original does online phd thesis database have to be? Is it manageable in scope?
To know whether or not it has been researched, or if it is important to the field, online phd thesis database, you must first immerse yourself in the literature base. It would not be worthwhile to conduct another study about a problem that has been sufficiently investigated unless, however, online phd thesis database, you conduct a meta-analysis, meta-ethnographic analysis, or literature synthesis.
These research approaches synthesize findings across several studies. The most effective and efficient ways to select a topic are the following:. Commonly, students consider three to five potential topics before finally settling on one. Scrapping a topic and starting over at least once is the norm. Online phd thesis database topics rarely emerge out of the blue; you must proactively search them out. Here are some potential sources:. Your own professional interests. What excites and energizes you?
What career goals could be enhanced by studying a particular topic? Faculty members, professional colleagues, and fellow students. Listen to their suggestions about potential topics. Professional journals in your field, online phd thesis database. This is where you can find out the hot topics of the day and for the near future. Ask them to help you run a database search on some topic of interest. Make a list of key words and phrases to initiate the search. Review previously written dissertations.
Consult Proquest Dissertations and Theses Dissertation Abstracts International and American Doctoral Dissertationsfrom whom you can order dissertations of interest.
Oral defense. Attend as many of these as you can. It opens your eyes to what happens during a dissertation defense. Current theories. Have any new theories come out in your field, or are existing theories being questioned? Conferences and seminars. Often these deal with current interest areas in the field. Talk with presenters and authors to get their ideas about researchable topics.
Outside agencies or professional organizations that conduct research. Excellent resources are the 10 Regional Educational Laboratoriesand the American Educational Research. Leading scholars in your interest areas.
Usually, authors and researchers eagerly talk with someone interested in their ideas and research. Call and find out what they are currently doing, and ask their advice about potential studies. Your current job setting. Are there online phd thesis database that need solutions in your workplace? Your boss might have a pet topic that could enhance your career opportunities.
However, be cautious. If you think a topic might be suggested in which you have no interest, you are better served not to conduct this research. A dissertation is an extensive, scholarly endeavor, and the topic should be one in which you have strong interest. References in your field.
Many handbooks and bibliographies exist in most subject areas. Some useful examples in the field of education are the following:. Handbook of Research on Teaching. Published by the AERA, this handbook provides.
Harvard Educational Review. Edited and published by graduate students at Harvard. University, this journal provides reviews and opinions on the most topical educational. Review of Educational Research. Published by the AERA, this quarterly journal, online phd thesis database. publishes review articles that summarize, in a comprehensive and integrated fashion. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education NSSE. Sincethe. Distinguished scholars in these areas write the articles.
The topics are selected because of their timeliness or immediate practical online phd thesis database to educators and researchers Martin,p, online phd thesis database. All discipline areas have their own encyclopedias, handbooks, or yearbooks. You can access them on the Internet by keying in your area e. How do you know if your particular topic has the potential to become a scholarly dissertation? Most universities and doctoral faculties agree that the doctoral dissertation should be an original piece of research and significant to the field.
However, online phd thesis database, what constitutes originality or significance is open to interpretation and usually differs among various faculty advisors. Madsen clarified the elusive term originality. He claims that a online phd thesis database must have the potential to do at least one of the following: Uncover new facts or principles, suggest relationships that were previously unrecognized, challenge existing truths or assumptions, affort new insights into little-understood phenomena, online phd thesis database, or suggest new interpretations of know facts that can alter people's perceptions of the world around them.
No hard-and-fast rules exist for selecting a topic. Following are some general criteria for considering potential topics:. It needs to hold your interest for a long time.
It takes longer than you anticipate to write an acceptable dissertation. It must be manageable in size. Most students begin with a topic that is too large. Your goal is to add a small but significant piece to the knowledge base and graduate! Save the Nobel Prize-level research to do as a postgraduate.
It must have the potential to make an original and significant contribution to knowledge. Can you find a hole, a gap, a missing piece in the knowledge base that you can fill and that would be useful to theory or practice? It must be doable within your time frame and budget. Given your current situation, is it a feasible topic to undertake? Traveling to Russia or conducting a longitudinal study may not be possible, online phd thesis database.
It has to have obtainable data. You must be able to collect data for the study from an appropriate sample size in a reasonable period of time. It has not already been sufficiently researched. There is no value to conducting one more study about a topic that has been researched online phd thesis database and over again.
It should be acceptable to your advisor and committee members. Start a dissertation topic file. As you get ideas about possible topics, place them in a separate file folder that you can review from time to time.
This helps keep your topic antenna up and alert for new ideas. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of making a concerted effort to become familiar with the literature and to talk with experts in your field.
Software / apps I used as a PhD student
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