study skills for dissertation

Dissertation Strategies

What this handout is about.

This handout suggests strategies for developing healthy writing habits during your dissertation journey. These habits can help you maintain your writing momentum, overcome anxiety and procrastination, and foster wellbeing during one of the most challenging times in graduate school.

Tackling a giant project

Because dissertations are, of course, big projects, it’s no surprise that planning, writing, and revising one can pose some challenges! It can help to think of your dissertation as an expanded version of a long essay: at the end of the day, it is simply another piece of writing. You’ve written your way this far into your degree, so you’ve got the skills! You’ll develop a great deal of expertise on your topic, but you may still be a novice with this genre and writing at this length. Remember to give yourself some grace throughout the project. As you begin, it’s helpful to consider two overarching strategies throughout the process.

First, take stock of how you learn and your own writing processes. What strategies have worked and have not worked for you? Why? What kind of learner and writer are you? Capitalize on what’s working and experiment with new strategies when something’s not working. Keep in mind that trying out new strategies can take some trial-and-error, and it’s okay if a new strategy that you try doesn’t work for you. Consider why it may not have been the best for you, and use that reflection to consider other strategies that might be helpful to you.

Second, break the project into manageable chunks. At every stage of the process, try to identify specific tasks, set small, feasible goals, and have clear, concrete strategies for achieving each goal. Small victories can help you establish and maintain the momentum you need to keep yourself going.

Below, we discuss some possible strategies to keep you moving forward in the dissertation process.

Pre-dissertation planning strategies

Get familiar with the Graduate School’s Thesis and Dissertation Resources .

Create a template that’s properly formatted. The Grad School offers workshops on formatting in Word for PC and formatting in Word for Mac . There are online templates for LaTeX users, but if you use a template, save your work where you can recover it if the template has corrruption issues.

Learn how to use a citation-manager and a synthesis matrix to keep track of all of your source information.

Skim other dissertations from your department, program, and advisor. Enlist the help of a librarian or ask your advisor for a list of recent graduates whose work you can look up. Seeing what other people have done to earn their PhD can make the project much less abstract and daunting. A concrete sense of expectations will help you envision and plan. When you know what you’ll be doing, try to find a dissertation from your department that is similar enough that you can use it as a reference model when you run into concerns about formatting, structure, level of detail, etc.

Think carefully about your committee . Ideally, you’ll be able to select a group of people who work well with you and with each other. Consult with your advisor about who might be good collaborators for your project and who might not be the best fit. Consider what classes you’ve taken and how you “vibe” with those professors or those you’ve met outside of class. Try to learn what you can about how they’ve worked with other students. Ask about feedback style, turnaround time, level of involvement, etc., and imagine how that would work for you.

Sketch out a sensible drafting order for your project. Be open to writing chapters in “the wrong order” if it makes sense to start somewhere other than the beginning. You could begin with the section that seems easiest for you to write to gain momentum.

Design a productivity alliance with your advisor . Talk with them about potential projects and a reasonable timeline. Discuss how you’ll work together to keep your work moving forward. You might discuss having a standing meeting to discuss ideas or drafts or issues (bi-weekly? monthly?), your advisor’s preferences for drafts (rough? polished?), your preferences for what you’d like feedback on (early or late drafts?), reasonable turnaround time for feedback (a week? two?), and anything else you can think of to enter the collaboration mindfully.

Design a productivity alliance with your colleagues . Dissertation writing can be lonely, but writing with friends, meeting for updates over your beverage of choice, and scheduling non-working social times can help you maintain healthy energy. See our tips on accountability strategies for ideas to support each other.

Productivity strategies

Write when you’re most productive. When do you have the most energy? Focus? Creativity? When are you most able to concentrate, either because of your body rhythms or because there are fewer demands on your time? Once you determine the hours that are most productive for you (you may need to experiment at first), try to schedule those hours for dissertation work. See the collection of time management tools and planning calendars on the Learning Center’s Tips & Tools page to help you think through the possibilities. If at all possible, plan your work schedule, errands and chores so that you reserve your productive hours for the dissertation.

Put your writing time firmly on your calendar . Guard your writing time diligently. You’ll probably be invited to do other things during your productive writing times, but do your absolute best to say no and to offer alternatives. No one would hold it against you if you said no because you’re teaching a class at that time—and you wouldn’t feel guilty about saying no. Cultivating the same hard, guilt-free boundaries around your writing time will allow you preserve the time you need to get this thing done!

Develop habits that foster balance . You’ll have to work very hard to get this dissertation finished, but you can do that without sacrificing your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Think about how you can structure your work hours most efficiently so that you have time for a healthy non-work life. It can be something as small as limiting the time you spend chatting with fellow students to a few minutes instead of treating the office or lab as a space for extensive socializing. Also see above for protecting your time.

Write in spaces where you can be productive. Figure out where you work well and plan to be there during your dissertation work hours. Do you get more done on campus or at home? Do you prefer quiet and solitude, like in a library carrel? Do you prefer the buzz of background noise, like in a coffee shop? Are you aware of the UNC Libraries’ list of places to study ? If you get “stuck,” don’t be afraid to try a change of scenery. The variety may be just enough to get your brain going again.

Work where you feel comfortable . Wherever you work, make sure you have whatever lighting, furniture, and accessories you need to keep your posture and health in good order. The University Health and Safety office offers guidelines for healthy computer work . You’re more likely to spend time working in a space that doesn’t physically hurt you. Also consider how you could make your work space as inviting as possible. Some people find that it helps to have pictures of family and friends on their desk—sort of a silent “cheering section.” Some people work well with neutral colors around them, and others prefer bright colors that perk up the space. Some people like to put inspirational quotations in their workspace or encouraging notes from friends and family. You might try reconfiguring your work space to find a décor that helps you be productive.

Elicit helpful feedback from various people at various stages . You might be tempted to keep your writing to yourself until you think it’s brilliant, but you can lower the stakes tremendously if you make eliciting feedback a regular part of your writing process. Your friends can feel like a safer audience for ideas or drafts in their early stages. Someone outside your department may provide interesting perspectives from their discipline that spark your own thinking. See this handout on getting feedback for productive moments for feedback, the value of different kinds of feedback providers, and strategies for eliciting what’s most helpful to you. Make this a recurring part of your writing process. Schedule it to help you hit deadlines.

Change the writing task . When you don’t feel like writing, you can do something different or you can do something differently. Make a list of all the little things you need to do for a given section of the dissertation, no matter how small. Choose a task based on your energy level. Work on Grad School requirements: reformat margins, work on bibliography, and all that. Work on your acknowledgements. Remember all the people who have helped you and the great ideas they’ve helped you develop. You may feel more like working afterward. Write a part of your dissertation as a letter or email to a good friend who would care. Sometimes setting aside the academic prose and just writing it to a buddy can be liberating and help you get the ideas out there. You can make it sound smart later. Free-write about why you’re stuck, and perhaps even about how sick and tired you are of your dissertation/advisor/committee/etc. Venting can sometimes get you past the emotions of writer’s block and move you toward creative solutions. Open a separate document and write your thoughts on various things you’ve read. These may or may note be coherent, connected ideas, and they may or may not make it into your dissertation. They’re just notes that allow you to think things through and/or note what you want to revisit later, so it’s perfectly fine to have mistakes, weird organization, etc. Just let your mind wander on paper.

Develop habits that foster productivity and may help you develop a productive writing model for post-dissertation writing . Since dissertations are very long projects, cultivating habits that will help support your work is important. You might check out Helen Sword’s work on behavioral, artisanal, social, and emotional habits to help you get a sense of where you are in your current habits. You might try developing “rituals” of work that could help you get more done. Lighting incense, brewing a pot of a particular kind of tea, pulling out a favorite pen, and other ritualistic behaviors can signal your brain that “it is time to get down to business.” You can critically think about your work methods—not only about what you like to do, but also what actually helps you be productive. You may LOVE to listen to your favorite band while you write, for example, but if you wind up playing air guitar half the time instead of writing, it isn’t a habit worth keeping.

The point is, figure out what works for you and try to do it consistently. Your productive habits will reinforce themselves over time. If you find yourself in a situation, however, that doesn’t match your preferences, don’t let it stop you from working on your dissertation. Try to be flexible and open to experimenting. You might find some new favorites!

Motivational strategies

Schedule a regular activity with other people that involves your dissertation. Set up a coworking date with your accountability buddies so you can sit and write together. Organize a chapter swap. Make regular appointments with your advisor. Whatever you do, make sure it’s something that you’ll feel good about showing up for–and will make you feel good about showing up for others.

Try writing in sprints . Many writers have discovered that the “Pomodoro technique” (writing for 25 minutes and taking a 5 minute break) boosts their productivity by helping them set small writing goals, focus intently for short periods, and give their brains frequent rests. See how one dissertation writer describes it in this blog post on the Pomodoro technique .

Quit while you’re ahead . Sometimes it helps to stop for the day when you’re on a roll. If you’ve got a great idea that you’re developing and you know where you want to go next, write “Next, I want to introduce x, y, and z and explain how they’re related—they all have the same characteristics of 1 and 2, and that clinches my theory of Q.” Then save the file and turn off the computer, or put down the notepad. When you come back tomorrow, you will already know what to say next–and all that will be left is to say it. Hopefully, the momentum will carry you forward.

Write your dissertation in single-space . When you need a boost, double space it and be impressed with how many pages you’ve written.

Set feasible goals–and celebrate the achievements! Setting and achieving smaller, more reasonable goals ( SMART goals ) gives you success, and that success can motivate you to focus on the next small step…and the next one.

Give yourself rewards along the way . When you meet a writing goal, reward yourself with something you normally wouldn’t have or do–this can be anything that will make you feel good about your accomplishment.

Make the act of writing be its own reward . For example, if you love a particular coffee drink from your favorite shop, save it as a special drink to enjoy during your writing time.

Try giving yourself “pre-wards” —positive experiences that help you feel refreshed and recharged for the next time you write. You don’t have to “earn” these with prior work, but you do have to commit to doing the work afterward.

Commit to doing something you don’t want to do if you don’t achieve your goal. Some people find themselves motivated to work harder when there’s a negative incentive. What would you most like to avoid? Watching a movie you hate? Donating to a cause you don’t support? Whatever it is, how can you ensure enforcement? Who can help you stay accountable?

Affective strategies

Build your confidence . It is not uncommon to feel “imposter phenomenon” during the course of writing your dissertation. If you start to feel this way, it can help to take a few minutes to remember every success you’ve had along the way. You’ve earned your place, and people have confidence in you for good reasons. It’s also helpful to remember that every one of the brilliant people around you is experiencing the same lack of confidence because you’re all in a new context with new tasks and new expectations. You’re not supposed to have it all figured out. You’re supposed to have uncertainties and questions and things to learn. Remember that they wouldn’t have accepted you to the program if they weren’t confident that you’d succeed. See our self-scripting handout for strategies to turn these affirmations into a self-script that you repeat whenever you’re experiencing doubts or other negative thoughts. You can do it!

Appreciate your successes . Not meeting a goal isn’t a failure–and it certainly doesn’t make you a failure. It’s an opportunity to figure out why you didn’t meet the goal. It might simply be that the goal wasn’t achievable in the first place. See the SMART goal handout and think through what you can adjust. Even if you meant to write 1500 words, focus on the success of writing 250 or 500 words that you didn’t have before.

Remember your “why.” There are a whole host of reasons why someone might decide to pursue a PhD, both personally and professionally. Reflecting on what is motivating to you can rekindle your sense of purpose and direction.

Get outside support . Sometimes it can be really helpful to get an outside perspective on your work and anxieties as a way of grounding yourself. Participating in groups like the Dissertation Support group through CAPS and the Dissertation Boot Camp can help you see that you’re not alone in the challenges. You might also choose to form your own writing support group with colleagues inside or outside your department.

Understand and manage your procrastination . When you’re writing a long dissertation, it can be easy to procrastinate! For instance, you might put off writing because the house “isn’t clean enough” or because you’re not in the right “space” (mentally or physically) to write, so you put off writing until the house is cleaned and everything is in its right place. You may have other ways of procrastinating. It can be helpful to be self-aware of when you’re procrastinating and to consider why you are procrastinating. It may be that you’re anxious about writing the perfect draft, for example, in which case you might consider: how can I focus on writing something that just makes progress as opposed to being “perfect”? There are lots of different ways of managing procrastination; one way is to make a schedule of all the things you already have to do (when you absolutely can’t write) to help you visualize those chunks of time when you can. See this handout on procrastination for more strategies and tools for managing procrastination.

Your topic, your advisor, and your committee: Making them work for you

By the time you’ve reached this stage, you have probably already defended a dissertation proposal, chosen an advisor, and begun working with a committee. Sometimes, however, those three elements can prove to be major external sources of frustration. So how can you manage them to help yourself be as productive as possible?

Managing your topic

Remember that your topic is not carved in stone . The research and writing plan suggested in your dissertation proposal was your best vision of the project at that time, but topics evolve as the research and writing progress. You might need to tweak your research question a bit to reduce or adjust the scope, you might pare down certain parts of the project or add others. You can discuss your thoughts on these adjustments with your advisor at your check ins.

Think about variables that could be cut down and how changes would affect the length, depth, breadth, and scholarly value of your study. Could you cut one or two experiments, case studies, regions, years, theorists, or chapters and still make a valuable contribution or, even more simply, just finish?

Talk to your advisor about any changes you might make . They may be quite sympathetic to your desire to shorten an unwieldy project and may offer suggestions.

Look at other dissertations from your department to get a sense of what the chapters should look like. Reverse-outline a few chapters so you can see if there’s a pattern of typical components and how information is sequenced. These can serve as models for your own dissertation. See this video on reverse outlining to see the technique.

Managing your advisor

Embrace your evolving status . At this stage in your graduate career, you should expect to assume some independence. By the time you finish your project, you will know more about your subject than your committee does. The student/teacher relationship you have with your advisor will necessarily change as you take this big step toward becoming their colleague.

Revisit the alliance . If the interaction with your advisor isn’t matching the original agreement or the original plan isn’t working as well as it could, schedule a conversation to revisit and redesign your working relationship in a way that could work for both of you.

Be specific in your feedback requests . Tell your advisor what kind of feedback would be most helpful to you. Sometimes an advisor can be giving unhelpful or discouraging feedback without realizing it. They might make extensive sentence-level edits when you really need conceptual feedback, or vice-versa, if you only ask generally for feedback. Letting your advisor know, very specifically, what kinds of responses will be helpful to you at different stages of the writing process can help your advisor know how to help you.

Don’t hide . Advisors can be most helpful if they know what you are working on, what problems you are experiencing, and what progress you have made. If you haven’t made the progress you were hoping for, it only makes it worse if you avoid talking to them. You rob yourself of their expertise and support, and you might start a spiral of guilt, shame, and avoidance. Even if it’s difficult, it may be better to be candid about your struggles.

Talk to other students who have the same advisor . You may find that they have developed strategies for working with your advisor that could help you communicate more effectively with them.

If you have recurring problems communicating with your advisor , you can make a change. You could change advisors completely, but a less dramatic option might be to find another committee member who might be willing to serve as a “secondary advisor” and give you the kinds of feedback and support that you may need.

Managing your committee

Design the alliance . Talk with your committee members about how much they’d like to be involved in your writing process, whether they’d like to see chapter drafts or the complete draft, how frequently they’d like to meet (or not), etc. Your advisor can guide you on how committees usually work, but think carefully about how you’d like the relationship to function too.

Keep in regular contact with your committee , even if they don’t want to see your work until it has been approved by your advisor. Let them know about fellowships you receive, fruitful research excursions, the directions your thinking is taking, and the plans you have for completion. In short, keep them aware that you are working hard and making progress. Also, look for other ways to get facetime with your committee even if it’s not a one-on-one meeting. Things like speaking with them at department events, going to colloquiums or other events they organize and/or attend regularly can help you develop a relationship that could lead to other introductions and collaborations as your career progresses.

Share your struggles . Too often, we only talk to our professors when we’re making progress and hide from them the rest of the time. If you share your frustrations or setbacks with a knowledgeable committee member, they might offer some very helpful suggestions for overcoming the obstacles you face—after all, your committee members have all written major research projects before, and they have probably solved similar problems in their own work.

Stay true to yourself . Sometimes, you just don’t entirely gel with your committee, but that’s okay. It’s important not to get too hung up on how your committee does (or doesn’t) relate to you. Keep your eye on the finish line and keep moving forward.

Helpful websites:

Graduate School Diversity Initiatives : Groups and events to support the success of students identifying with an affinity group.

Graduate School Career Well : Extensive professional development resources related to writing, research, networking, job search, etc.

CAPS Therapy Groups : CAPS offers a variety of support groups, including a dissertation support group.

Advice on Research and Writing : Lots of links on writing, public speaking, dissertation management, burnout, and more.

How to be a Good Graduate Student: Marie DesJardins’ essay talks about several phases of the graduate experience, including the dissertation. She discusses some helpful hints for staying motivated and doing consistent work.

Preparing Future Faculty : This page, a joint project of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, explains the Preparing Future Faculty Programs and includes links and suggestions that may help graduate students and their advisors think constructively about the process of graduate education as a step toward faculty responsibilities.

Dissertation Tips : Kjell Erik Rudestam, Ph.D. and Rae Newton, Ph.D., authors of Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process.

The ABD Survival Guide Newsletter : Information about the ABD Survival Guide newsletter (which is free) and other services from E-Coach (many of which are not free).

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Essay and dissertation writing skills

Planning your essay

Writing your introduction

Structuring your essay

• Writing essays in science subjects
• Brief video guides to support essay planning and writing
• Writing extended essays and dissertations
• Planning your dissertation writing time

Structuring your dissertation

• Top tips for writing longer pieces of work

Advice on planning and writing essays and dissertations

University essays differ from school essays in that they are less concerned with what you know and more concerned with how you construct an argument to answer the question. This means that the starting point for writing a strong essay is to first unpick the question and to then use this to plan your essay before you start putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

A really good starting point for you are these short, downloadable Tips for Successful Essay Writing and Answering the Question resources. Both resources will help you to plan your essay, as well as giving you guidance on how to distinguish between different sorts of essay questions. 

You may find it helpful to watch this seven-minute video on six tips for essay writing which outlines how to interpret essay questions, as well as giving advice on planning and structuring your writing:

Different disciplines will have different expectations for essay structure and you should always refer to your Faculty or Department student handbook or course Canvas site for more specific guidance.

However, broadly speaking, all essays share the following features:

Essays need an introduction to establish and focus the parameters of the discussion that will follow. You may find it helpful to divide the introduction into areas to demonstrate your breadth and engagement with the essay question. You might define specific terms in the introduction to show your engagement with the essay question; for example, ‘This is a large topic which has been variously discussed by many scientists and commentators. The principal tension is between the views of X and Y who define the main issues as…’ Breadth might be demonstrated by showing the range of viewpoints from which the essay question could be considered; for example, ‘A variety of factors including economic, social and political, influence A and B. This essay will focus on the social and economic aspects, with particular emphasis on…..’

Watch this two-minute video to learn more about how to plan and structure an introduction:

The main body of the essay should elaborate on the issues raised in the introduction and develop an argument(s) that answers the question. It should consist of a number of self-contained paragraphs each of which makes a specific point and provides some form of evidence to support the argument being made. Remember that a clear argument requires that each paragraph explicitly relates back to the essay question or the developing argument.

• Conclusion: An essay should end with a conclusion that reiterates the argument in light of the evidence you have provided; you shouldn’t use the conclusion to introduce new information.
• References: You need to include references to the materials you’ve used to write your essay. These might be in the form of footnotes, in-text citations, or a bibliography at the end. Different systems exist for citing references and different disciplines will use various approaches to citation. Ask your tutor which method(s) you should be using for your essay and also consult your Department or Faculty webpages for specific guidance in your discipline. 

Essay writing in science subjects

If you are writing an essay for a science subject you may need to consider additional areas, such as how to present data or diagrams. This five-minute video gives you some advice on how to approach your reading list, planning which information to include in your answer and how to write for your scientific audience – the video is available here:

A PDF providing further guidance on writing science essays for tutorials is available to download.

Short videos to support your essay writing skills

There are many other resources at Oxford that can help support your essay writing skills and if you are short on time, the Oxford Study Skills Centre has produced a number of short (2-minute) videos covering different aspects of essay writing, including:

• Approaching different types of essay questions  
• Structuring your essay  
• Writing an introduction  
• Making use of evidence in your essay writing  
• Writing your conclusion

Extended essays and dissertations

Longer pieces of writing like extended essays and dissertations may seem like quite a challenge from your regular essay writing. The important point is to start with a plan and to focus on what the question is asking. A PDF providing further guidance on planning Humanities and Social Science dissertations is available to download.

Planning your time effectively

Try not to leave the writing until close to your deadline, instead start as soon as you have some ideas to put down onto paper. Your early drafts may never end up in the final work, but the work of committing your ideas to paper helps to formulate not only your ideas, but the method of structuring your writing to read well and conclude firmly.

Although many students and tutors will say that the introduction is often written last, it is a good idea to begin to think about what will go into it early on. For example, the first draft of your introduction should set out your argument, the information you have, and your methods, and it should give a structure to the chapters and sections you will write. Your introduction will probably change as time goes on but it will stand as a guide to your entire extended essay or dissertation and it will help you to keep focused.

The structure of  extended essays or dissertations will vary depending on the question and discipline, but may include some or all of the following:

• The background information to - and context for - your research. This often takes the form of a literature review.
• Explanation of the focus of your work.
• Explanation of the value of this work to scholarship on the topic.
• List of the aims and objectives of the work and also the issues which will not be covered because they are outside its scope.

The main body of your extended essay or dissertation will probably include your methodology, the results of research, and your argument(s) based on your findings.

The conclusion is to summarise the value your research has added to the topic, and any further lines of research you would undertake given more time or resources. 

Tips on writing longer pieces of work

Approaching each chapter of a dissertation as a shorter essay can make the task of writing a dissertation seem less overwhelming. Each chapter will have an introduction, a main body where the argument is developed and substantiated with evidence, and a conclusion to tie things together. Unlike in a regular essay, chapter conclusions may also introduce the chapter that will follow, indicating how the chapters are connected to one another and how the argument will develop through your dissertation.

For further guidance, watch this two-minute video on writing longer pieces of work . 

Systems & Services

Access Student Self Service

• Student Self Service
• Self Service guide
• Registration guide
• Libraries search
• OXCORT - see TMS
• GSS - see Student Self Service
• The Careers Service
• Oxford University Sport
• Online store
• Gardens, Libraries and Museums
• Researchers Skills Toolkit
• LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com)
• Access Guide
• Lecture Lists
• Exam Papers (OXAM)
• Oxford Talks

Latest student news

CAN'T FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

Try our extensive database of FAQs or submit your own question...

Ask a question

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="study skills for dissertation"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Guide to writing your thesis/dissertation, definition of dissertation and thesis.

The dissertation or thesis is a scholarly treatise that substantiates a specific point of view as a result of original research that is conducted by students during their graduate study. At Cornell, the thesis is a requirement for the receipt of the M.A. and M.S. degrees and some professional master’s degrees. The dissertation is a requirement of the Ph.D. degree.

Formatting Requirement and Standards

The Graduate School sets the minimum format for your thesis or dissertation, while you, your special committee, and your advisor/chair decide upon the content and length. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other mechanical issues are your sole responsibility. Generally, the thesis and dissertation should conform to the standards of leading academic journals in your field. The Graduate School does not monitor the thesis or dissertation for mechanics, content, or style.

“Papers Option” Dissertation or Thesis

A “papers option” is available only to students in certain fields, which are listed on the Fields Permitting the Use of Papers Option page , or by approved petition. If you choose the papers option, your dissertation or thesis is organized as a series of relatively independent chapters or papers that you have submitted or will be submitting to journals in the field. You must be the only author or the first author of the papers to be used in the dissertation. The papers-option dissertation or thesis must meet all format and submission requirements, and a singular referencing convention must be used throughout.

ProQuest Electronic Submissions

The dissertation and thesis become permanent records of your original research, and in the case of doctoral research, the Graduate School requires publication of the dissertation and abstract in its original form. All Cornell master’s theses and doctoral dissertations require an electronic submission through ProQuest, which fills orders for paper or digital copies of the thesis and dissertation and makes a digital version available online via their subscription database, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses . For master’s theses, only the abstract is available. ProQuest provides worldwide distribution of your work from the master copy. You retain control over your dissertation and are free to grant publishing rights as you see fit. The formatting requirements contained in this guide meet all ProQuest specifications.

Copies of Dissertation and Thesis

Copies of Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses are also uploaded in PDF format to the Cornell Library Repository, eCommons . A print copy of each master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation is submitted to Cornell University Library by ProQuest.

Dissertation Structure & Layout 101: How to structure your dissertation, thesis or research project.

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) Reviewed By: David Phair (PhD) | July 2019

So, you’ve got a decent understanding of what a dissertation is , you’ve chosen your topic and hopefully you’ve received approval for your research proposal . Awesome! Now its time to start the actual dissertation or thesis writing journey.

To craft a high-quality document, the very first thing you need to understand is dissertation structure . In this post, we’ll walk you through the generic dissertation structure and layout, step by step. We’ll start with the big picture, and then zoom into each chapter to briefly discuss the core contents. If you’re just starting out on your research journey, you should start with this post, which covers the big-picture process of how to write a dissertation or thesis .

*The Caveat *

In this post, we’ll be discussing a traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout, which is generally used for social science research across universities, whether in the US, UK, Europe or Australia. However, some universities may have small variations on this structure (extra chapters, merged chapters, slightly different ordering, etc).

So, always check with your university if they have a prescribed structure or layout that they expect you to work with. If not, it’s safe to assume the structure we’ll discuss here is suitable. And even if they do have a prescribed structure, you’ll still get value from this post as we’ll explain the core contents of each section.  

Overview: S tructuring a dissertation or thesis

• Acknowledgements page
• Abstract (or executive summary)
• Table of contents , list of figures and tables
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Literature review
• Chapter 3: Methodology
• Chapter 4: Results
• Chapter 5: Discussion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Reference list

As I mentioned, some universities will have slight variations on this structure. For example, they want an additional “personal reflection chapter”, or they might prefer the results and discussion chapter to be merged into one. Regardless, the overarching flow will always be the same, as this flow reflects the research process , which we discussed here – i.e.:

• The introduction chapter presents the core research question and aims .
• The literature review chapter assesses what the current research says about this question.
• The methodology, results and discussion chapters go about undertaking new research about this question.
• The conclusion chapter (attempts to) answer the core research question .

In other words, the dissertation structure and layout reflect the research process of asking a well-defined question(s), investigating, and then answering the question – see below.

To restate that – the structure and layout of a dissertation reflect the flow of the overall research process . This is essential to understand, as each chapter will make a lot more sense if you “get” this concept. If you’re not familiar with the research process, read this post before going further.

Right. Now that we’ve covered the big picture, let’s dive a little deeper into the details of each section and chapter. Oh and by the way, you can also grab our free dissertation/thesis template here to help speed things up.

The title page of your dissertation is the very first impression the marker will get of your work, so it pays to invest some time thinking about your title. But what makes for a good title? A strong title needs to be 3 things:

• Succinct (not overly lengthy or verbose)
• Specific (not vague or ambiguous)
• Representative of the research you’re undertaking (clearly linked to your research questions)

Typically, a good title includes mention of the following:

• The broader area of the research (i.e. the overarching topic)
• The specific focus of your research (i.e. your specific context)
• Indication of research design (e.g. quantitative , qualitative , or  mixed methods ).

For example:

A quantitative investigation [research design] into the antecedents of organisational trust [broader area] in the UK retail forex trading market [specific context/area of focus].

Again, some universities may have specific requirements regarding the format and structure of the title, so it’s worth double-checking expectations with your institution (if there’s no mention in the brief or study material).

Acknowledgements

This page provides you with an opportunity to say thank you to those who helped you along your research journey. Generally, it’s optional (and won’t count towards your marks), but it is academic best practice to include this.

So, who do you say thanks to? Well, there’s no prescribed requirements, but it’s common to mention the following people:

• Your dissertation supervisor or committee.
• Any professors, lecturers or academics that helped you understand the topic or methodologies.
• Any tutors, mentors or advisors.
• Your family and friends, especially spouse (for adult learners studying part-time).

There’s no need for lengthy rambling. Just state who you’re thankful to and for what (e.g. thank you to my supervisor, John Doe, for his endless patience and attentiveness) – be sincere. In terms of length, you should keep this to a page or less.

Abstract or executive summary

The dissertation abstract (or executive summary for some degrees) serves to provide the first-time reader (and marker or moderator) with a big-picture view of your research project. It should give them an understanding of the key insights and findings from the research, without them needing to read the rest of the report – in other words, it should be able to stand alone .

For it to stand alone, your abstract should cover the following key points (at a minimum):

• Your research questions and aims – what key question(s) did your research aim to answer?
• Your methodology – how did you go about investigating the topic and finding answers to your research question(s)?
• Your findings – following your own research, what did do you discover?
• Your conclusions – based on your findings, what conclusions did you draw? What answers did you find to your research question(s)?

So, in much the same way the dissertation structure mimics the research process, your abstract or executive summary should reflect the research process, from the initial stage of asking the original question to the final stage of answering that question.

In practical terms, it’s a good idea to write this section up last , once all your core chapters are complete. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing and rewriting this section multiple times (just wasting time). For a step by step guide on how to write a strong executive summary, check out this post .

Need a helping hand?

Table of contents

This section is straightforward. You’ll typically present your table of contents (TOC) first, followed by the two lists – figures and tables. I recommend that you use Microsoft Word’s automatic table of contents generator to generate your TOC. If you’re not familiar with this functionality, the video below explains it simply:

If you find that your table of contents is overly lengthy, consider removing one level of depth. Oftentimes, this can be done without detracting from the usefulness of the TOC.

Right, now that the “admin” sections are out of the way, its time to move on to your core chapters. These chapters are the heart of your dissertation and are where you’ll earn the marks. The first chapter is the introduction chapter – as you would expect, this is the time to introduce your research…

It’s important to understand that even though you’ve provided an overview of your research in your abstract, your introduction needs to be written as if the reader has not read that (remember, the abstract is essentially a standalone document). So, your introduction chapter needs to start from the very beginning, and should address the following questions:

• What will you be investigating (in plain-language, big picture-level)?
• Why is that worth investigating? How is it important to academia or business? How is it sufficiently original?
• What are your research aims and research question(s)? Note that the research questions can sometimes be presented at the end of the literature review (next chapter).
• What is the scope of your study? In other words, what will and won’t you cover ?
• How will you approach your research? In other words, what methodology will you adopt?
• How will you structure your dissertation? What are the core chapters and what will you do in each of them?

These are just the bare basic requirements for your intro chapter. Some universities will want additional bells and whistles in the intro chapter, so be sure to carefully read your brief or consult your research supervisor.

If done right, your introduction chapter will set a clear direction for the rest of your dissertation. Specifically, it will make it clear to the reader (and marker) exactly what you’ll be investigating, why that’s important, and how you’ll be going about the investigation. Conversely, if your introduction chapter leaves a first-time reader wondering what exactly you’ll be researching, you’ve still got some work to do.

Now that you’ve set a clear direction with your introduction chapter, the next step is the literature review . In this section, you will analyse the existing research (typically academic journal articles and high-quality industry publications), with a view to understanding the following questions:

• What does the literature currently say about the topic you’re investigating?
• Is the literature lacking or well established? Is it divided or in disagreement?
• How does your research fit into the bigger picture?
• How does your research contribute something original?
• How does the methodology of previous studies help you develop your own?

Depending on the nature of your study, you may also present a conceptual framework towards the end of your literature review, which you will then test in your actual research.

Again, some universities will want you to focus on some of these areas more than others, some will have additional or fewer requirements, and so on. Therefore, as always, its important to review your brief and/or discuss with your supervisor, so that you know exactly what’s expected of your literature review chapter.

Now that you’ve investigated the current state of knowledge in your literature review chapter and are familiar with the existing key theories, models and frameworks, its time to design your own research. Enter the methodology chapter – the most “science-ey” of the chapters…

In this chapter, you need to address two critical questions:

• Exactly HOW will you carry out your research (i.e. what is your intended research design)?
• Exactly WHY have you chosen to do things this way (i.e. how do you justify your design)?

Remember, the dissertation part of your degree is first and foremost about developing and demonstrating research skills . Therefore, the markers want to see that you know which methods to use, can clearly articulate why you’ve chosen then, and know how to deploy them effectively.

Importantly, this chapter requires detail – don’t hold back on the specifics. State exactly what you’ll be doing, with who, when, for how long, etc. Moreover, for every design choice you make, make sure you justify it.

In practice, you will likely end up coming back to this chapter once you’ve undertaken all your data collection and analysis, and revise it based on changes you made during the analysis phase. This is perfectly fine. Its natural for you to add an additional analysis technique, scrap an old one, etc based on where your data lead you. Of course, I’m talking about small changes here – not a fundamental switch from qualitative to quantitative, which will likely send your supervisor in a spin!

You’ve now collected your data and undertaken your analysis, whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods. In this chapter, you’ll present the raw results of your analysis . For example, in the case of a quant study, you’ll present the demographic data, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics , etc.

Typically, Chapter 4 is simply a presentation and description of the data, not a discussion of the meaning of the data. In other words, it’s descriptive, rather than analytical – the meaning is discussed in Chapter 5. However, some universities will want you to combine chapters 4 and 5, so that you both present and interpret the meaning of the data at the same time. Check with your institution what their preference is.

Now that you’ve presented the data analysis results, its time to interpret and analyse them. In other words, its time to discuss what they mean, especially in relation to your research question(s).

What you discuss here will depend largely on your chosen methodology. For example, if you’ve gone the quantitative route, you might discuss the relationships between variables . If you’ve gone the qualitative route, you might discuss key themes and the meanings thereof. It all depends on what your research design choices were.

Most importantly, you need to discuss your results in relation to your research questions and aims, as well as the existing literature. What do the results tell you about your research questions? Are they aligned with the existing research or at odds? If so, why might this be? Dig deep into your findings and explain what the findings suggest, in plain English.

The final chapter – you’ve made it! Now that you’ve discussed your interpretation of the results, its time to bring it back to the beginning with the conclusion chapter . In other words, its time to (attempt to) answer your original research question s (from way back in chapter 1). Clearly state what your conclusions are in terms of your research questions. This might feel a bit repetitive, as you would have touched on this in the previous chapter, but its important to bring the discussion full circle and explicitly state your answer(s) to the research question(s).

Next, you’ll typically discuss the implications of your findings . In other words, you’ve answered your research questions – but what does this mean for the real world (or even for academia)? What should now be done differently, given the new insight you’ve generated?

Lastly, you should discuss the limitations of your research, as well as what this means for future research in the area. No study is perfect, especially not a Masters-level. Discuss the shortcomings of your research. Perhaps your methodology was limited, perhaps your sample size was small or not representative, etc, etc. Don’t be afraid to critique your work – the markers want to see that you can identify the limitations of your work. This is a strength, not a weakness. Be brutal!

This marks the end of your core chapters – woohoo! From here on out, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

The reference list is straightforward. It should contain a list of all resources cited in your dissertation, in the required format, e.g. APA , Harvard, etc.

It’s essential that you use reference management software for your dissertation. Do NOT try handle your referencing manually – its far too error prone. On a reference list of multiple pages, you’re going to make mistake. To this end, I suggest considering either Mendeley or Zotero. Both are free and provide a very straightforward interface to ensure that your referencing is 100% on point. I’ve included a simple how-to video for the Mendeley software (my personal favourite) below:

Some universities may ask you to include a bibliography, as opposed to a reference list. These two things are not the same . A bibliography is similar to a reference list, except that it also includes resources which informed your thinking but were not directly cited in your dissertation. So, double-check your brief and make sure you use the right one.

The very last piece of the puzzle is the appendix or set of appendices. This is where you’ll include any supporting data and evidence. Importantly, supporting is the keyword here.

Your appendices should provide additional “nice to know”, depth-adding information, which is not critical to the core analysis. Appendices should not be used as a way to cut down word count (see this post which covers how to reduce word count ). In other words, don’t place content that is critical to the core analysis here, just to save word count. You will not earn marks on any content in the appendices, so don’t try to play the system!

Time to recap…

And there you have it – the traditional dissertation structure and layout, from A-Z. To recap, the core structure for a dissertation or thesis is (typically) as follows:

• Acknowledgments page

Most importantly, the core chapters should reflect the research process (asking, investigating and answering your research question). Moreover, the research question(s) should form the golden thread throughout your dissertation structure. Everything should revolve around the research questions, and as you’ve seen, they should form both the start point (i.e. introduction chapter) and the endpoint (i.e. conclusion chapter).

I hope this post has provided you with clarity about the traditional dissertation/thesis structure and layout. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below, or feel free to get in touch with us. Also, be sure to check out the rest of the  Grad Coach Blog .

Psst... there’s more!

This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

36 Comments

many thanks i found it very useful

Glad to hear that, Arun. Good luck writing your dissertation.

Such clear practical logical advice. I very much needed to read this to keep me focused in stead of fretting.. Perfect now ready to start my research!

what about scientific fields like computer or engineering thesis what is the difference in the structure? thank you very much

Thanks so much this helped me a lot!

Very helpful and accessible. What I like most is how practical the advice is along with helpful tools/ links.

Thanks Ade!

Thank you so much sir.. It was really helpful..

You’re welcome!

Hi! How many words maximum should contain the abstract?

Thank you so much 😊 Find this at the right moment

You’re most welcome. Good luck with your dissertation.

best ever benefit i got on right time thank you

Many times Clarity and vision of destination of dissertation is what makes the difference between good ,average and great researchers the same way a great automobile driver is fast with clarity of address and Clear weather conditions .

I guess Great researcher = great ideas + knowledge + great and fast data collection and modeling + great writing + high clarity on all these

You have given immense clarity from start to end.

Morning. Where will I write the definitions of what I’m referring to in my report?

Thank you so much Derek, I was almost lost! Thanks a tonnnn! Have a great day!

Thanks ! so concise and valuable

This was very helpful. Clear and concise. I know exactly what to do now.

Thank you for allowing me to go through briefly. I hope to find time to continue.

Really useful to me. Thanks a thousand times

Very interesting! It will definitely set me and many more for success. highly recommended.

Thank you soo much sir, for the opportunity to express my skills

Usefull, thanks a lot. Really clear

Very nice and easy to understand. Thank you .

That was incredibly useful. Thanks Grad Coach Crew!

My stress level just dropped at least 15 points after watching this. Just starting my thesis for my grad program and I feel a lot more capable now! Thanks for such a clear and helpful video, Emma and the GradCoach team!

Do we need to mention the number of words the dissertation contains in the main document?

It depends on your university’s requirements, so it would be best to check with them 🙂

Such a helpful post to help me get started with structuring my masters dissertation, thank you!

Great video; I appreciate that helpful information

It is so necessary or avital course

This blog is very informative for my research. Thank you

Doctoral students are required to fill out the National Research Council’s Survey of Earned Doctorates

wow this is an amazing gain in my life

This is so good

How can i arrange my specific objectives in my dissertation?

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• What Is A Literature Review (In A Dissertation Or Thesis) - Grad Coach - […] is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

• Harvard Library
• Research Guides
• Harvard Graduate School of Design - Frances Loeb Library

Write and Cite

• Theses and Dissertations
• Academic Integrity
• Using Sources and AI
• Academic Writing
• From Research to Writing
• GSD Writing Services
• Grants and Fellowships
• Reading, Notetaking, and Time Management

What is a thesis?

What is a dissertation, getting started, staying on track.

A thesis is a long-term project that you work on over the course of a semester or a year. Theses have a very wide variety of styles and content, so we encourage you to look at prior examples and work closely with faculty to develop yours. 

Before you begin, make sure that you are familiar with the dissertation genre—what it is for and what it looks like.

Generally speaking, a dissertation’s purpose is to prove that you have the expertise necessary to fulfill your doctoral-degree requirements by showing depth of knowledge and independent thinking.

The form of a dissertation may vary by discipline. Be sure to follow the specific guidelines of your department.

• PhD This site directs candidates to the GSAS website about dissertations , with links to checklists,  planning, formatting, acknowledgments, submission, and publishing options. There is also a link to guidelines for the prospectus . Consult with your committee chair about specific requirements and standards for your dissertation.
• DDES This document covers planning, patent filing, submission guidelines, publishing options, formatting guidelines, sample pages, citation guidelines, and a list of common errors to avoid. There is also a link to guidelines for the prospectus .
• Scholarly Pursuits (GSAS) This searchable booklet from Harvard GSAS is a comprehensive guide to writing dissertations, dissertation-fellowship applications, academic journal articles, and academic job documents.

Finding an original topic can be a daunting and overwhelming task. These key concepts can help you focus and save time.

Finding a topic for your thesis or dissertation should start with a research question that excites or at least interests you. A rigorous, engaging, and original project will require continuous curiosity about your topic, about your own thoughts on the topic, and about what other scholars have said on your topic. Avoid getting boxed in by thinking you know what you want to say from the beginning; let your research and your writing evolve as you explore and fine-tune your focus through constant questioning and exploration.

Get a sense of the broader picture before you narrow your focus and attempt to frame an argument. Read, skim, and otherwise familiarize yourself with what other scholars have done in areas related to your proposed topic. Briefly explore topics tangentially related to yours to broaden your perspective and increase your chance of finding a unique angle to pursue.

Critical Reading

Critical reading is the opposite of passive reading. Instead of merely reading for information to absorb, critical reading also involves careful, sustained thinking about what you are reading. This process may include analyzing the author’s motives and assumptions, asking what might be left out of the discussion, considering what you agree with or disagree with in the author’s statements and why you agree or disagree, and exploring connections or contradictions between scholarly arguments. Here is a resource to help hone your critical-reading skills:

http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/criticalread.pdf

Conversation

Your thesis or dissertation will incorporate some ideas from other scholars whose work you researched. By reading critically and following your curiosity, you will develop your own ideas and claims, and these contributions are the core of your project. You will also acknowledge the work of scholars who came before you, and you must accurately and fairly attribute this work and define your place within the larger discussion. Make sure that you know how to quote, summarize, paraphrase ,  integrate , and cite secondary sources to avoid plagiarism and to show the depth and breadth of your knowledge.

A thesis is a long-term, large project that involves both research and writing; it is easy to lose focus, motivation, and momentum. Here are suggestions for achieving the result you want in the time you have.

The dissertation is probably the largest project you have undertaken, and a lot of the work is self-directed. The project can feel daunting or even overwhelming unless you break it down into manageable pieces and create a timeline for completing each smaller task. Be realistic but also challenge yourself, and be forgiving of yourself if you miss a self-imposed deadline here and there.

Your program will also have specific deadlines for different requirements, including establishing a committee, submitting a prospectus, completing the dissertation, defending the dissertation, and submitting your work. Consult your department’s website for these dates and incorporate them into the timeline for your work.

Accountability

Sometimes self-imposed deadlines do not feel urgent unless there is accountability to someone beyond yourself. To increase your motivation to complete tasks on schedule, set dates with your committee chair to submit pre-determined pieces of a chapter. You can also arrange with a fellow doctoral student to check on each other’s progress. Research and writing can be lonely, so it is also nice to share that journey with someone and support each other through the process.

Common Pitfalls

The most common challenges for students writing a dissertation are writer’s block, information-overload, and the compulsion to keep researching forever.

There are many strategies for avoiding writer’s block, such as freewriting, outlining, taking a walk, starting in the middle, and creating an ideal work environment for your particular learning style. Pay attention to what helps you and try different things until you find what works.

Efficient researching techniques are essential to avoiding information-overload. Here are a couple of resources about strategies for finding sources and quickly obtaining essential information from them.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_in_literature_detailed_discussion/reading_criticism.html

https://students.dartmouth.edu/academic-skills/learning-resources/learning-strategies/reading-techniques

Finally, remember that there is always more to learn and your dissertation cannot incorporate everything. Follow your curiosity but also set limits on the scope of your work. It helps to create a folder entitled “future projects” for topics and sources that interest you but that do not fit neatly into the dissertation. Also remember that future scholars will build off of your work, so leave something for them to do.

Browsing through theses and dissertations of the past can help to get a sense of your options and gain inspiration but be careful to use current guidelines and refer to your committee instead of relying on these examples for form or formatting.

DASH Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard.

HOLLIS Harvard Library’s catalog provides access to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global .

MIT Architecture has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

Rhode Island School of Design has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

University of South Florida has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.

Harvard GSD has a list of projects, including theses and professors’ research.

• << Previous: Reading, Notetaking, and Time Management
• Next: Publishing >>
• Last Updated: Jul 16, 2024 4:23 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/gsd/write

Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy

• 301 Academic Skills Centre
• Study skills online

Dissertation planning

Information on how to plan and manage your dissertation project.

What is research?

A dissertation project is an opportunity to pursue your own ideas in an environment of relative intellectual freedom.

It also present a number of new challenges relating to the scale, scope and structure of a piece of work that is likely to be more substantial than any you have undertaken before.

These resources will help you to break the process down and explore ways to plan and structure your research and organise your written work.

A research-led university

Sheffield prides itself on being a  research-led university . Crucially, this means that teaching is informed by cutting-edge research in the academic field.

It also means that you are learning in an environment where you develop and use research skills as you progress. The most successful students tend to develop research skills early and use them consistently.

Research in higher education

Research sometimes just means finding out information about a topic. However, in the HE setting, specific understandings of 'research' carry a lot of weight.

The classic definition is that research leads to an original ' contribution to knowledge ' in a particular field of inquiry by defining an important question or problem and then answering or solving it in a systematic way.

You will build this contribution on the foundation of a robust structure of primary and secondary sources and evidence.

Differences across disciplines

Depending on the discipline you work in, there will be different ways of designing and articulating a research problem and different methods for answering these problems.

Not everything about research is 'original'. Sometimes the majority (or even all) of a research project will involve documenting or summarising information or ideas that are already available.

Not all research leads to answers. Sometimes research produces unusable results, or the inquiry leads to only more questions. Sometimes the originality of a research project is that it straddles more than one field of inquiry.

Some examples of approaches to research and what that contribution to knowledge might look like include:

• Explore an under-researched area
• Develop or test out a new methodology or technique
• Extend or develop a previous study
• Review the knowledge thus far in a specific field
• Makes connections between disciplines
• Replicate an existing study/approach in a different setting
• Apply a theoretical idea to a real world problem

This all adds up to the fact that research is a complicated topic that seems to mean a lot to academic experts but is very difficult to understand intimately when you are a novice.

As someone new to research, you will need to do some work to find out how research is conceived of and done in your discipline.

301 Recommends:

Our Dissertation Planning Essentials workshop will look at the initial stages and challenges of preparing for a large-scale dissertation project.

Our Dissertation Writing workshop will break down the process of writing a dissertation and explore approaches to voice and style to help develop a way of writing academically.

Our Creativity and Research interactive workshop looks at how to identify, develop and apply your creativity and innovation skills to the research process, whatever stage you're at. In our Creativity and Problem Solving interactive workshop you'll learn how to identify and develop your creativity and innovation skills, address problems and challenges, explore creative models and strategies, and look at how you can apply this to your academic work.

Our Part 1 workshop on Setting Research Priorities will help to break down the research process by identifying the key information that you need to have in place to develop your project. It will help you to prioritise key tasks and create a project workflow to set targets, track progress and reach key milestones. Part 2 will revisit that workflow to assess progress. It will encourage you to reflect on your project so far, identify opportunities for feedback and review your intermediate targets to ensure that you stay on track towards your deadline.

Explore this Illustrated Guide to a PhD  by Matt Might as a visualisation of research to help you identify how you can develop your research ideas.  

Our Video Dissemination workshop will give you an insight into the best practices for using video to disseminate research and communicate your ideas. It will look at styles, common communication techniques and the pedagogy of visual mediums, as well as top production tips for making your content engaging, informative and professional.

Research proposals

A research proposal often needs to encompass many things: it is part description, part analysis, part review, part guesswork, part advert, part CV.

Writing a research proposal that can achieve all these things is an important first step towards realising your project idea. Your research proposal will allow you to receive some early feedback on your ideas and will act as a guide as you plan and develop your project more fully.

But how can you explain what you hope to discover in the project before you’ve done the research?

There are a number of things that you can do to make sure that your research proposal is professional, realistic and relevant:

• Read around your topic of interest as much as possible. Getting a feel for what other kinds of research have been done will give you a much clearer idea of where your project might fit in. 
• Create a mind map of relevant topics to explore the links and connections between themes. Which branches of your mind map seem most promising as an area for enquiry?
• Be realistic. You may dream of making the next big breakthrough in the field, but this is probably unlikely! Set your self aims and objectives that are realistic within the timescales of your project. 
• Finally, make sure you follow your department guidelines and include everything that you need to in your proposal. 

301 Recommends: Research Project Design Template

Make a copy of this Research project design template (google doc) to capture the key information you need to complete your research proposal.

Research ethics

Whenever you undertake research, no matter what level you are working at, it is always important to consider the immediate and continued impact of your project.

All research should be designed to ensure that individuals involved in the project as subjects or participants are treated with respect and consideration. In practice, this means that:

• Participants have a right to full knowledge about the project and what its results will be used for.
• You should also be mindful of an individual's rights to privacy and confidentiality.
• You should consider the issue of data protection, how you will store project data safely and how long you will need to retain the data
• The physical, emotional and psychological well-being of participants and researchers should be prioritised in your research design.
• Environmental impacts of the research should be considered and mitigated where possible.
• Longer-term impacts, for example, if you are planning to publish findings from the project, should also be considered. 

It is perhaps easy to think that working directly with living participants raises the most pressing ethical questions.

However, you equally need to give very important consideration to the ethics of working in text-based subjects, especially when considering unpublished material (see also copyright).

Your department will have its own guidelines on the area of research ethics and you should certainly consult your tutor or supervisor as s/he will be able to give you detailed topic-specific guidance. More more guidance on ethics in research, visit Research Services Ethics and Integrity pages here . 

Project management

The key to completing a research project successfully is to invest time in planning and organising your project.

A student research project, whether a dissertation or a research placement, will usually involve tight timescales and deadlines. Given the wealth of tasks involved in a typical dissertation project, this can seriously limit the time available for actual data collection or research. 

Setting yourself clear and achievable aims and objectives will help to ensure that the project is manageable within the timeframe available.

As an early stage of the planning process, have a go at breaking your project down into its constituent parts: i.e. all of the tasks that you will need to complete between now and the deadline. How long will each of them take? For example:

Every project will have its own specific tasks, but breaking them down in this way will allow you to start planning ahead, adding milestones to your calendar and chipping away at the project task by task. 

301 Recommends: Trello

Trello is an online planning tool that allows you to create a project workflow. It is a simple and accessible tool that allows you to set yourself deadlines, colour code tasks and share your project plan with collaborators. View our example Dissertation Planning Trello board here and some guidance for students on using Trello (Linked In Learning) .

Working with your supervisor

Your supervisor will be your first point of contact for advice on your project and to help you to resolve issues arising. 

Remember, your supervisor will have a busy schedule and may be supervising several students at once. Although they will do their best to support you, they may not be able to get back to you right away and may be limited in their availability to meet you. 

There are a number of things that you can do to make the most out of the relationship. Some strategies to consider include:

• Share plans/ideas/work-in-progress with your supervisor early 
• Plan for meetings, sketch out an informal agenda 
• Write down your main questions before the meeting. Don’t leave without answers!
• Be receptive to feedback and criticism
• Take notes/record the meeting on a smartphone with your supervisor’s permission!)

301 recommends: Supervisor and supervisee relationships interactive digital workshop

This interactive resource will help you to develop a positive and productive working relationship with your supervisor. 

Top Tips and resources

• Read other dissertations from students in your department/discipline to get an idea of how similar projects are organised and presented. 
• Break your project down into its constituent parts and treat each chapter as an essay in its own right.
• Choose a topic that interests you and will sustain your interest, not just for a few days, but for a few months!
• Write up as you go along - writing can and should be part of all stages of the diissertation planning and developing process. 
• Keep good records – don’t throw anything out!
• If in doubt, talk to your supervisor.

Internal resources

• Library -  Research and Critical Thinking Resources
• Library –  Digital Skills for Dissertations : Information, resources and training on developing your dissertation projects, including finding and referencing sources, your literature review and creating and using images and infographics.
• ELTC -  Writing Advisory Service
• 301 -  Dissertation Essentials lecture recording
• 301 -  Dissertation Writing lecture recording

External resources

• The Theis Whisperer -  Writing Blog
• Gradhacker -  When it comes to dissertations, done is best

Related information

Scientific writing and lab reports

Proofreading

Academic Skills Certificate

Summer support

Are you getting ready to start a new academic year? Or preparing for summer resits?

We have a whole host of support ready for you to access whenever you need it. Our online resources allow you to develop your academic skills at your own pace, building on your existing skills ready for whatever you are facing next.

Take advantage of our curated Level Up Your Skills packages and start working through resources for your upcoming level of study, or use study skills online to find specific topics you want to work on.

Sheffield is a research university with a global reputation for excellence. We're a member of the Russell Group: one of the 24 leading UK universities for research and teaching.

Study Advice guides and videos

• Starting University
• Assessment and Feedback
• Critical Analysis: Thinking, Reading, and Writing
• Digital Study Skills

Dissertations and Major Projects

Starting research for your dissertation, your research question, managing time for your dissertation, structuring your dissertation.

• Literature Reviews

Writing up your Dissertation

Finishing your dissertation.

• Lectures and Seminars
• Postgraduate Study
• Presentations
• Referencing and Academic Integrity
• Reflective Learning
• Report Writing
• Researching your Assignments
• Time Management
• Dissertations and major projects LibGuide This guide will help you apply your research skills to finding a question, planning, conducting, and communicating your research, and completing your project successfully.

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Starting research for your dissertation video on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Starting research for your dissertation Read the transcript
• Defining your Research Question
• Finalising your Research Question

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Defining a research question video on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Defining your research question Read the transcript

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Managing time for your dissertation on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Managing time for your dissertation transcript Read the transcript.

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Structuring your dissertation video on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Structuring your dissertation transcript Read the transcript.
• Doing your Literature Review
• Masters Literature Reviews
• Literature reviews LibGuide The advice in this guide will help you navigate both the research process and the production of the final literature review.

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Doing your literature review video on YuJa (University username and password required)

Read the script for the video (PDF)

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Writing up your Dissertation video on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Writing up your dissertation transcript Read the transcript.

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Finishing off your dissertation video on YuJa (University username and password required)

• Finishing your dissertation transcript Read the transcript.
• << Previous: Digital Study Skills
• Next: Essays >>
• Last Updated: Jul 12, 2024 2:01 PM
• URL: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/study-advice-guides

• LEARNING SKILLS

Study Skills

Search SkillsYouNeed:

Learning Skills:

• A - Z List of Learning Skills
• What is Learning?
• Learning Approaches
• Learning Styles
• 8 Types of Learning Styles
• Understanding Your Preferences to Aid Learning
• Lifelong Learning
• Decisions to Make Before Applying to University
• Top Tips for Surviving Student Life
• Living Online: Education and Learning
• 8 Ways to Embrace Technology-Based Learning Approaches
• Critical Thinking Skills
• Critical Thinking and Fake News
• Understanding and Addressing Conspiracy Theories
• Critical Analysis
• Top Tips for Study
• Staying Motivated When Studying
• Student Budgeting and Economic Skills
• Getting Organised for Study

Finding Time to Study

• Sources of Information
• Assessing Internet Information
• Using Apps to Support Study

What is Theory?

Styles of Writing

Effective Reading

• Critical Reading
• Note-Taking from Reading
• Note-Taking for Verbal Exchanges

Planning an Essay

• How to Write an Essay
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Essay Writing
• How to Write a Report

Academic Referencing

Assignment Finishing Touches

• Reflecting on Marked Work
• 6 Skills You Learn in School That You Use in Real Life
• Top 10 Tips on How to Study While Working
• Exam Skills

Get the SkillsYouNeed Study Skills eBook

Part of the Skills You Need Guide for Students .

• Writing a Dissertation or Thesis
• Research Methods
• Teaching, Coaching, Mentoring and Counselling
• Employability Skills for Graduates

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and start improving your life in just 5 minutes a day.

You'll get our 5 free 'One Minute Life Skills' and our weekly newsletter.

We'll never share your email address and you can unsubscribe at any time.

What are Study Skills?

Study skills are the skills you need to enable you to study and learn efficiently – they are an important set of transferable life skills.

Our pages provide generic study skills advice – appropriate to learners across all disciplines and in different life circumstances: full and part-time students, those returning to education later in life, those engaged in professional development and anybody who wants to learn how to learn effectively. 

Key points about study skills:

You will develop your own personal approach to study and learning in a way that meets your own individual needs. As you develop your study skills you will discover what works for you, and what doesn’t.

Study skills are not subject specific - they are generic and can be used when studying any area. You will, of course, need to understand the concepts, theories and ideas surrounding your specific subject area. To get the most out of your studies, however, you’ll want to develop your study skills.

You need to practise and develop your study skills.   This will increase your awareness of how you study and you’ll become more confident.  Once mastered, study skills will be beneficial throughout your life.

Study skills are not just for students.   Study skills are transferable - you will take them with you beyond your education into new contexts. For example, organisational skills, time management, prioritising, learning how to analyse, problem solving, and the self-discipline that is required to remain motivated.  Study skills relate closely to the type of skills that employers look for.  (See Transferable Skills and Employability Skills for more.)

At SkillsYouNeed we provide quality content on many life skills – and many of these are relevant to studying.

You’ll find two types of study skills pages – pages that directly relate to skills you need for study (such as How to Write an Essay ) and pages that are more general life skills but which are also important to studying (like Active Listening ).

Our Study Skills Pages Include:

Getting Organised to Study

Getting organised is an important first step to effective study.  Our page covers the basic organisation skills you need to consider – fundamentals such as where and when to study and the importance of developing a network of contacts who can help you when you need it.

This page covers some of the basic principles of time management – with reference to study. If you manage your time badly then you will be less productive, which can lead to stress and anxiety. This page will help you by outlining the importance of a personal study timetable and how to set goals and prioritise your time.

Sources of Information for Study

Learn what is meant by, and the importance of, primary, secondary and tertiary documents and how you may source such information in a library or online.

By understanding different writing styles you can put what you read into perspective. This page covers the main writing styles that you are likely to come across, including academic, journal, and journalistic styles.

When studying, it is likely that you will need to read a lot of information – and you will wish to use this time effectively as possible by developing your reading skills. Discover ways that you can engage with your reading, form links, understand opinions and put ideas and research into perspective. In short, develop your reading skills.

Critical Reading and Reading Strategies

This page explains what is meant by critical reading and critical thinking – skills which are fundamental to true learning, personal development and advancement. The page also covers how to develop a personal reading strategy and use SQ3R to help you manage your reading.

Note-Taking

Learning to take notes effectively is not only important to study but also in many other situations, at work and in your personal life.  Develop your note-taking skills with our pages: Note-Taking for Verbal Exchanges and Note-Taking for Reading .

It pays to carefully think about and plan an essay or other piece of written work before you start writing.  This page provides you with a framework for planning which will help ensure your work is relevant, well-constructed and produced efficiently.

Essay Writing

Learn about the processes involved in writing an essay, or other piece of assessed work.  Avoid common mistakes and follow best practice to help ensure that the work you produce is of a high quality.

How to Write a Dissertation or Thesis

Working on a dissertation, thesis or other research project can be the most challenging part of study. Our guide offers practical advice and explains how to work on each part of a research document, including:

• How to Write a Research Proposal
• Ethical Issues in Research
• Researching and Writing a Literature Review
• Writing your Methodology
• Writing up your Results and Discussion

Learning how to reference correctly is vital if you are a student. This page not only covers why you should reference, and what may happen if you don’t, but also includes some detailed guidelines on how to reference different types of materials.

As a learner you will be required to engage with theory, but exactly what is a theory?  A theory is an attempt to provide understanding - theories attempt to answer the question, 'why?' and therefore satisfy our curiosity.  Learn more about theories and how they are usually developed.

Before you submit your assignment for school, university or work, run through a series of final checks.  Avoid potentially embarrassing or costly mistakes and increase the credibility of your work.

Reflecting On Marked Work

This page, for students, encourages you to engage in the feedback you receive from a marker when your work is returned.  Don’t just look at the bottom line, the mark, but understand the comments and feedback and learn from any mistakes.

Revision Skills

Revising for examinations can be a real challenge for many people. Learn and practice some key skills to make your revision time as productive and effective as possible, leaving you better prepared for exams and tests.

Further Reading from Skills You Need

The Skills You Need Guide for Students

Develop the skills you need to make the most of your time as a student.

Our eBooks are ideal for students at all stages of education, school, college and university. They are full of easy-to-follow practical information that will help you to learn more effectively and get better grades.

Other Areas Related to Study

Writing Skills

The writing skills section of SkillsYouNeed includes many other pages that we hope you’ll find useful.

Our pages: Spelling , Grammar and Punctuation for example can help with assignment writing.  You may also find information on our pages: Gender Neutral Writing and Clichés to Avoid useful.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are the skills we use every day to interact with others and many are relevant to effective study.

For example see:  Listening Skills , Problem Solving and Decision Making , Questioning and Types of Questions , Verbal Communication and Effective Speaking .

Personal Skills

Our Personal Skills section covers areas of personal development . 

Useful pages for study include:  Building Confidence and Self-Esteem , Tips for Dealing with Stress , Relaxation Techniques , and Self-Motivation .

Start with: Getting Organised to Study

See also: Employability Skills for Graduates How to Systemize Your Study Develop Your Online Learning Skills and Get More from Your Online Classes

• Cambridge Libraries

Study Skills

Research skills.

• Searching the literature
• Note making for dissertations
• Research Data Management
• Copyright and licenses
• Publishing in journals
• Publishing academic books
• Depositing your thesis
• Research metrics
• Build your online profile
• Finding support

Note making for dissertations: First steps into writing

Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:

• The difference between note taking and note making
• Seven tips for good note making
• Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
• Different styles of note making

To complete this section, you will need:

• Approximately 20-30 minutes.
• Access to the internet. All the resources used here are available freely.
• Some equipment for jotting down your thoughts, a pen and paper will do, or your phone or another electronic device.

Note taking v note making

When you think about note taking, what comes to mind? Perhaps trying to record everything said in a lecture? Perhaps trying to write down everything included in readings required for a course?

• Note taking is a passive process. When you take notes, you are often trying to record everything that you are reading or listening to. However, you may have noticed that this takes a lot of effort and often results in too many notes to be useful.  
• Note making , on the other hand, is an active practice, based on the needs and priorities of your project. Note making is an opportunity for you to ask critical questions of your readings and to synthesise ideas as they pertain to your research questions. Making notes is a pre-writing exercise that develops your academic voice and makes writing significantly easier.

Seven tips for effective note making

Note making is an active process based on the needs of your research. This video contains seven tips to help you make brilliant notes from articles and books to make the most of the time you spend reading and writing.

• Transcript of Seven Tips for Effective Notemaking

Question prompts for strategic note making

You might consider structuring your notes to answer the following questions. Remember that note making is based on your needs, so not all of these questions will apply in all cases. You might try answering these questions using the note making styles discussed in the next section.

• Question prompts for strategic note making
• Background question prompts
• Critical question prompts
• Synthesis question prompts

Answer these six questions to frame your reading and provide context.

• What is the context in which the text was written? What came before it? Are there competing ideas?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author’s purpose?
• How is the writing organised?
• What are the author’s methods?
• What is the author’s key argument and conclusions?

Answer these six questions to determine your critical perspectivess and develop your academic voice.

• What are the most interesting/compelling ideas (to you) in this study?
• Why do you find them interesting? How do they relate to your study?
• What questions do you have about the study?
• What could it cover better? How could it have defended its research better?
• What are the implications of the study? (Look not just to the conclusions but also to definitions and models)
• Are there any gaps in the study? (Look not just at conclusions but definitions, literature review, methodology)

Answer these five questions to compare aspects of various studies (such as for a literature review. 

• What are the similarities and differences in the literature?
• Critically analyse the strengths, limitations, debates and themes that emerg from the literature.
• What would you suggest for future research or practice?
• Where are the gaps in the literature? What is missing? Why?
• What new questions should be asked in this area of study?

Styles of note making

• Linear notes . Great for recording thoughts about your readings. [video]
• Mind mapping : Great for thinking through complex topics. [video]

Further sites that discuss techniques for note making:

• Note-taking techniques
• Common note-taking methods
• Strategies for effective note making  

Did you know?

How did you find this Research Skills module

Image Credits: Image #1: David Travis on Unsplash ; Image #2: Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

• << Previous: Searching the literature
• Next: Research Data Management >>
• Last Updated: Apr 11, 2024 9:35 AM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/research-skills

© Cambridge University Libraries | Accessibility | Privacy policy | Log into LibApps

How to... Write a dissertation

Most undergraduate business courses and post-graduate MBAs require students to complete a dissertation. This is an extended piece – often structured like a report – which usually involves undertaking research or a project (this may be based your placement or previous work experience) as well as reflection on and discussion of that work.

The focus of this article will be on writing the dissertation – that is, producing the finished report.

The whole project and dissertation process can cause students a lot of grief. It differs from what most have previously produced in requiring more of most things – more research in greater depth, more reading, more time, more independence (students select their own topics and work on them in isolation), more planning, and above all, a more extended piece of writing.

As distinct from an essay, where you critically evaluate other people’s ideas, you will need to report on your own research or work and offer your own thoughts and interpretation. However, you will also need to include and critique the ideas of other writers in order to provide a theoretical framework for your own ideas.

On this page

Prelims & end matter, presentation, getting to the finishing line.

The first thing to say – and hopefully it is not too late for those of you reading this – is that you need to allow yourself sufficient time for the writing process. You may have done all the right reading, have a waterproof design and brilliant data, but if you don’t allow yourself sufficient time for the write-up you will let yourself down.

Writing a dissertation is a much more involved process than the average assignment; you might occasionally have been able to burn the midnight oil over an essay but you are unlikely to be able to be able to keep up that level of intense writing for a longer piece of work.

In fact, it’s best to start thinking about the writing from the start of the project. Probably the first thing to do is to get dissertation guidelines from your institution which should tell you the requirements on length, as well as what academic qualities you are expected to show.

Anglia Business School (Cambridge, UK) requires its students to produce a dissertation of maximum 8,000 words, which should demonstrate:

• Evidence of scholarly research, which can be empirical (i.e. consciously obtained through surveys etc.) or library-based
• Evidence of independent thought
• Interpretation of evidence – mere description is not sufficient
• An understanding of the topic’s conceptual and theoretical framework
• Clarity and lucidity of argument
• Ability to use appropriate referencing and bibliographic style.

Once you have determined the length of the dissertation, ensure that it does not remain an abstraction by calculating the number of pages involved – at 300 words per page double spaced, an 8,000 word dissertation would have around 26 pages, more with the addition of prelims and end matter, which do not come within the word count.

Dissertations vary enormously in length – in the UK, some professional bodies require a piece of work of around 5,000 words (17 pages) while a higher level dissertation could be as long as 40,000 words (140 pages) although the latter would be unusual at undergraduate level. Also, note requirements as to what should go into the main body of the text – some organisations require you to put your methodology in the appendix for example.

You should also have a plan for how you do the writing, taking account of:

• Your available time to write, noting the times you are likely to be relatively alert.
• What you have to write – do a plan of your chapters and their sections and what you aim to achieve in a given time.
• The stages of writing: the various drafts, time for your supervisor to comment, time for editing.
• The final stages – proof reading, and binding (check with your university repro department how long this is likely to take).

You should start to think fairly early on how you will organise your work. This will depend on the basis for the dissertation – research, project, work experience, whether you are exploring one issue, or several, or taking a critical overview – and we shall describe below different types of structures.

If you will be carrying out some kind of research or an organisation-based project, you should be able to do some of the writing – at least in draft form – before or while you are doing your field work. Except in some projects which use grounded theory – which involve going back into the field several times with a new perspective – you will establish your research or project design fairly early, and in quantitative research, you will do your literature review before your field work. These chapters can be written up front, which will have the double advantage of getting some of the writing out of the way and also helping you practice the type of writing you will need to master.

Various structures are possible for your report depending on the type of project and the audience. The main ones are outlined below: others are possible, and you should always discuss your proposed structure with your supervisor.

Generic structure

The following is possibly the most common and assumes an academic audience. The research is likely to be deductive and quantitative, with the literature review preceding data collection.

Structure for a multi-issue or qualitative dissertation

The above structure assumes a linear progression for the research, and may not be suitable for situations when:

• You are adopting a qualitative approach, where research and literature review are more interwoven.
• You are looking at several themes, and the dissertation will benefit from separating these out structurally.

In this case, you may wish to follow a more thematic structure:

Thematic structure

An alternative to the above would be to combine the literature review, but have separate chapters/sections for the data.

Structure for a report aimed at a business sponsor

If you have been sponsored by a specific organisation, or your college has arranged for a placement on which your dissertation will be based, they may want a different kind of report or presentation. The structure of the report will depend on the scope you have been given, in particular to recommend or implement changes.

If you are limited to analysing a situation and making a proposal for change, or you are reflecting on a project from the past, Maylor and Blackmon (2005, p. 407) recommend that you should concentrate on:

• analysis of the practical problem
• potential solutions
• recommendations and suggestions for implementation.

The academic parts such as the literature review and the research methodology should be either condensed or put in an appendix, although you should include (in the body of the report) enough to show the validity of your recommendations.

If you are tasked with solving a business problem and expected to lead (to some extent) the resulting change, you are into the realm of action research. This is different to applied research and the structure of your report may be able to reflect this – speak to your supervisor to confirm. If so, Dick (1993) recommends:

Dick (1993)

The inclusion of prelims and end matter is another way in which the dissertation differs from the more run of the mill piece of written work. The former require Roman as opposed to Arabic numerals for page numbers.

Here is a rough guideline as to what should be included:

Exactly what to include will depend on your audience and the length of the report: the contents page, list of figures and acknowledgements can be omitted for a short report, while a business-orientated report should have an executive summary rather than an abstract (you may find it useful to leave in the former in an academic report for the benefit of any sponsors).

Writing style, presentation and layout are all important in gaining you a good mark.

We have already talked about how the dissertation will be divided into chapters or sections: within those divisions, there will be others, marked by headings and subheadings. This is another difference from the essay, but one that will work in your favour as these headings can serve as ways of organising your thoughts as you plan.

Use a font that is easy to read (and one you like as you will get very used to seeing it on the screen!), and make sure you have wide margins.

Writing style

This should be formal, concise and academic. Here are a few guidelines:

• As you are writing in an academic style, you will be building an argument, which you should support with evidence. Back up assertions with sources, and make sure you give credit for the ideas of others.
• Avoid illogicalities and errors in reasoning. These include contradicting something you said in one paragraph in the next (or even the same paragraph), complete jumps of sense between or within paragraphs, so that one statement does not follow on from another, deducing incorrect conclusions from evidence.
• Make sure that everything is relevant to your case. Don’t go off at tangents, and don’t elaborate on points that are secondary.
• Don’t over justify – all research has constraints. Be honest about yours. Be critical about the limitations of your research, and look at other ways of doing things. The ability to see things from all sides is one of the features of academic writing.
• Don’t go overboard on political correctness but avoid terms that may be offensive, for example using ‘man’ to refer to either gender.
• Assume knowledge on the part of the reader – those examining your dissertation will only need definitions of terms that are peculiar to your subject.
• Provide the reader with signposts. For example, refer to relevant points dealt with in other sections, and provide summaries and rough précis of your intentions for the forthcoming section. Judicious use of headings (see layout, above) will also provide a roadmap through your report.
• Use tables and diagrams where these will illustrate your point, but use them wisely and not just because they will look decorative.

The stages of writing

It’s helpful to consider writing as a reverse pyramid, in which you start off working on the more conceptual aspects and finish off with the detail of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Here are some stages you might go through:

• Make a plan of your dissertation, with your main chapters, and within the chapters, the main sections.
• Get your main ideas for your core chapters down on paper, and try and get the argument right.
• Read through for logic and structure.
• Edit for clarity and readability, making sure that your style is approachable and concise.
• Look at grammar, punctuation and spelling, consulting a good dictionary or style guide if you know that you are weak in these areas.

Writing is also a process of pruning – of bits that are not essential to your main thesis, and above all of excess words so you can meet your word length (remember how you never thought you could write that many words?). You will probably find that you can get rid of ‘nice to have but not essential’ material at stage 3, and that at stage 4 you prune your style so that you get rid of unnecessary verbiage. Writing to word limit is very important and is considered a key management attribute.

Putting in references is something best not left to the end – if you have kept good notes on your sources you should be able to put these in as you go along. But you will obviously need to check that all your references are correct before finally submitting your report.

Writing as a group

Group projects can provide particular interpersonal challenges, as teams cope with difference of views, non-performing team members etc., and particular problems can arise at the writing stage. If you split up the chapters amongst different people, then you will get different writing styles and even ideas about what the report is about. Ways of ensuring consistency included swapping around writing and editing, so that the text gets seen by a different pair of eyes, or having an overall ‘master editor’.

We’ve already mentioned the importance of planning; we can’t over emphasise the importance of allowing yourself enough time at the end for printing and binding – remembering that everyone else will be mobbing the repro department and monopolising the printers. The other thing to avoid is endlessly tinkering with an otherwise complete report – if you have met your objectives, hand it in.v

• Dick, B. (1993), You want to do an action research thesis? Available online at:  http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/art/arthesis.html
• Maylor, H. and Blackmon, K. (2005),  Researching Business and Management , Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK

• Posts for PhD students
• Visit LSE Careers’ website
• Visit CareerHub

Farah Chowdhury

June 15th, 2019, how to use your dissertation skills to market your employability.

2 comments | 15 shares

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Many of you will be doing your dissertation right now (or have done one already) and might be wondering how to make it work for your applications. Thankfully, your dissertation will give you a whole set of skills and assets that will be attractive to employers. Listed here are just a small selection of the qualities you can develop by doing a dissertation, and how they relate to working in the real world.

Research skills

One thing that everyone has to do for their dissertation is research. This is a very important skill to have in the working world. Good research skills mean that you know what is and isn’t relevant to a project, and that you know how to apply information effectively to meet your needs.

You should also apply your research skills when looking for a job. Employers look for people that are knowledgeable about the company and the industry, as this means you may have more innovative and informed ideas about how to move forward. This also shows a dedication to the company and industry, which is also very attractive to employers.

Problem solving 

Problem solving can be a bit of a buzz term, but it’s so much more than that: it shows that you have initiative, you’re adaptable, and that you have critical thinking skills.

If you can show an employer an obstacle you came across during your dissertation and then demonstrate how you overcame that (and possibly what you’d do differently), then they will be able to see how you will react to issues that arise during your employment.

For instance, if you found your argument didn’t quite work and you had to reassess your methods, then that shows you know when to change your tactics and that you have the self-awareness to understand when you’re pursuing the wrong outcome.

Communication

Employers want to know that you can concisely communicate ideas and information, whether this is on paper or in person.

Writing a dissertation demonstrates that you can take a set of complex arguments and write them up in a way that is both understandable and convincing. This is something that will relate to all parts of your career, from report writing to persuading colleagues, employees, or managers of what the best course of action for the company is too.

Likewise, if you’ve done a dissertation you’ve probably discussed your ideas with your academic advisor, tutor, course mates, and others. If you can show you’ve taken advice from these people about your dissertation, then employers will know that you can be a team player and respect the opinions of others.

Specialist information

This may not be the case for everyone, but sometimes your dissertation topic will be on something that can be a starting point for your career and/or further study.

You can use your dissertation as a case study for your knowledge of the industry or work that you’re interested in pursuing after your course, and to show that you have a good sense of the kinds of issues that might arise when you’re in the job.

Numerical skills

A lot of companies request that you have numerical skills, so if you’ve dealt with large sets of data for your dissertation then you can unequivocally prove this.

Not only that, but if you’ve been using a software package like SPSS for your data analysis you can show that you also have strong computer skills and have data analysis experience. Don’t forget about programmes like Microsoft Excel too: if you know your way around a pivot table, make sure this is clear!

Calm under pressure

If you’ve managed to complete a large piece of work like a dissertation, then you can probably manage a company project. Completing your dissertation means that you can work under pressure and stay calm while managing multiple deadlines.

Whether or not you were in the library at 4am sobbing into your notes the day before it due is irrelevant: you completed a large project once, and so that shows you can absolutely do it again!

Project management

As mentioned briefly above, if you’ve managed completing a large piece of work like a dissertation, then you can manage a project at work. However this is more than just meeting deadlines and staying focused under pressure.

Project management is shorthand for a huge range of skills, including time management, working alone, team work, communication, and perseverance. If you can break down your project management skills into these individual abilities, and show how you have used them, then you will stand out to employers who will then know you know what they’re looking for.

Share this:

About the author

• Pingback: So you’ve handed in your dissertation…what next? | LSE Careers blog
• Pingback: How to market your MSc effectively to employers | LSE Careers blog

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

Related Posts

Guest Blog by May: Charity Week at LSE

December 5th, 2018.

4 Reasons why volunteering will help you settle in to London

October 13th, 2021.

10 reasons to work for a smaller/newer organisation

July 15th, 2019, careers in tech: 10 top tips for non-tech students, january 20th, 2023.

Bad Behavior has blocked 912 access attempts in the last 7 days.

What Are The Skills Required For Writing A Dissertation?

The dissertation is a task that is considered to be the most sophisticated. The standards of writing used in the dissertation are different from other writings. It is misunderstood as an essay or assignment writing, however, it is not. It demands at least 15k for a complete dissertation and you cannot write a single word out of the context.

Every student in the final semester has to face this activity as without writing a dissertation they cannot pass the program. It includes different challenges related to various requirements that are essential for writing a dissertation. Professional dissertation help has always helped students to make a quality masterpiece of the dissertation and acts as the right way to the destination.

Writing a dissertation is not an easy task it requires some specific and basic set of skills. Other than skills, time and commitment also play an important role in the completion of the dissertation. It is not one day or a week’s work. You have to commit a certain time every day to accomplish the requirements of writing a dissertation. Let’s discuss in detail some of the most basic skills that are essential to write a dissertation.

List of Skills

• Reading skills

Reading plays an important role in the development of the mind. Once you start understanding the written words it will grow the ability of your mind accordingly. It also helps to grasp an understanding of the specific subject. It further assists you to increase the amount of your knowledge tank by developing reading skills. Reading the relevant information helps you guide the way towards experiencing the writing of the professionals.

Reading is an essential step for the completion of the dissertation. The dissertation requires thorough searches of the relevant information and demands to read the same. These informational articles are lengthy and require reading habits to effectively read the entire document. If you read it consciously then only you will be able to grasp the required information to be used in your dissertation.

• Writing Skills

There are many activities provided in the schools, colleges and universities that include writing. Such as assignment and essay writing. These small activities help students to practice writing and slowly develop their writing skills throughout the program. This writing skill is very essential to write a dissertation. Think of yourself, would you will be able to write 15k words without developing writing skills? For the dissertation, it’s not.

Writing skills help you to get a good command on the basics, such as grammar, spelling, punctuations, usage of right words and standards of writing. These basics will definitely help you during the dissertation writing.

• Analytical skills

Analytical skills are vital for completing a dissertation. Writing is not the only thing that matters in the dissertation. It is a chapter and portion in the dissertation where certain samples have to be collected for the performance of specific statistical tests. These tests have to be analysed according to the results and findings. Therefore, analytical skills are considered as a key source in preparing a dissertation.

• Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking refers to removing the entire limitations for the specific topic or the subject. This helps to think beyond the limits and to develop and introduce new ideas. This is the reason that it has become a necessity for writing a dissertation. You have to search for the relevant articles, grasp the information and think about the circumstances. This will assist you to use your entire knowledge in a significant manner and to be used the same in your dissertation.

• Problem-Solving Skills

It is also an important and basic part of writing the dissertation. If you have seen the structure of a dissertation, you must know that there is a requirement of writing a “problem statement” at the very beginning of the dissertation. This is what exactly you are doing throughout the process of dissertation, that is, finding the solution for the problem. This is the reason that it is one of the essential skills to be on my list.

• Active listening skills

Active listening is considered as important in the dissertation process as reading skills. This helps you to grasp the required information through various channels of information. It is also one of the most effective ways of gathering the required information that is essential for your dissertation writing. It also helps you to develop your writing skills dramatically. It is a saying that “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. However, in the case of the dissertation it should be opposite to that, which is, listening to acquire the information.

Conclusion:

Dissertation writing has always been a stress creator for the students. I understand that it is not an easy task to be accomplished. Plus, it is also a necessity for your academics and degree, so for students who cannot understand the requirements of writing the dissertation or for those who cannot spare time out of a busy schedule, I would recommend approaching professional dissertation writing services . This can help you get the experience of professional writing and to get a deep understanding of the topic that can be helpful in your final exams. I hope that acquiring the discussed skills will help you complete your entire dissertation on your own.

Learning how to develop a research question throughout the PhD process: training challenges, objectives, and scaffolds drawn from doctoral programs for students and their supervisors

• Open access
• Published: 15 July 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Nathalie Girard   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1036-0010 1 ,
• Aurélie Cardona 2 &
• Cécile Fiorelli 3  

With the higher education reform putting forward the professionalization of doctoral students, doctoral education has been strongly focused on generic transferable skills to ensure employability. However, doctoral training should not forget core skills of research and especially the ability to formulate research questions, which are the key to original research and difficult to develop at the same time. Learning how to develop a research question is traditionally seen as a one-to-one learning process and an informal daily transmission between a novice and a senior researcher. The objective of this paper is to offer a framework to design doctoral programs aimed at supporting the process of development of research questions for doctoral candidates guided by their supervisors. We base our proposal on two doctoral training programs designed with a pedagogical strategy based on dialogs with peers, whether they be students, supervisors, or trainers from a diversity of scientific backgrounds. The resulting framework combines three learning challenges faced by doctoral students and their supervisors when developing their research question, as well as training objectives corresponding to what they should learn and that are illustrated by the scaffolds we have used in our training programs. Finally, we discuss the conditions and originality of our pedagogical strategy based on the acquisition of argumentation skills, taking both the subjective dimensions of PhD work and the added value of interactions with a diversity and heterogeneity of peers into account.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

With the higher education reform ongoing in the Western world, doctoral education has undergone “a shift from the master–apprentice model to the professional model” (Poyatos Matas, 2012 ), focusing doctoral education on doctoral graduate employability (Cardoso et al., 2022 ) and thus on generic transferable skills (Christensen, 2005 ). However, Poyatos Matas ( 2012 ) warns doctoral educators of the danger of reducing doctoral education to a business or team skills approach, arguing the “importan[ce of maintaining] an adequate balance between skill-based and knowledge-based approaches to doctoral education.” Along the same line, Christensen ( 2005 ) argues that training in transferable skills “should not be overemphasised with respect to original research.” Nevertheless, Poyatos Matas ( 2012 ) does not explicitly explain what the core skills of research, grouped into a broad category referred to as “research skills,” are among seven other skills listed by the European Universities Association’s Salzburg principles.

Among research skills, the way the research question is formulated is critical. As Einstein and Infeld expressed it in 1971 , “the formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution […]. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” In this article, we consider the development of a research question as a process that consists of determining and reducing the identified problems, whether scientific or socio-economic, and translating them into a relevant and treatable question (Callon, 1984 ). We assume that it is a key process for research activities and a skill that PhD students have to acquire during their PhD experience. However, learning how to develop a research question is far from being easy, as revealed by the multiplication of methodological guides and tutorials on this topic. As researchers and human resource advisors working in a multidisciplinary research institute (INRAE) Footnote 1 , we have also observed many PhD students struggling to formulate their research question, which may seriously inhibit the writing of the final manuscript, whether it be a thesis by publication or not. Some authors have pointed out that the current graduate school education system has largely focused on producing better learners and problem solvers, thus neglecting problem-finding or creativity development in doctoral education (Whitelock et al., 2008 ). Preparing a “research proposal” and developing a researchable question is even recognized as a critical step for doctoral students (Zuber-Skerrit & Knight, 1986 ), becoming a “threshold to cross” during the PhD journey (Chatterjee-Padmanabhan & Nielsen, 2018 ). It thus appears essential to explore the challenges of research question development and how doctoral training programs can contribute to its learning.

The objective of our article is to offer a framework to think about and design doctoral training programs that support the development of research questions for doctoral candidates guided by their supervisors. Our proposal is grounded in two doctoral training programs designed with a pedagogical strategy based on dialogs with peers, whether they be other students, supervisors, or trainers from a diversity of scientific backgrounds. This article is structured into four sections. We present our theoretical background in order to explore the diversity of approaches to develop a research question, laying out our vision of doctoral experience and education, and the way in which the concept of scaffolding has been used in the learning processes that underlie the development of research questions (“ Theoretical background ” section). We then present our methodology, combining an analysis of the literature, our experience in conducting research, supervising and training doctoral students and their supervisors, and our case studies (“ Materials and methods ” section). Our results consist of a framework that combines three learning challenges and the corresponding training objectives, illustrated by scaffoldings we have used in our training programs (“ Results: scaffolding learning challenges for the development of the research question within a thesis ” section). Finally, we discuss the conditions and originality of our proposal based on the acquisition of argumentation skills, with the consideration of the subjective dimensions of PhD work and the added value of interactions with a diversity and heterogeneity of peers (“ Discussion: Enriching peer-learning scaffolding to support the development of a research question as a dialogical process ” section).

Theoretical background

Opening up the process of research question development: a diversity of approaches.

According to the literature about the development of research questions, it is a task that is difficult to formalize and for which several approaches coexist. It may differ according to the disciplines (Xypas & Robin, 2010 ) as well as according to the practical context of the doctoral thesis (i.e., participative research, methodological or fundamental research, financial support). We identified four approaches to research question development:

Gap-spotting (e.g., Locke & Golden-Biddle, 1997 ), the more classical approach, which consists in identifying gaps in existing literature that need to be filled.

Challenging the assumptions underlying existing theory in order to develop and evaluate alternative assumptions. Such an approach aims at coming up “with novel research questions through a dialectical interrogation of one’s own familiar position, other stances, and the domain of literature targeted for assumption challenging” (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013 ). These authors explicitly adopt a critical perspective of gap-spotting, which they consider as a form of “underproblematization.”

Expressing a contrastive stance to create dialogical space, presented as critical in order to develop a convincing research question (Mei, 2006 ). This approach has addressed the research question formulation by focusing on the writing process.

Problem-solving study based on a negotiation about the “problem framing” involving scientists and stakeholders, and which focuses on practical problem-solving (Archbald, 2008 ).

The literature and our experience show that these different approaches coexist, but do not fall within the same temporality. For example, gap-spotting can be an operation that takes place at the beginning of the research process and which is limited in time, whereas the negotiation of problems between scientists and stakeholders can be much longer and can arise at different stages of the research process. In the same way, challenging existing theories can be a long and incremental process that evolves as the doctoral student acquires new knowledge from scientific literature along the doctoral path or due to an unexpected observation in the field. Trafford and Leshem ( 2009 ) also explain how research begins with a gap in knowledge or professional practices and how research questions evolve with new inputs from the literature, fieldwork, and the progressive establishment of a conceptual framework and theoretical perspectives, to finally end up by proposing a “justifiable contribution to knowledge”. In this perspective, the formulation of a research question can be considered as an incremental path that continues during the doctoral journey.

The knowledge and know-how involved in research question development are thus of a very specific nature (metacognition, implicit, diversity of thinking, etc.), rendering it impossible to design doctoral training programs focused on this complex task as a simple “knowledge transfer”. Moreover, beyond the cognitive learning required, it also refers to more developmental challenges, both for doctoral students and their supervisors, since it is embedded in their specific epistemological and social working situation.

Our vision of the PhD experience and doctoral education

We consider research and, thus, doctoral experience as an activity involving affects, interests, and social networks (Shapin, 2010 ). In line with other scholars (Lonka et al., 2019 ; Sun & Cheng, 2022 ; Xypas & Robin, 2010 ), we argue that doctoral education should rely on a person-centered approach. This means paying attention to doctoral students’ profiles, their perceptions of the academic environment and their professional aims, i.e., the individual contexts of each PhD thesis and the diversity of PhD researchers’ needs and goals (Inouye, 2023 ), as well as their conceptions of research or epistemological backgrounds (Charmillot, 2023 ). We thus consider the PhD process as a professional experience with its multidimensional nature and the distinct quests of PhD students (quest for the self; intellectual quest; professional quest) when navigating their doctoral paths (Skakni, 2018 ).

This type of view leads to a developmental approach of the PhD journey, with doubts, uncertainties, and paradoxes in becoming doctoral researchers, and a “transformation of understanding and of self” (Rennie & Kinsella, 2020 ). Influenced by their personal trajectories and post-PhD goals, doctoral students may thus adopt various approaches in the yearly phase of the PhD process when developing their research projects, whether writing a research proposal constitutes or not a formal step to becoming a full doctoral candidate Footnote 2 . We also consider the PhD experience as a transformative process of a bidirectional nature, for both doctoral students and their supervisors (Halse & Malfroy, 2010 ; Kobayashi, 2014 ).

When it comes to doctoral education, this point of view implies the necessity to combine both generic support and individual guidance, to tailor training and to take each of the doctoral student’s stage of development into account. It also requires that trainers take on the role of facilitators more than those “who know”, in a socio-constructivist approach to learning. Nevertheless, designing doctoral training dedicated to research question development throughout the doctoral journey opens up questions on how to promote such learning in the workplace.

Scaffolding as an adaptive support of learning

In line with Vygotsky’s approach to learning, we consider that the concept of scaffolding can be beneficial to understanding how PhD supervisors can assist their doctoral students in learning how to develop their research question. Firstly defined by Wood et al. ( 1976 ) as a process similar to parents helping infants to solve a problem, this concept has proven to be an efficient pedagogical strategy to support learning in science (Lin et al., 2012 ). It can then be connected to Vygotski’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) ( 1978 ), consisting of tasks that students cannot yet carry out on their own, but which they can accomplish with assistance. Scaffolding has been specified by Belland ( 2014 ) in instructional settings as a “just-in-time support provided by a teacher/parent (tutor) that allows students (tutees) to meaningfully participate in and gain skill at problem solving”. Beyond this use within formal instruction, it has been put forward as “a central educational arrangement in workplace learning”, considered as a “socially-shared situation between master and apprentice” (Nielsen, 2008 ). Scholars argued that scaffolding could also be used to improve higher-order thinking abilities through social interaction, such as argumentation when solving ill-structured problems or when building dialectical arguments.

Three critical features are central to successful scaffolding:

Firstly, the notion of a shared understanding of the goal of the activity is crucial (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ), requiring an “intersubjectivity” between the tutor and the tutee (Belland, 2014 ), which is reached when they collaboratively redefine the task. The stake here is to make sure that learners are invested in the task, as well as to help sustain this motivation, encouraging them to be informed participants who understand the point of the activity, the value and use of the strategies and “making it worthwhile for the learner to risk the next step” (Wood et al., 1976 ).

Secondly, the tutor should provide the tutee with a graduated assistance based on an ongoing diagnosis of the tutee’s current level of skill, which Belland ( 2014 ) sums up by “providing just the right amount of support at just the right time, and backing off as students gained skill”. Therefore, scaffolding is highly contingent on both the task and the learner’s characteristics, thus being “dynamically adjusted according to tutee ability” (Belland, 2014 ) and requiring the tutor to manage a careful calibration of support (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ).

Thirdly, scaffolding is successful when the learner controls and takes responsibility for the task, thus moving towards autonomous activity. Scaffolding should then promote this transfer of responsibility, as well as including its own fadeout as internalization progresses.

First focused on the interactions between individuals, the scaffolding concept is now being more broadly applied to artifacts, resources, and environments designed as scaffolds (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ), with three main “scaffolding modalities”:

One-to-one scaffolding, which “consists of a teacher’s contingent support of students within their respective ZPDs”, considered as the ideal modality with a tailored scaffolding;

Peer scaffolding, which goes beyond the original idea of assistance by a more capable individual (Wood et al., 1976 ) and which hypothesizes that peers can also provide such support;

Computer/paper/artifact-based scaffolding, which emerged as a solution to the dilemma that teachers cannot provide adequate one-to-one scaffolding to all students in a classroom.

Beyond the advantages and limitations of each scaffolding modality, various scholars have discussed the challenges of designing scaffolding in complex environments. It can be a question of taking the heterogeneity of learners into consideration when designing tools (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ), of building dynamic assessments and fading into the whole environment (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ; Belland, 2014 ), or of considering the learning environment by combining tools and agents (Puntambekar & Hübscher, 2005 ) in a system of “distributed scaffolding” (Tabak, 2004 ). Lastly, beyond the dyadic relationship between the master and the apprentice, many authors have shown the distributed and collective nature of scaffolding at the workplace (Filliettaz, 2011 ), pointing out the role of “the entire work community” in workplace learning. This enlargement of the concept of scaffolding appears to be especially relevant for the learning of research question development, which is a long process that results from a diversity of interactions, as shown in the previous sub-section.

Existing scaffoldings to support the learning of research question development

In her report of the Bologna seminar on Doctoral Programs for the European Knowledge Society, Christensen ( 2005 ) argues that only training by doing research can provide doctoral candidates with core skills such as “problem solving, innovative, creative and critical thinking”. Until now, the traditional model of doctoral education was based on a supervisor-centered model and a transmission model “where the apprenticeship learns from the master by observation” (Poyatos Matas, 2012 ). Such informal learning thus takes place in private spaces, pointing out the lack of explicit knowledge on “what the academic career involves, the norms, values, and ethics embedded in their disciplines, and the expectations of work habits that they would be expected to meet” (Austin, 2009 ).

Even if this master-apprenticeship model was previously adequate, it turns out to be outdated because of the evolution of doctoral conditions. The increasing control and limitation of PhD duration and the obligation of regular reporting about the progress of the PhD leave less room and time for mimetic and trial-and-error learning. This is especially true in the case of specific doctoral education models such as the PhD by publication, the professional doctorate, the practice-based doctorate (Poyatos Matas, 2012 ), and the case of traditional PhDs. However, most of the time, doctoral students remain “without fully learning how to frame their own questions and design and conduct their own studies” (Austin, 2009 ). It is thus not surprising that the offer of learning supports for PhD students has greatly increased, with a wide diversity of options (handbooks, YouTube channels, writing courses or groups, etc.). Among the diverse training programs offered to doctoral students and sometimes supervisors, some doctoral schools and universities have also created specific training programs to support research question development, while some authors like Inouye ( 2020 ) put forward that training and supervision should include explicit training on the Research Proposal as a “threshold to cross” (see footnote n°2). On the basis of this diversity of offers, we identified three main scaffoldings corresponding to the three main modalities identified in the previous section: artifacts, peer-learning groups (e.g., Chatterjee-Padmanabhan & Nielsen, 2018 ; Poyatos Matas, 2012 ; Zuber-Skerritt & Knight, 1986 ), and supervisors (e.g., Manathunga et al., 2006 ; Whitelock et al., 2008 ).

Following a developmental approach to the PhD process, the present study aims at offering a generic framework to think about and design doctoral programs that scaffold the learning of the development of research questions.

Materials and methods

Building a framework by combining our experiences with the literature.

This research was based on two distinct doctoral training programs that we designed and independently ran over a period of 10 years. Having reflected together on our department’s doctoral training policy, we then progressively formalized the issues at stake in doctoral training and analyzed how our programs responded to them. The importance and difficulties of learning how to develop research questions during doctoral studies then became crucial, leading us to formalize what we had learned from our two programs. In this article, these programs are our case studies, i.e., the situation where we conducted an empirical inquiry to investigate the scaffolding of research question development and from which we can expand and generalize theories on doctoral training (Yin, 2018 ).

For each case study, we combined several methods to collect data:

We used ethnographic techniques (Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ) with a participant observer stance. As researchers conducting research and supervising doctoral students, as HR advisors supporting doctoral students and researchers at INRAE, and as trainers and coordinators in two doctoral training programs, we are involved in prolonged and repeated periods of observation. We thus documented detailed field notes that were revisited as research data.

We built a corpus of pre-existing documents presenting the two doctoral programs (brochures, Website contents, scientific articles, time schedules and targeted objectives at each sequence). For each document, we carried out an open-coding operation to identify the narratives about research question development.

We gathered feedback spontaneously expressed by the trainees during the training courses, the hot debriefs occurring at the end of each course, and training assessments one month after the course, as well as in the course of our activity (in individual HR interventions or in reading the acknowledgements of a PhD thesis).

In parallel with data collection, we carried out a review of the literature on the evolution of doctoral education and the emerging learning challenges for doctoral students and their supervisors, some epistemological articles on research question development and the process of doctoral experience, empirical articles describing training for research question development and seminal articles, and reviews on scaffolding in education sciences. We undertook a cross-reading of this literature to build a conceptual framework identifying the key concepts to study training for research question development: scaffolds, scaffolding objectives, learning challenges, and scaffolding practices. We then analyzed our data to identify the scaffolds mobilized in each case study, the objectives of this scaffolding, and the learning challenges of research question development considered as a scaffolding system. Finally, we characterized our scaffolding practices, i.e., the way in which we, as trainers, concretely support the learning required to achieve the challenges of research question development. Both training programs result from a continuous improvement process based on the feedback of the trainees: with such feedback and our own observations, we were thus able to identify and select the most effective teaching methods in line with our objectives to support the learning of research question development. Behind the classical scaffolding modalities identified in the literature, we chose to identify the diversity of very contextual scaffolding practices and devices used, which we then linked to our training objectives. For each program, we also detailed how these objectives relate to the larger learning challenges of research question development. This led us to formalize a generic grid, which was tested and improved by using it to describe each of our programs.

Two doctoral training programs as case studies for cross-analysis

As a public research institute, the main goals of INRAE are to produce and disseminate scientific knowledge, with a specific focus on the contribution to education and training. Given the broad field of competences within INRAE devoted to the development of agriculture, food and the environment, and its inherent multidisciplinary nature, the thesis defended may draw from extremely various disciplines, ranging from molecular biology to sociology, with a dominance of life and environmental sciences. Moreover, INRAE is a targeted research institute that works with and for various partners in higher education and research, industry, and the agricultural sector and regional governments. This means that many research projects, including doctoral research, are designed and carried out within partnerships with these various stakeholders. INRAE doctoral students are supervised by INRAE researchers, mainly within complex multidisciplinary supervision teams together with French or international academic partners.

In this context, we have developed our vision of research activity and doctoral experience (see the “ Our vision of the PhD experience and doctoral education ” section) and have been designing, improving, and leading two doctoral training programs for more than 10 years (Table  1 ), which share common postulates such as the following:

Considering the PhD process as a part of the professional trajectory.

Aiming at supporting autonomy of doctoral students through the enhancement of their capacity to defend the choices they have made to build research questions, thus also aiming at helping supervisors to adopt a companionship stance.

Considering research question development as an activity, which implies the choice of pedagogical principles based on action learning rather than knowledge transfer.

Considering diversity as an asset, we base our training programs on multidisciplinary workshops.

Nevertheless, they differ in terms of the training audience and times of training in the PhD process:

Course A is only open to doctoral students of the ACT Footnote 3 division of INRAE, whereas course B trains both doctoral students and their supervisors belonging to the different divisions of INRAE.

Doctoral students may attend course A three times during their thesis, whereas course B is designed to train doctoral students once during their thesis, at the end of the first year.

Results: scaffolding learning challenges for the development of the research question within a thesis

In this section, we present a generic framework to think about and design doctoral training programs with the aim of scaffolding the learning of research question development. It combines learning challenges (LC) faced by doctoral students and their supervisors when formulating their research question and training objectives (TO) corresponding to what the participants should learn. We also illustrate how each of these TO can be scaffolded, drawing on some examples from our training programs.

First challenge: to empower doctoral students in the development of their research question, guided by their supervisors

As a professionalization period, the PhD process is considered as a peer-learning process (Boud & Lee, 2005 ) that relies on a mentoring relationship that aims at developing the autonomy of the young researcher (Willison and O’Regan, 2007 ). Developing doctoral agency (Inouye, 2023 ) and, more specifically, promoting a subject-centered approach (Sun & Cheng, 2022 ) to research question development is the first learning challenge that we identified. We then consider that the doctoral student is the one who makes the subject evolve, who reflects and chooses the components of the research question. We divide this first learning challenge into three training objectives and various sub-objectives (see Fig.  1 ), one focused on the doctoral student, one on the supervisor, and one on their relative roles.

Training objectives set out for the challenge: “to empower doctoral students in their research question development”

First, the doctoral student needs to understand the expectations, nature, and difficulties of PhD research and, specifically, of research question development (TO1). This encompasses the sub-objective of understanding the iterative and unplanned nature of the research process as well as making it clear with their supervisor(s) how their creativity can be expressed regarding institutional or financial constraints. For many authors, problem finding or identifying and describing a research question is part of doctoral subjective creativity and a key for an original contribution to knowledge. At the same time, we observe, as other scholars (Brodin, 2018 ; Frick, 2011 ; Whitelock et al., 2008 ) have, that there is a lack of explicit expectations on creativity in doctoral education, which is then limited by scholarly traditions and institutional requirements. During research question development, “standing at the border between the known and the unknown” Footnote 4 can put doctoral students in a situation of uncertainty about their identity and purpose (Trafford & Leshem, 2009 ). For Frick ( 2011 ), doctoral becoming requires an alignment between “how students view themselves in relation to the research process of becoming a scholar (ontology), how they relate to different forms of knowledge (epistemology), how they know to obtain and create such knowledge (methodology), and how they frame their interests in terms of their values and ethics within the discipline (axiology)”. At the crossroads between these four dimensions, research question development is thus a key process that stimulates doctoral student becoming and that requires the support of supervisors so that their students can understand what is expected of them. Knowing that this can be a source of stress for doctoral students, we put the subject of “what is a research process” up for discussion between supervisors and students in course B. After discussing with other students on their perception of creativity in their thesis, students are invited to watch, together with their supervisors, a video calling for scientists to stop thinking of research as a linear process from question to answer but, instead, as a creative and eventually sinuous path (see footnote n°4). Students often express a sense of relief later on when they work with their supervisors on the second reformulation of the thesis subject. In this way, doctoral students become aware that a formulation is likely to evolve during the thesis and feel more comfortable about formulating one that is in no way definitive at the end of the course. In the same way, in course A, we invite the second-year PhD students to work on the transformation of their research subject in order to illustrate its evolution. We ask them to write the formulation of their subject as worded in the PhD offer or initial PhD contract and the formulation that they would use today to describe it. We then collectively work with the other PhD students at various stages in their thesis to identify the differences between the two formulations, so that the concerned second-year PhD students may explain their choices, eventualities, or constraints that led to the transformation of the subject. During debriefs, trainees express that this exercise helped them to understand that this transformation is an integral part of the research process.

This learning challenge also implies that doctoral students and their supervisors clarify their respective roles regarding research question development (TO2). The degree to which supervisors encourage doctoral students to think and act autonomously has been shown to be associated with students’ supervision satisfaction and greater research self-efficacy (Overall et al., 2011 ). This can be done firstly by clarifying the distinction between the supervisor(s)’s research project, professional career issues and those of the PhD. In course B, asking the doctoral students and their supervisors to describe and discuss the thesis supervision ecosystem has been observed as one of the crucial steps in this clarification of their respective roles in research question development. For doctoral students, research question development also implies that they take ownership of the subject, whereas it was often initially written by the supervisors. In course B, the rule “letting the student speak first” has been expressed by doctoral students as very useful for taking on the role, especially during the three workshops focused on the formulation of the thesis subject. In course A, we ask the doctoral students to present the professional context of their PhD (research project, subsidy, disciplines of the supervisors, proximity of the supervisors to the subject, etc.). This presentation helps the trainees to clarify the contextual framing of the PhD students’ theses, as well as the margin of freedom. For their part, supervisors need to let the PhD students develop their research question by themselves and find the right stance, with a careful balance between “hands-off” and “hands-on” (Gruzdev et al., 2020 ). In course B, supervisors first exchange between themselves about what it means to supervise a thesis and their role in the PhD process. The three reformulation workshops are then practical opportunities to take on this role: experiencing this role of being a support and not the leader of the PhD project is sometimes seen as difficult by supervisors who are used to being research project leaders, but they also admit that it is a necessary step to experience the supervision stance.

Supervisors also need to understand the challenges faced by PhD candidates in the development of research questions (TO3) by first abandoning the assumption of the already autonomous student (Manathunga & Goozée, 2007 ). According to Halse and Malfroy ( 2010 ), the supervisor is “responsible for recognizing and responding to the needs of different students”, within a “learning alliance” with the student. When it comes to formulating their research question, it becomes important to be able to situate their own role with their values and desires in the research process, in general, and, in particular, in the development of the research question, which is not just made up of rational intellectual choices. For this objective, supervisors have to be able to clearly identify the doctoral student’s state of progress in the development of the research question within the thesis and, more broadly, the doctoral student’s values and desires in doing research (Skakni, 2018 ). In course B, we ask them to step back and remain silent (even stolid!) when their doctoral students present their subject. While listening and writing down their observations, they foster their understanding of the states of progress and the orientations chosen by the students. With this rule, we then observe that most of them are able to adopt the correct stance for later workshops when they are asked to work with students on their research question.

Second challenge: to be aware of the various forms and processes of research question development within a diversity of ways of doing research and to be able to situate oneself in this diversity.

The second learning challenge focuses on making the PhD students (and their supervisors) aware of the diversity of ways of doing research and especially various forms and processes of research question development (see the “ Opening up the process of research question development: a diversity of approaches ” section) and situating oneself in this diversity. Many authors argue that doctoral education should highlight scientific pluralism (Pallas, 2001 ), opening the epistemological doctoral experience in order to question the implicit norm of neutrality of the positivist ideal (Charmillot, 2023 ). This is particularly true when it comes to the development of research questions for “wicked problems” (Rittel & Webber, 1973 ), i.e., economic, political, and environmental issues involving many stakeholders with different values and priorities. In this context, developing research questions often requires analysis at the crossroads between several disciplines (Bosque-Perez et al., 2016 ) and between different social stakes (Manathunga et al., 2006 ). It requires reinforcing a scientific culture favorable to this practice of multi-/inter-/transdisciplinarity (Kemp & Nurius, 2015 ), then making interdisciplinary research skills a part of graduate education (Pallas, 2001 ; Bosque-Perez et al., 2016 ). Doctoral students then have to develop their awareness about the diversity of forms and processes of research question development, requiring that they are able to understand this diversity, to know how they themselves relate to different forms of knowledge (Frick, 2011 ), and to acknowledge their performativity in the world.

Within this second learning challenge, we distinguish four training objectives (Fig.  2 ), all concerning doctoral students and their supervisors.

Training objectives for the challenge: “to be aware of the diversity of ways of doing research, to be able to situate oneself in this diversity”

Both of them need to understand and respect the diversity of research stances (TO4). In both of our case studies, we ensure that a diversity of disciplines is represented in each working group, and we guarantee the mutual respect among them. We facilitate the expression of all doctoral students about how they are developing their research question, thus illustrating the diversity of research stances. During the hot debrief of course A, trainees regularly point out the discovery of this diversity as a positive outcome, which helps them to situate their own work. Moreover, discussing research question development within small and heterogeneous groups in terms of disciplines is experienced by participants as a strength “to take a step back and clarify key points” (student, course B, 2017), acknowledging that “working with other disciplines, it helped us to refocus and clarify the subject” (supervisor, course B, 2023).

Doctoral students and their supervisors also need to be able to formulate questions and clearly explain the doctoral research project, especially the way they develop their research question, whatever their discipline may be (TO5). This is why active participation is required in the workshops in both case studies, putting doctoral students and supervisors in the position of an active learner, not a passive trainee. Since such workshops may be very demanding for the PhD student and might be emotionally intense, it is of utmost importance that the trainers carefully manage the collective discussion, guaranteeing trust, mutual respect, and achieving balance in speaking. In particular, doctoral students and their supervisors are the ones who know the scientific community(ies) to which they will contribute and are the only ones who can assess the relevance of the subject. Participants are then asked to question the PhD students without calling the relevance of their theses into question. When aiming at promoting the expression of PhD students as human subjects , trainers have to pay particular attention to the fact that participants do not reformulate the subject for the students but, on the contrary, help them to open up the possibilities, to sort out, and to clarify the status of the elements presented. Trainers also use expression modes such as the questioning forms (open/closed questions), the subject pronouns used (I/we), and the origin of the arguments or events expressed by the PhD student as points of vigilance for managing the group discussion and as levers to go deeper into the questioning and analysis of the PhD students’ thinking about their research questions.

They both have to examine (in their own research and that of others) the place of stakeholders in the development of the research question (TO6). In course A, we use the conceptual framework of translation from Callon ( 1984 ) to analyze how a social problem can be translated into a research question. In course B, the framework given to trainees to develop their research question specifically points out the distinction to be made between the academic research stakes and the stakes for society. They also have to understand how the diversity of ways of scientific knowledge production perform or do not perform in problematic situations (TO7).

Third learning challenge: to know how to develop their research question throughout the research process

The third learning challenge concerns the staggered process of formulation of the research question throughout the PhD process. For many authors, the formulation of a “researchable question” or “research conceptualization” (Badenhorst, 2021 ) by the doctoral student is the first step in the doctoral research process with the writing, and sometimes formal presentation, of a “research proposal”. It is often seen as a threshold in the doctoral journey (Chatterjee-Padmanabhan & Nielsen, 2018 ) and a key feature of “doctorateness”, combining gaps in knowledge, contributions to knowledge, research questions, conceptual frameworks, and research design (Trafford & Leshem, 2009 ). For Frick ( 2011 ), the preparation of a proposal requires background reading and “demarcation of the research question”. It consists in knowing to which scientific issues the thesis will contribute and in identifying the relevant disciplinary concepts. Mastering the various modes of communication in the development of a research question is of utmost importance for PhD students, enabling them to accurately formulate their research question (Lim, 2014 ), as well as to take most of their supervisors’ or other researchers’ (colleagues, reviewers) feedback into consideration (Carter & Kumar, 2017 ). More widely, knowing how to formulate their research question is not sufficient without being able to step back from their own formulation. Boch ( 2023 ) expresses it as a necessary reflexivity in research writing, which means becoming aware of oneself in research and integrating this experience into the writing in an argumentative and convincing way. Stepping back from their research question also puts forward the need for doctoral students to be clear about the translations and reductions made (Callon, 1984 ), their research strategies (Inouye, 2023 ), or research stances (Hazard et al., 2020 ).

This learning challenge includes three training objectives (Fig.  3 ), two of them concerning the doctoral student and the third one concerning the students and their supervisors.

Training objectives for the challenge: “to know how to express their research question throughout the research process”

Doctoral students must clearly lay out the research stakes (both academic and for society) throughout their thesis process (TO8). In course B, we give learners a framework to think about and discuss research question development as a combination of three main ingredients (operational and scientific stakes, research question, strategy), requiring that students make the difference between the scientific stakes and the thesis objective clear, while defining the scope of the thesis within broader issues (European project, lab project). In course A, the conceptual framework of the translation from Callon is useful to recognize the driving forces of the reductions and translations in order to identify them and their consequences on the formulation of the research question. It helps clarify their research practices and understand how they contribute to the development of the research strategy, beyond what has been done so far. In course A, we use a trajectory to identify the consistency and the sense of the various research practices of the 3 rd year PhD students. In course B, the “research strategy,” viewed both as a “realized” and “planned” one (Mintzberg, 1987 ), is useful as both a hindsight (what have been my choices so far?) and planning tool (how to reach my research objective as I can express it today?), allowing students to put the weight of their thesis schedule into perspective.

In order to progress in their reflection, the doctoral students need to understand the importance of different oral and written (scientific or not) communications for making the formulation of their research question evolve (TO9). In course A, when designing the trajectory of the 3 rd year PhD students, we question them about their scientific communications or articles and about the consequences they had on the evolution of the formulation of their research question. We also ask them about the impact of the different feedback they had at the time of these communications and articles (from peers, from supervisors and other researchers, and from stakeholders) on the development of their research question. In course B, there are three exercises focused on the research question. While being considered as difficult, these exercises are also seen by trainees as effective for training themselves in expressing (orally and then on a written basis) their own subject and receiving feedback and questions from other students and their supervisors. We can observe that research questions and soundness of argumentation deeply evolve throughout the week, to the great satisfaction of students and their supervisors.

Doctoral students, as well as their supervisors for the research carried out under their responsibility, have to understand and explain the consequences of research question choices on the ways knowledge produced in the thesis could be used in the real world (TO10). In course A, we use a heuristic tool to help PhD students to understand the relevance for action of the knowledge they generate (Hazard et al., 2020 ).

Discussion: enriching peer-learning scaffolding to support the development of a research question as a dialogical process

Learning how to build a research question is traditionally seen as a one-to-one learning process based on informal and daily transmission between a novice and a senior researcher. In order to open up this informal process, we have grounded our pedagogical strategy in multiple opportunities for dialog with peers, whether it be other students, supervisors, or trainers. Taken as a whole, it thus combines interdisciplinarity, peer-learning, and dialogical principles that result in the construction of an “overall distributed scaffolding strategy” (Belland, 2014 ) and that create synergy between peer scaffolding, one-to-one and media scaffolding (Belland, 2014 ).

Firstly, our case studies emphasize speaking and argumentation skills rather than writing competencies. Many research works like Zuber-Skerritt and Knight ( 1986 ), Maher et al. ( 2013 ), Kumar and Aitchison ( 2018 ), and Badenhorst ( 2021 ) have explored the needs and modalities of doctoral education in terms of writing, even from the supervisor’s perspective (González-Ocampo & Castelló, 2018 ). Our pedagogical choice contrasts with this focus on doctoral writing since we give trainees many dialogical opportunities to train themselves to orally express and defend their intellectual autonomy. Doing so, we join Cahusac de Caux et al. ( 2017 ) who argue, “peer feedback and discussion benefits students by helping them verbalise their internal reflective thinking, fostering reflective practice skills development”. Even if we use some media-based scaffoldings, tools are not at the core of our case studies: our objective is instead to help trainees to put their thoughts into words, in line with the cognitive apprenticeship of Austin ( 2009 ), referring to a specific kind of apprenticeship for the less easily observed processes of thinking.

Secondly, our training programs make the most of the diversity and heterogeneity of peers, whether they be more or less experienced in supervision, from various disciplines, or at different stages of their thesis, thus enriching peer-learning scaffolding. All the participants, in their capacity as scientists, are considered as peers who are able to understand the work of other researchers, regardless of the discipline and the thesis subject. It is also by striving to understand and question subjects that are sometimes far from their field of research that researchers acquire the capacity for analysis, synthesis, and hindsight that is necessary in research work. By setting up dialogical spaces to help inexperienced researchers hone their argumentation skills, our training programs implement our view of research in practical terms as a collective process and of doctoral education as a professional socialization process, thus requiring that research organizations facilitate collective practices in the workplace (Malfroy, 2005 ). Moreover, with the inherent heterogeneity of participants, these workshops also constitute places where the multidisciplinarity and plurality of the sciences are experienced firsthand, convergent with Manathunga et al. ( 2006 ) or Bosque-Perez et al. ( 2016 ). Doing so, we are taking part in the debate of whether scaffolds need to contain domain-specific knowledge (Belland, 2014 ) by saying that there is no need for discipline or domain-specific scaffolds. Moreover, being active on one’s own case as well as on others’ situations is an efficient training strategy to move away from the objects and routines of a discipline or community when expressing ideas between specialists. Such collective reflexivity, sometimes turning into an analysis of professional practices, is a classic vocational training principle known to enhance the development of professionalization in the long term. What we add in our training sessions is the heterogeneity of participants, which is a resource for reflexivity, but that has to be carefully managed.

Thirdly, trainees are considered as human subjects engaged in their PhD with their various motivations and professional projects, which can strongly impact the way they see their thesis and envision their research work (Skakni, 2018 ), as well as their affinities and values, their doubts, and fears. Thanks to our focus on oral exchanges, we are then able to reveal and deal with these subjective dimensions of PhD work, which are often hidden when training PhD students in scientific writing. More precisely, expressing one’s doctoral experience and professional situations experienced is known as an efficient scaffolding practice within the collaborative reflective writing of “learning journals” with peer feedback (Boldrini & Cattaneo, 2014 ). We have shown how to implement such scaffolding in small groups of doctoral students with the facilitation of experienced researchers.

However, our proposal requires that some binding conditions be met:

Learning to formulate a research question through dialog with peers requires spending time, in our case, 4 full days, within small groups to ensure that everyone can take part in it and take advantage of the feedback of others.

This dialog is made possible and emphasized by the diversity of participants (either in terms of discipline, stage of the thesis, experience, etc.).

Managing both the human and scientific conditions of this dialog requires reflexive and open-minded trainers that adopt a facilitating stance.

As a result, our perspective on scaffolding is not merely an issue of training technique but, on the contrary, a situated perspective that echoes the view of Nielsen ( 2008 ) on training “both as part of a social practice and as part of the learner’s trajectory of participation”, within an expansive process inspired by Engeström’s work. With this developmental view on doctoral experience, we acknowledge that research question development is a process that goes beyond the limited time of a 4-day training program. Trainee feedback collected after their participation in course A or B revealed that they continue the work begun during the training programs, on the basis of the given scaffolding (e.g., “I feel that we familiarized ourselves with these tools [referring to the concepts of translation and reduction] because we work on them and I started to think. […] I know these tools will remain in my head until I write my thesis and that I really learned a lot” Hot debrief, course A, 2016). It is also not rare that trainees mention their participation in course A or B to their PhD steering committees as having helped to frame/define their research question. Course A or B is also frequently mentioned as an essential support in acknowledgement of their PhD thesis. Although limited in time, the training programs studied in this article act as an accelerator in research question development (e.g. course B “we saved several months”, supervisor, 2017, “In just 2 days, everything became much clearer and more focused”, student, 2021). We thus assume that they contribute to awareness and reflexivity on research activity and to the professional development of trainees, which is particularly crucial in France with the pressure put on thesis duration and the absence of formal recognition of the research proposal stage.

Our experience puts forward two avenues for future research. Firstly, bringing together doctoral students at different stages of their thesis and then offering them the opportunity to participate each year of their PhD process opens a window on to their intellectual trajectory and a situated adjustment of our scaffolding practices. Secondly, training doctoral supervisors—and trainers involved in these doctoral programs—remains of utmost importance to make scaffolding last and be adapted throughout the next months and years.

This study examined the learning challenges and objectives required for the task of research question development throughout the PhD process, both for doctoral students and their supervisors. We have drawn some lessons for the scaffolding of these challenges and objectives from two different doctoral training programs that we have been designing and leading for more than 10 years.

Considering the development of a research question as a dialogical process, we suggest three conditions to scaffold these learnings: firstly, offering many dialogical opportunities is an effective way for students to train themselves to express their intellectual autonomy and to defend their research project; secondly, making the most of the diversity and heterogeneity of peers, whether they be more or less experienced in supervision, from various disciplines, or at different stages of their thesis, thus enriching peer-learning scaffolding, proved to be beneficial when the multidisciplinarity and plurality of the sciences are experienced firsthand; and finally, giving priority to oral communication allows trainers and trainees to reveal and deal with the subjective dimensions of PhD work and their various motivations and professional projects that always underlie the development of a research question. Taken as a whole, our work seriously rises to the challenge of training reflexive researchers with an acute awareness of the collective nature of research and an intellectual openness to the plurality of sciences.

INRAE, the French public research institute devoted to the development of agriculture, food and the environment ( https://www.inrae.fr/en ), continuously hosts some 2000 PhD students.

For example, in the UK, writing and defending a research proposal allows a Transfer of Status from an initial probationary status to that of a full doctoral candidate (Inouye, 2020 ), whereas in France, there is no such formal assessment.

The ACT research division of INRAE aims at understanding and supporting transformative changes in socio-ecosystems and agrifood systems, which take actors’ practices and strategies into account in order to promote sustainable innovations and transitions, particularly at the territorial level.

As Uri Alon puts it in his TED video: “Why science demands a leap into the unknown” https://www.ted.com/talks/uri_alon_why_science_demands_a_leap_into_the_unknown .

Alvesson M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research . (1st ed). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Archbald, D. (2008). Research versus problem solving for the education leadership doctoral thesis: Implications for form and function. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44 (5), 704–739. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X07313288

Article   Google Scholar  

Austin, A. E. (2009). Cognitive apprenticeship theory and its implications for doctoral education: A case example from a doctoral program in higher and adult education. International Journal for Academic Development, 14 (3), 173–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440903106494

Badenhorst, C. (2021). Research conceptualization in doctoral and master’s research writing. Writing & Pedagogy, 12 (2–3), 423–444. https://doi.org/10.1558/wap.19542

Belland, B. R. (2014). Scaffolding: Definition, current debates, and future directions. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Éds.), Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (4th ed., pp. 505–518). Springer-Verlag.

Boch, F. (2023). Quelles conceptions de la réflexivité dans l’écriture de recherche? Savoir de quel je on parle. Revue internationale de pédagogie de l’enseignement supérieur, 39(1). https://journals.openedition.org/ripes/4552

Boldrini, E., & Cattaneo, A. (2014). Scaffolding collaborative reflective writing in a VET curriculum. Vocations and Learning, 7 (2), 145–165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-014-9110-3

Bosque-Pérez, N. A., Klos, P. Z., Force, J. E., Waits, L. P., Cleary, K., Rhoades, P., Galbraith, S. M., Brymer, A. L. B., O’Rourke, M., Eigenbrode, S. D., Finegan, B., Wulfhorst, J. D., Sibelet, N., & Holbrook, J. D. (2016). A pedagogical model for team-based, problem-focused interdisciplinary doctoral education. BioScience, 66 (6), 477–488. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biw042

Boud, D., & Lee, A. (2005). ‘Peer learning’ as pedagogic discourse for research education. Studies in Higher Education, 30 (5), 501–516. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070500249138

Brodin, E. M. (2018). The stifling silence around scholarly creativity in doctoral education: Experiences of students and supervisors in four disciplines. Higher Education, 75 (4), 655–673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0168-3

Cahusac de Caux, B. K. C. D., Lam, C. K. C., Lau, R., Hoang, C. H., & Pretorius, L. (2017). Reflection for learning in doctoral training: Writing groups, academic writing proficiency and reflective practice. Reflective Practice, 18 (4), 463–473. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2017.1307725

Callon, M. (1984). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. The Sociological Review, 32 (1), 196–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x

Cardoso, S., Santos, S., Diogo, S., Soares, D., & Carvalho, T. (2022). The transformation of doctoral education : A systematic literature review. Higher Education, 84 (4), 885–908. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-021-00805-5

Carter, S., & Kumar, V. (2017). ‘Ignoring me is part of learning’: Supervisory feedback on doctoral writing. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 54 (1), 68–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2015.1123104

Charmillot, M. (2023). Les implications éthiques de l’accompagnement doctoral. Revue internationale de pédagogie de l’enseignement supérieur, 39(1). https://journals.openedition.org/ripes/4454

Chatterjee-Padmanabhan, M., & Nielsen, W. (2018). Preparing to cross the research proposal threshold: A case study of two international doctoral students. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 55 (4), 417–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1251331

Christensen, K. K. (2005). Bologna seminar doctoral programmes for the European Knowledge Society . Salzburg, 3–5 February 2005, General Rapporteur’s Report, pp. 10.  https://www.ehea.info/cid102053/doctoral-degree-salzburg-2005.html

Einstein, A., & Infeld, L. (1971). The evolution of physics . Cambridge University Press.

Google Scholar  

Filliettaz, L. (2011). Collective guidance at work : A resource for apprentices? Journal of Vocational Education & Training., 63 (3), 485–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2011.580359

Frick, L. (2011). Facilitating creativity in doctoral education : A resource for supervisors. In V. Kumar & A. Lee (Eds.), Doctoral Education in International Context : Connecting Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives (pp. 123–137). Penerbit Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.

González-Ocampo, G., & Castelló, M. (2018). Writing in doctoral programs: Examining supervisors’ perspectives. Higher Education, 76 (3), 387–401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0214-1

Gruzdev, I., Terentev, E., & Dzhafarova, Z. (2020). Superhero or hands-off supervisor? An empirical categorization of PhD supervision styles and student satisfaction in Russian universities. Higher Education, 79 (5), 773–789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00437-w

Halse, C., & Malfroy, J. (2010). Retheorizing doctoral supervision as professional work. Studies in Higher Education, 35 (1), 79–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070902906798

Hazard, L., Cerf, M., Lamine, C., Magda, D., & Steyaert, P. (2020). A tool for reflecting on research stances to support sustainability transitions. Nature Sustainability, 3 , 89–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0440-x

Inouye, K. (2020). Becoming a scholar : Feedback, writing, and the doctoral research proposal . University of Oxford.

Inouye, K. (2023). Developing the PhD thesis project in relation to individual contexts A multiple case study of five doctoral researchers. Higher Education, 85, 1143–1160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00882-0

Kemp, S. P., & Nurius, P. S. (2015). Preparing emerging doctoral scholars for transdisciplinary research : A developmental approach. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 35 (1–2), 131–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2014.980929

Kobayashi, S. (2014). Learning dynamics in doctoral supervision . Doctoral thesis, Copenhague, Faculty of Science, Department of Science Education.  https://www.ind.ku.dk/publikationer/inds_skriftserie/2014-38/SofieKobayashi_Thesis.pdf

Kumar, V., & Aitchison, C. (2018). Peer facilitated writing groups: A programmatic approach to doctoral student writing. Teaching in Higher Education, 23 (3), 360–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1391200

Lim, J. (2014). Formulating research questions in experimental doctoral dissertations on Applied Linguistics. English for Specific Purposes, 35 , 66–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2014.02.003

Lin, T.-C., Hsu, Y.-S., Lin, S.-S., Changlai, M.-L., Yang, K.-Y., & Lai, T.-L. (2012). A review of empirical evidence on scaffolding for science education. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 10 (2), 437–455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-011-9322-z

Locke, K., & Golden-Biddle, K. (1997). Constructing opportunities for contribution: Structuring intertextual coherence and ‘problematizing’ in organizational studies. The Academy of Management Journal, 40 (5), 1023–1062. https://doi.org/10.2307/256926

Lonka, K., Ketonen, E., Vekkaila, J., Cerrato Lara, M., & Pyhältö, K. (2019). Doctoral students’ writing profiles and their relations to well-being and perceptions of the academic environment. Higher Education, 77 (4), 587–602. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0290-x

Maher, M., Fallucca, A., & MulhernHalasz, H. (2013). Write on! Through to the PhD: Using writing groups to facilitate doctoral degree progress. Studies in Continuing Education, 35 (2), 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2012.736381

Malfroy, J. (2005). Doctoral supervision, workplace research and changing pedagogic practices. Higher Education Research & Development, 24 (2), 165–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360500062961

Manathunga, C., & Goozée, J. (2007). Challenging the dual assumption of the ‘always/already’ autonomous student and effective supervisor. Teaching in Higher Education, 12 (3), 309–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510701278658

Manathunga, C., Lant, P., & Mellick, G. (2006). Imagining an interdisciplinary doctoral pedagogy. Teaching in Higher Education, 11 (3), 365–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510600680954

Mei, W. S. (2006). Creating a contrastive rhetorical stance: Investigating the strategy of problematization in students’ argumentation. RELC Journal, 37 (3), 329–353. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688206071316

Mintzberg, H. (1987). The strategy concept I: Fives Ps for strategy. California Management Journal, 30 (1), 11–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/41165263

Nielsen, K. (2008). Scaffold instruction at the workplace from a situated perspective. Studies in Continuing Education, 30 (3), 247–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/01580370802439888

Overall, N. C., Deane, K. L., & Peterson, E. R. (2011). Promoting doctoral students’ research self-efficacy: Combining academic guidance with autonomy support. Higher Education Research & Development, 30 (6), 791–805. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.535508

Pallas, A. M. (2001). Preparing education doctoral students for epistemological diversity. Educational researcher, 30 (5), 1–6. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594455 .

Parker-Jenkins, M. (2018). Problematising ethnography and case study: Reflections on using ethnographic techniques and researcher positioning. Ethnography and Education, 13 (1), 18–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2016.1253028

PoyatosMatas, C. (2012). Doctoral education and skills development An international perspective. REDU Revista de Docencia Universitaria, 10 (2), 163–191. https://doi.org/10.4995/redu.2012.6102

Puntambekar, S., & Hubscher, R. (2005). Tools for scaffolding students in a complex learning environment : What have we gained and what have we missed? Educational Psychologist, 40 (1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4001_1

Rennie, K., & Kinsella, N. (2020). Supporting transformational learning processes for person-centred healthcare research in doctoral education A critical creative reflection. International Practice Development Journal, 10 (1), 10. https://doi.org/10.19043/ipdj.101.010

Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4 , 155–169. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730

Shapin, S. (2010). Never pure: Historical studies of science as if it was produced by people with bodies, situated in time, space, culture, and society, and struggling for credibility and authority . Johns Hopkins University Press.

Skakni, I. (2018). Reasons, motives and motivations for completing a PhD : A typology of doctoral studies as a quest. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, 9 (2), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-D-18-00004

Sun, X., & Cheng, M. W. T. (2022). Conceptualising manifestations and shapers of doctoral student agency : A subject-centered approach. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 46 (7), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2021.2020222

Tabak, I. (2004). Synergy : A complement to emerging patterns of distributed scaffolding. The journal of the Learning Sciences, 13 (3), 305–335. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1466940 .

Trafford, V., & Leshem, S. (2009). Doctorateness as a threshold concept. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 46 (3), 305–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290903069027

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes . Harvard University Press.

Whitelock, D., Faulkner, D., & Miell, D. (2008). Promoting creativity in PhD supervision : Tensions and dilemmas. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 3 (2), 143–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2008.04.001

Willison, J., & O’Regan, K. (2007). Commonly known, commonly not known, totally unknown : A framework for students becoming researchers. Higher Education Research & Development, 26 (4), 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360701658609

Wood, D., Bruner, J., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem-solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17 , 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x

Xypas, C., & Robin, J.-Y. (2010). La dimension existentielle dans la construction du problème en recherche doctorale. Recherches en éducation, 9. https://doi.org/10.4000/ree.4670

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: design and methods. (6th ed). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Zuber-Skerritt, O., & Knight, N. (1986). Problem definition and thesis writing. Higher Education, 15 (1), 89–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138094

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

ACT Department, INRAE, UMR AGIR, Chemin de Borde Rouge, Castanet-Tolosan, 31326, France

Nathalie Girard

ACT Department, INRAE, UR Ecodéveloppement, Avignon, France

Aurélie Cardona

ACT Department, INRAE, Clermont-Ferrand, France

Cécile Fiorelli

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nathalie Girard .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Girard, N., Cardona, A. & Fiorelli, C. Learning how to develop a research question throughout the PhD process: training challenges, objectives, and scaffolds drawn from doctoral programs for students and their supervisors. High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01258-2

Download citation

Accepted : 24 June 2024

Published : 15 July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01258-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Doctoral training
• Research question
• Problem finding
• Supervision
• Scaffolding
• Peer-learning
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Alzheimer's disease & dementia
• Arthritis & Rheumatism
• Attention deficit disorders
• Autism spectrum disorders
• Biomedical technology
• Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
• Endocrinology & Metabolism
• Gastroenterology
• Gerontology & Geriatrics
• Health informatics
• Inflammatory disorders
• Medical economics
• Medical research
• Medications
• Neuroscience
• Obstetrics & gynaecology
• Oncology & Cancer
• Ophthalmology
• Overweight & Obesity
• Parkinson's & Movement disorders
• Psychology & Psychiatry
• Radiology & Imaging
• Sleep disorders
• Sports medicine & Kinesiology
• Vaccination
• Breast cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Colon cancer
• Coronary artery disease
• Heart attack
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Kidney disease
• Lung cancer
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myocardial infarction
• Ovarian cancer
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Schizophrenia
• Skin cancer
• Type 2 diabetes
• Full List »

share this!

July 10, 2024

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

trusted source

Cognitive skills in early toddlerhood: Study demonstrates importance of 16-months

by University of Bristol

Toddlers engage more regions of their brains around 16-months to help them develop important cognitive skills, enabling them to follow simple instructions and control impulses. Findings from the study, led by the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, and published in Imaging Neuroscience , suggests 16 months is a critical period for brain development.

A child's first two years of life are crucial for developing cognitive skills , particularly executive functions that help adjust thoughts, actions, and behaviors for everyday life.

Inhibitory control is one important executive function. This particular skill allows individuals to stop themselves from doing something out of impulse, habit or temptation. It's already known that inhibitory control begins to develop in infancy and grows into early childhood . However, until now, the brain mechanisms involved in its development were unclear.

Researchers at the Oxford University Baby Lab and Bristol University Baby Lab sought to examine the brain activity of 16-month-old toddlers by using a child-friendly brain imaging technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). They gave 103 toddlers a simple touchscreen task to complete that would require them to use inhibitory control skills.

This experiment allowed researchers to see which brain areas were activated when inhibitory control skills were used. The study replicated a previous experiment with the same group of children when they were 10 months old.

The earlier study found that 10-month-olds used the right side of their prefrontal and parietal cortex for inhibitory control. In this latest study, the team show that by 16 months, toddlers use the left parietal cortex and both sides of the prefrontal cortex more extensively.

Interestingly, these brain changes occur despite how well children performed in the task staying the same between 10 and 16 months. Testing the same group of children at 10- and 16-months of age, the team found, as babies grow into toddlers, they continue to struggle to stop themselves from doing a habitual action, but the brain activation associated with this skill changes dramatically. This indicates that 16-month-old toddlers are using more areas of the brain than at 10 months even if their observable skills remained the same.

The results reveal that 16 months is a critical period for brain development , enabling toddlers to follow simple instructions and control impulses.

The study was led by Abigail Fiske, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, and Karla Holmboe, Associate Professor in Developmental Science at the University of Bristol's School of Psychological Science.

They said, "These results are exciting because they shed new light on substantial changes in the brain across the transition from infancy to toddlerhood, despite there being no improvement in inhibitory control skills over this period.

"Our findings contribute new knowledge about the role of brain areas in early development and could help future research piece together a picture of how an important cognitive skill ( inhibitory control ), and the brain areas involved, develop from infancy to adulthood."

Fiske and Holmboe added, "What are the implications for parents and caregivers? It's often noticed that toddlers frequently struggle to stop themselves from doing something. In our study we have shown that lots of changes are happening in toddlers' brains, and we think that these changes support them in learning this important new skill."

Explore further

Feedback to editors

Irritable bowel syndrome following gastroenteritis may last 4+ years in around half of those affected

7 hours ago

Study suggests reviewing current recommendations that discourage exercise before bed

Children with conduct disorder show widespread brain structural differences, finds new international study

World-first international guidelines weeds-out potentially critical scientific fraud

Active commuting linked to lower risks of mental and physical ill health: Strongest benefits seen for cyclists

Proof-of-principle study shows protein isoform inhibitors may hold the key to making opioids safer

8 hours ago

Automated appointment scheduling, reminder messages may improve postpartum health for those with chronic conditions

9 hours ago

Scientists find small regions of the brain can take micro-naps while the rest of the brain is awake and vice versa

First health care device powered by body heat made possible by liquid based metals

10 hours ago

Large study confirms siblings of autistic children have 20% chance of autism

Related stories.

How preschoolers' brains develop self-control

Jul 11, 2022

Researchers identify neurons responsible for key activity transition in brain development

Apr 10, 2024

Medication-assisted treatment, along with group therapy, found to improve inhibitory control in heroin addiction

Apr 30, 2024

Toddlers who use touchscreens may be more distractible

Jan 26, 2021

How talking to toddlers boosts early brain development

May 15, 2023

Mild exercise for three months shown to enhance cognitive function and brain efficiency in older adults

Jul 19, 2023

Recommended for you

New template of the human brain enhances neuroimaging data analysis

11 hours ago

Team explores strategies for correcting mutations that cause stroke

Researchers achieve success in allowing a patient to 'speak' using only the power of thought

13 hours ago

Understanding others: By age three, we can do this with mirror neurons

15 hours ago

Let us know if there is a problem with our content

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Medical Xpress in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Starting the research process

How to Choose a Dissertation Topic | 8 Steps to Follow

Published on November 11, 2022 by Shona McCombes and Tegan George. Revised on November 20, 2023.

Choosing your dissertation topic is the first step in making sure your research goes as smoothly as possible. When choosing a topic, it’s important to consider:

• Your institution and department’s requirements
• Your areas of knowledge and interest
• The scientific, social, or practical relevance
• The availability of data and resources
• The timeframe of your dissertation
• The relevance of your topic

You can follow these steps to begin narrowing down your ideas.

Table of contents

Step 1: check the requirements, step 2: choose a broad field of research, step 3: look for books and articles, step 4: find a niche, step 5: consider the type of research, step 6: determine the relevance, step 7: make sure it’s plausible, step 8: get your topic approved, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about dissertation topics.

The very first step is to check your program’s requirements. This determines the scope of what it is possible for you to research.

• Is there a minimum and maximum word count?
• When is the deadline?
• Should the research have an academic or a professional orientation?
• Are there any methodological conditions? Do you have to conduct fieldwork, or use specific types of sources?

Some programs have stricter requirements than others. You might be given nothing more than a word count and a deadline, or you might have a restricted list of topics and approaches to choose from. If in doubt about what is expected of you, always ask your supervisor or department coordinator.

Start by thinking about your areas of interest within the subject you’re studying. Examples of broad ideas include:

• Twentieth-century literature
• Economic history
• Health policy

To get a more specific sense of the current state of research on your potential topic, skim through a few recent issues of the top journals in your field. Be sure to check out their most-cited articles in particular. For inspiration, you can also search Google Scholar , subject-specific databases , and your university library’s resources.

As you read, note down any specific ideas that interest you and make a shortlist of possible topics. If you’ve written other papers, such as a 3rd-year paper or a conference paper, consider how those topics can be broadened into a dissertation.

After doing some initial reading, it’s time to start narrowing down options for your potential topic. This can be a gradual process, and should get more and more specific as you go. For example, from the ideas above, you might narrow it down like this:

• Twentieth-century literature   Twentieth-century Irish literature   Post-war Irish poetry
• Economic history   European economic history   German labor union history
• Health policy   Reproductive health policy   Reproductive rights in South America

All of these topics are still broad enough that you’ll find a huge amount of books and articles about them. Try to find a specific niche where you can make your mark, such as: something not many people have researched yet, a question that’s still being debated, or a very current practical issue.

At this stage, make sure you have a few backup ideas — there’s still time to change your focus. If your topic doesn’t make it through the next few steps, you can try a different one. Later, you will narrow your focus down even more in your problem statement and research questions .

There are many different types of research , so at this stage, it’s a good idea to start thinking about what kind of approach you’ll take to your topic. Will you mainly focus on:

• Collecting original data (e.g., experimental or field research)?
• Analyzing existing data (e.g., national statistics, public records, or archives)?
• Interpreting cultural objects (e.g., novels, films, or paintings)?
• Comparing scholarly approaches (e.g., theories, methods, or interpretations)?

Many dissertations will combine more than one of these. Sometimes the type of research is obvious: if your topic is post-war Irish poetry, you will probably mainly be interpreting poems. But in other cases, there are several possible approaches. If your topic is reproductive rights in South America, you could analyze public policy documents and media coverage, or you could gather original data through interviews and surveys .

You don’t have to finalize your research design and methods yet, but the type of research will influence which aspects of the topic it’s possible to address, so it’s wise to consider this as you narrow down your ideas.

It’s important that your topic is interesting to you, but you’ll also have to make sure it’s academically, socially or practically relevant to your field.

• Academic relevance means that the research can fill a gap in knowledge or contribute to a scholarly debate in your field.
• Social relevance means that the research can advance our understanding of society and inform social change.
• Practical relevance means that the research can be applied to solve concrete problems or improve real-life processes.

The easiest way to make sure your research is relevant is to choose a topic that is clearly connected to current issues or debates, either in society at large or in your academic discipline. The relevance must be clearly stated when you define your research problem .

Before you make a final decision on your topic, consider again the length of your dissertation, the timeframe in which you have to complete it, and the practicalities of conducting the research.

Will you have enough time to read all the most important academic literature on this topic? If there’s too much information to tackle, consider narrowing your focus even more.

Will you be able to find enough sources or gather enough data to fulfil the requirements of the dissertation? If you think you might struggle to find information, consider broadening or shifting your focus.

Do you have to go to a specific location to gather data on the topic? Make sure that you have enough funding and practical access.

Last but not least, will the topic hold your interest for the length of the research process? To stay motivated, it’s important to choose something you’re enthusiastic about!

Most programmes will require you to submit a brief description of your topic, called a research prospectus or proposal .

Remember, if you discover that your topic is not as strong as you thought it was, it’s usually acceptable to change your mind and switch focus early in the dissertation process. Just make sure you have enough time to start on a new topic, and always check with your supervisor or department.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

Formulating a main research question can be a difficult task. Overall, your question should contribute to solving the problem that you have defined in your problem statement .

However, it should also fulfill criteria in three main areas:

• Researchability
• Feasibility and specificity
• Relevance and originality

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert?
• Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A dissertation prospectus or proposal describes what or who you plan to research for your dissertation. It delves into why, when, where, and how you will do your research, as well as helps you choose a type of research to pursue. You should also determine whether you plan to pursue qualitative or quantitative methods and what your research design will look like.

It should outline all of the decisions you have taken about your project, from your dissertation topic to your hypotheses and research objectives , ready to be approved by your supervisor or committee.

Note that some departments require a defense component, where you present your prospectus to your committee orally.

The best way to remember the difference between a research plan and a research proposal is that they have fundamentally different audiences. A research plan helps you, the researcher, organize your thoughts. On the other hand, a dissertation proposal or research proposal aims to convince others (e.g., a supervisor, a funding body, or a dissertation committee) that your research topic is relevant and worthy of being conducted.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. & George, T. (2023, November 20). How to Choose a Dissertation Topic | 8 Steps to Follow. Scribbr. Retrieved July 16, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/dissertation-topic/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to define a research problem | ideas & examples, what is a research design | types, guide & examples, writing strong research questions | criteria & examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

• Open access
• Published: 12 July 2024

Evaluating the perceived impact and legacy of master’s degree level research in the allied health professions: a UK-wide cross-sectional survey

• Terry Cordrey 1 , 2 ,
• Amanda Thomas 3 ,
• Elizabeth King 1 , 2 &
• Owen Gustafson 1 , 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  750 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

136 Accesses

3 Altmetric

Metrics details

Post graduate master’s degree qualifications are increasingly required to advance allied health profession careers in education, clinical practice, leadership, and research. Successful awards are dependent on completion of a research dissertation project. Despite the high volume of experience gained and research undertaken at this level, the benefits and impact are not well understood. Our study aimed to evaluate the perceived impact and legacy of master’s degree training and research on allied health profession practice and research activity.

A cross-sectional online survey design was used to collect data from allied health professionals working in the United Kingdom who had completed a postgraduate master’s degree. Participants were recruited voluntarily using social media and clinical interest group advertisement. Data was collected between October and December 2022 and was analysed using descriptive statistics and narrative content analysis. Informed consent was gained, and the study was approved by the university research ethics committee.

Eighty-four responses were received from nine allied health professions with paramedics and physiotherapists forming the majority (57%) of respondents. Primary motivation for completion of the master’s degree was for clinical career progression ( n  = 44, 52.4%) and formation of the research dissertation question was predominantly sourced from individual ideas ( n  = 58, 69%). Formal research output was low with 27.4% ( n  = 23) of projects published in peer reviewed journal and a third of projects reporting no output or dissemination at all. Perceived impact was rated highest in individual learning outcomes, such as improving confidence and capability in clinical practice and research skills. Ongoing research engagement and activity was high with over two thirds ( n  = 57, 67.9%) involved in formal research projects.

The focus of master's degree level research was largely self-generated with the highest perceived impact on individual outcomes rather than broader clinical service and organisation influence. Formal output from master’s research was low, but ongoing research engagement and activity was high suggesting master’s degree training is an under-recognised source for AHP research capacity building. Future research should investigate the potential benefits of better coordinated and prioritised research at master’s degree level on professional and organisational impact.

Peer Review reports

Higher levels of research engagement by healthcare organisations and clinicians are associated with improved organisational performance and clinical outcomes [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. The Allied Health Professions (AHPs) comprise one third of the health and social care workforce in the United Kingdom and when engaged in research, offer substantial benefit to population health and organisational performance [ 4 ]. The strategic focus on AHP research has grown substantially in recent years. This includes the first ever national research and innovation strategy for AHPs in England, as well as clear strategic intention through AHP clinical research networks hosted by the National Institute for Health Research [ 5 , 6 ]. These strategies reinforce the need for capacity building, engagement, and cultural improvements for advancing AHP research. Realising these ambitions has, to date, been limited by insufficient funding, career infrastructure, and organisational support [ 7 ].

Alongside the strategic ambitions for AHP research, is the increasing requirement for post-graduate master’s degree qualifications for career progression in academic, leadership and clinically advanced AHP roles. For example, 69% of Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACP’s) state the requirement for master’s degree qualification for their current ACP role [ 8 ].

With few exceptions, a master’s degree award is dependent on the successful completion of a supervised research dissertation project. This is usually accompanied by taught research methodology to support the development of research knowledge and skills. Master’s degree research ideas are conceived in a variety of ways, either as stand-alone projects, supplied by a university academic as one part of a larger programme of work, or developed in collaboration with a health service [ 9 ]. AHP research projects developed collaboratively between health and academic centres are more likely to be widely disseminated, impactful on clinical practice, and lead to further research compared to projects undertaken exclusively within a university setting [ 10 ].

Despite the high cumulation of training and research at this level over the years, the broader impact on clinical services, employing organisations, and the wider research community is currently unknown [ 11 ]. Beyond the fulfilment of individual learning objectives, it is difficult to determine what real-world impact AHP master’s research offers in terms of original knowledge contribution. Similarly, the rate of conversion of AHP master’s degree research to peer reviewed publications or conference proceedings remains unexplored [ 12 ]. This situation risks a low return on investment in terms of the generation and translation of knowledge to address the challenges faced by AHPs in healthcare practice [ 13 ]. Responsible practice in AHP post graduate training and research should, in part, be concerned with reducing waste that arises from decisions about what research to prioritise, as well as educational benefit to the individuals [ 14 ]. Aligning and coordinating more AHP master's degree research activity through collaboration may prevent AHP dissertations entering the “relevance waste quadrant” [ 15 ]. Models of portfolio research, which are coordinated efforts to address the highest priority knowledge gaps through research collaborations, represent an alternative approach to the current system [ 16 ].

The primary aim of our study is to evaluate the perceived impact and sustained effect of master’s degree research dissertation projects on AHP research capacity, capability, and clinical practice. In doing this, we have set out five supporting objectives:

To understand how master’s degree research dissertation questions were determined.

To establish the rate of conversion of master’s degree research to traditional measures of research output and dissemination.

To establish whether successful completion of master’s degree research promotes the maturation of ongoing research active clinicians.

To determine the perceived impact of research skills developed through master’s degree completion on AHP research capacity building within individuals and organisations.

To determine the perceived impact of master’s degree research on clinical practice and services.

An online cross-sectional survey design was chosen as the method to conduct this study, and it is being reported according to the consensus-based checklist for reporting of survey studies [ 17 ]. A bespoke survey was constructed using Microsoft Forms software and was hosted online via Microsoft Office 365. The survey comprised 27 questions arranged into sections to collect data on participant demographics, and the experience, outcomes, and perceived impact of master’s degree training and completion of a research dissertation project (see additional file 2 in supplementary information). To develop the survey, a pilot survey was undertaken using four qualified AHP volunteers to appraise the structure, content, and readability of the questions. Feedback from the pilot was used to revise and finalise the survey.

The target population were AHPs, which is an umbrella term for fourteen different professions usually employed in a variety of roles across health, care, academic, and voluntary sectors ( https://www.england.nhs.uk/ahp/role/ ). Participants were eligible to take part if they were 1) qualified AHPs currently working in the United Kingdom (UK), 2) held a post graduate master’s degree award, and 3) were able to provide informed consent. Participants were ineligible if their master’s degree was obtained as a pre-registration qualification, and they did not meet the other inclusion criteria. A target sample size of 139 was calculated by estimating the proportion of all registered AHPs in the UK holding a master’s degree qualification. This estimation was determined by profiling the qualifications of AHP staff in two large National Health Service (NHS) teaching hospitals. To account for a sampling calculation error, a confidence interval (95%) and margin of error (5%) threshold were applied accordingly (see additional file 3 in supplementary information).

Participant recruitment was achieved through advertising on social media platforms, and via newsletters and bulletins circulated by AHP professional and clinical interest groups. Participant information was provided outlining the study details, anonymity of survey responses, and the requirement to provide informed consent and eligibility at the start of the online survey. Those taking part were asked to reflect on their experiences of completing a post graduate master’s degree and research dissertation project in relation to its impact and legacy. The ‘one response per participant’ feature was enabled to prevented multiple completion of the survey by the same participant. The survey was live for data collection for three months running from October to the end of December 2022. During data collection, several efforts were made to promote the survey through social media to increase participation.

The survey data was analysed in two ways. First, descriptive statistics were used to analyse numerical, multiple choice, and ordinal scale data. Second, free text responses providing reflective accounts and experiences underwent coding and content analysis using NVivo software (version 12).

This study was approved by the university research ethics committee (registration number: 221613) and was conducted in accordance with the principles of good clinical practice.

The survey received 84 responses from nine of the fourteen allied health professions, which represents 60% of the target sample of 139. The majority of responses were from physiotherapists ( n  = 40, 47.6%) and respondents had been qualified for a median (IQR) of 18 years (12–23). Respondents worked in a variety of clinical specialties, with emergency/pre-hospital medicine ( n  = 18, 21.4%), neurology ( n  = 12, 14.3%) and critical care ( n  = 11, 13.1%) the most common. Most respondents had completed their master’s degree after 2010 ( n  = 68, 81%) and were employed at band 6 grade when starting ( n  = 39, 46.4%). Most respondents worked in the NHS ( n  = 78, 92.3%) and had undertaken a Master of Science (MSc) award ( n  = 70, 83.3%). Most participants were employed in a higher paid position after completing their master's degree ( n  = 62, 73.8%). The full characteristics of the respondents are detailed in Table  1 .

Respondents predominantly formed their dissertation research questions from their own area of interest (Table  2 ). Less than 10% of the dissertation questions were based on published research priorities or set by the Higher Education Institute (HEI), regional or local healthcare organisation/collaborative ( n  = 7, 8.3%). A variety of methodologies were used to conduct the master’s research dissertation with evidence synthesis being the most common ( n  = 30, 35.7%).

Formal research output from the dissertations was low (Table  2 ). Half the dissertations were presented at a local research symposium ( n  = 44, 52.4%), 27.4% ( n  = 23) were published in a peer reviewed journal, and over a third of dissertations had no output at all ( n  = 30, 35.7%). Master’s degree programmes contributing to the peer reviewed publications as a proportion of students were Master by Research (MRes) ( n  = 5, 45.5%), and MSc ( n  = 18, 25.7%).

Of the dissertations formed through the individual's own ideas, 27.6% ( n  = 16) were published in a peer reviewed journal, compared to 57.1% ( n  = 4) of those set through research priorities, or the HEI/healthcare organisation. The most common methodologies published in a peer review journal were evidence synthesis ( n  = 7, 30.4%), qualitative interviews/focus groups ( n  = 6, 26.1%) and quantitative experimental studies ( n  = 6, 26.1%). The methodology of dissertation projects with the highest proportion of peer reviewed journal publication was qualitative interviews/focus groups ( n  = 7, 36.8%).

The respondents reported their master's degree dissertation as having a positive impact on their professional development (Fig.  1 ). Qualitative content analysis of the free text responses demonstrated that respondents felt the dissertation increased their research capability and confidence at multiple stages of the research process while providing opportunities for networking and collaborations.

Perceived impact of master’s degree research on professional and clinical service development

Most participants continued to engage in research activities after their dissertation ( n  = 65, 77.4%) through supporting others ( n  = 63, 75%), taking part in formal research projects ( n  = 57, 67.9%) and publishing research papers ( n  = 41, 48.8%) (Table  3 ). Less than ten percent (9.5%, n  = 8) reported being deterred from undertaking further research (Fig.  1 ).

The wider perceived impact of the dissertation on services in which the respondents worked was more varied (Fig.  1 ). Improved service user outcome/experience and team practice was reported by 60.7% ( n  = 51) and 53.6% ( n  = 45) respectively. Analysis of free text responses demonstrated wide ranging perceived impact on services from no local impact to improved team education, service delivery and application of evidence-based practice.

Our study evaluated the perceived impact of master's degree level research on AHP professional development, research capacity, and clinical practice. Our findings indicate a relatively low level of dissemination and formal output arising from master’s degree research, but a high perception of impact on individual AHPs and the clinical services in which they work. The level of ongoing engagement in research activity following master’s degree completion was high indicating a positive legacy in this respect. The degree to which this meaningfully contributes to AHP research capacity building requires further investigation.

The majority (69%) of master’s degree research questions were developed from the respondent’s own ideas rather than drawing on published research priorities or collaborations between health and academic organisations. The limited use of research priorities may be explained by a potential lack of awareness. A qualitative study of 95 AHPs working in Australia found that in the absence of a recognised framework to guide research prioritisation, individual clinicians conducted research in areas important to them [ 18 ]. Pursuing individual preferences in this way stemmed from evaluations of their personal work, departmental policies or procedures, models of care innovation, and a clear preference for research which “tested solutions”. Similarly, Amalkumaran et al. (2016) explored critical care research priorities and found that research topics suggested by professional sub-groups tended to be related to their daily practice rather than broader research priorities [ 19 ].

It is also possible that the choice of research question is influenced by the career motivation of the individual AHP. A UK wide cross-sectional survey of AHPs working in health and social care reported primary motivators for research participation were to develop skills (80%) and increase job satisfaction (63%), rather than contribute to the prioritised evidential knowledge base [ 20 ]. Davis et al. (2019) also recognise this self-actualising motivation for research participation in their AHP cohort [ 18 ]. It is possible that the debut, non-commissioned research activity introduced by master’s level academic programmes emphasises process over content , decreasing the alignment of research activity with known research priorities.

We found a low conversion rate from master’s dissertation completion to formal research output. This is well illustrated in that just one in four (27.4%) master’s theses resulted in a peer-reviewed publication. Similar publication rates have been reported in master’s students of other healthcare disciplines; these are also considered low by way of expected research output [ 21 ]. Understanding this further is challenging due to the limited research in this subject area, which suggests a lack of interest and/or perceived importance. However, there are two key issues that arguably counter this view. First, master’s degree research projects are typically approved by a university research ethics committee, and thus are guided by the principle that the value in their conduct and knowledge contribution should outweigh the burden or risks to participants [ 22 ]. Fidelity to this principle can only be meaningfully appraised if the results are published for wider critical evaluation. Second, AHP skill and success level in research activities, such as writing for peer-reviewed publication is widely and consistently reported as low [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. This clearly represents an area for improvement for AHPs and failing to challenge the development of this skill in those undertaking post graduate level research seems counter intuitive. Higher rates of master’s degree research publication could offer a meaningful contribution to AHP research capacity building, since our findings suggest there is continued engagement in research activity from this group beyond completion of their studies.

Respondents to our survey indicated a good level of research engagement after master’s degree training. Over three quarters reported continued involvement in research beyond the completion of their programme. This finding supports the idea that research education is a key lever and greatly needed to successfully build AHP research capacity [ 26 , 27 ]. However, the degree to which master’s degree training translates to growth in the research capacity of individuals has not been subject to causal investigation. Proxy indicators of individual research capacity from our cohort can be found in the self-reported high levels of research confidence and capability derived from master’s degree training (Fig.  1 ) and ongoing research activity. This activity included 60% taking part in formal research projects, around half had published research papers, and over a third had embarked on a higher research degree. The lack of previous research in this area makes it challenging to fully contextualise our findings, but in conducting our study, we have set out a benchmark for the perceived impact of masters degree training on individual AHP research capacity for future investigation.

We explored higher level outcomes of master’s degree training on research capacity building, such as those that might influence policy, career pathways, and organisational practice. Using the Kirkpatrick-Barr model of educational outcomes, we found the activity and outcomes from our cohort aligned best to an individual learner level [ 28 ]. This finding is typical of outcomes from education at this level, which centre largely on the individuals through self-reported satisfaction and perceptions of learning [ 29 ]. Understanding the impact of research education and training in relation to higher Kirkpatrick-Barr outcomes requires objective and longitudinal evaluation of research metrics and impact at organisational and system level [ 30 ]. This is likely to include contributions to larger programmes of work requiring large grant awards, significant publications, and translation of those research findings to health organisation and system level innovation [ 31 , 32 ]. Research capacity building at this level is known to be challenging due to the inherent complexities involving political, financial, structural, and cultural factors [ 33 ]. To overcome this, the use of theoretical frameworks has been suggested to help conceptualise and integrate a culture and proliferation of AHP research at various health system structural levels [ 34 ]. The positioning of AHP master’s degree training and research activity as part of this may foster greater academic-health system collaboration for professional, service user, and population benefit [ 35 ].

The perceived impact of master’s degree research included improvements to service user outcomes, clinical pathways, and organisational policies and/or guidelines. Research impact, defined as the demonstrable benefit of research to individuals and society, is complex and requires wide stakeholder engagement to determine whether research has addressed known priorities through effective translation of knowledge from its findings [ 36 ]. The self-generated research questions and low level of dissemination and output reported by our cohort suggests a degree of dissonance between the level of perceived impact versus what is measurably impactful to clinical services and end users. This difference may be explained by the challenges in defining and quantifying research impact for novice researchers, which is described as an ambiguous and subjective concept [ 37 ]. It is therefore not surprising to see the highest levels of reported impact from our cohort was on their own professional development in terms of improved confidence, leadership and research capability, and clinical practice development. Without a more objective assessment of the wider impact from the research undertaken at this level, it is difficult to reconcile its actual impact. The emergence of assessment frameworks, such as the visible impact of research tool, make it accessible for relatively inexperienced researchers to understand how their research has led to visible changes and impact on services and other research consumers [ 38 ].

Strengths and limitations

A key strength of our study lies in its novelty; we believe it to be the first to evaluate the perceived impact of research undertaken by AHPs at master’s degree level. This represents an important first step in highlighting the conduct and contribution of research undertaken at this level, as well providing opportunities to improve future practice and impact. There are several limitations to our study. We only managed to recruit 60% of our target sample via a non-probability sampling technique, which included a lack of representation from five of the 14 professions. This means our findings are vulnerable to sampling bias by potentially excluding AHPs who do not use social media or subscribe to clinical interest groups, which were the two main platforms for our recruitment. Our recruitment practice and the method of a self-reporting survey means our findings are not generalisable to the wider AHP population and they should be interpreted with these limitations in mind. A further limitation is the disproportionate representation of two of the fourteen allied health professions. Responses from paramedics and physiotherapists constituted 57% of our data with very few responses from seven other professions and no responses from five of the professions.

The perceived impact of AHP master’s degree training and research was highest on individual development rather than service and organisation outcomes. This is likely to derive from the individual motivation in undertaking post-graduate study and self-determined research dissertation focus. Whilst the formal research output arising from the master’s research was relatively low, the legacy in terms of ongoing research engagement and activity was positive indicating that master’s degree completion maybe an under-recognised source of AHP research capacity building. Our study provides novel insights into the perceived impact of AHP master’s degree level research. Future research should explore the feasibility and benefits of coordinating AHP master’s degree research with local or national priorities to understand the impact beyond that realised at an individual level.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

Abbreviations

Allied Health Professions

Advanced Clinical Practitioner

United Kingdom

National Health Service

Qualitative data analysis software

Interquartile Range

Master of Science

Higher Education Institute

Masters by Research

Master of Art

Doctor of Philosophy

Boaz A, Hanney S, Jones T, et al. Does the engagement of clinicians and organisations in research improve healthcare performance: a three-stage review. BMJ Open. 2015;5:e009415. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009415 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Hanney S, Boaz A, Jones T, Soper B. Engagement in research: an innovative three-stage review of the benefits for health-care performance. Southampton: NIHR Journals Library; 2013.

Google Scholar  

Harding K, Lynch L, Porter J, Taylor NF. Organisational benefits of a strong research culture in a health service: a systematic review. Aust Health Rev. 2017;41(1):45–53. https://doi.org/10.1071/AH15180 .

Harris J, Grafton K, Cooke J. Developing a consolidated research framework for clinical allied health professionals practising in the UK. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020;20:852. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05650-3 .

Health Education England. Allied health professions research and innovation strategy. NHS England; 2022.  https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/allied-health-professions/enable-workforce/allied-health-professions%E2%80%99-research-innovation-strategy-england . Accessed 21 Jan 2023.

National Institute of Health Research. NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) allied health professionals strategy 2018–2020. 2018. https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/nihr-crn-allied-health-professionals-strategy-2018-2020/11530 . Accessed 4 Jan 2023.

Pager S, Holden L, Golenko X. Motivators, enablers, and barriers to building allied health research capacity. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2012;5:53–9. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S27638 .

Stewart-Lord A, Beanlands C, Khine R, Shamah S, Sinclair N, Woods S, Woznitza N, Baillie L. The role and development of advanced clinical practice within allied health professions: a mixed method study. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2020;25(13):1705–15. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S267083 .

Angus RL, Hattingh HL, Weir KA. Experiences of hospital allied health professionals in collaborative student research projects: a qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022;22:729. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08119-7 .

Whelan K, Thomas JE, Madden AM. Student research projects: the experiences of student dietitians, university faculty members, and collaborators. J Am Diet Assoc. 2007;107(9):1567–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2007.06.009 .

Zwanikken PA, Dieleman M, Samaranayake D, et al. A systematic review of outcome and impact of Master’s in health and health care. BMC Med Educ. 2013;13:18. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-13-18 .

Murray C, Judd D, Snyder P. Evaluation of a post-professional master’s program in allied health. J Allied Health. 2001;30(4):223–8.

Salbach NM, O’Brien K, Evans C, Yoshida K. Dissemination of student research in a Canadian master of science in physical therapy programme. Physiother Can. 2013;65(2):154–7. https://doi.org/10.3138/ptc.2012-18 .

Choi T, Palermo C, Sarkar M, Whitton J, Rees C, Clemans A. Priority setting in higher education research using a mixed methods approach. Higher Ed Res Dev. 2022;42(4):816–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2022.2082389 .

Chalmers I, Bracken MB, Djulbegovic B, Garattini S, Grant J, Gülmezoglu AM, Howells DW, Ioannidis JP, Oliver S. How to increase value and reduce waste when research priorities are set. Lancet. 2014;383(9912):156–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62229-1 .

Nyström ME, Karltun J, Keller C, et al. Collaborative and partnership research for improvement of health and social services: researcher’s experiences from 20 projects. Health Res Policy Sys. 2018;16:46. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-018-0322-0 .

Sharma A, Minh Duc N, Luu Lam Thang T, et al. A consensus-based checklist for reporting of survey studies (CROSS). J Gen Intern Med. 2021;36:3179–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-06737-1 .

Davis A, Lee D, Wenzel L, Haines T. Setting research priorities within allied health: what do clinicians think? Int J Allied Health Sci Pract. 2019;17(1):Article 6.

Arulkumaran N, Reay H, Brett SJ, JLA Intensive Care Research Priority Setting Partnership. Research priorities by professional background - a detailed analysis of the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership. J Intensive Care Soc. 2016;17(2):111–6. https://doi.org/10.1177/1751143715609954 .

Comer C, Collings R, McCracken A, Payne C, Moore A. Allied health professionals’ perceptions of research in the United Kingdom national health service: a survey of research capacity and culture. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022;22(1):1094. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08465-6 .

Resta RG, McCarthy Veach P, Charles S, Vogel K, Blase T, Palmer CG. Publishing a master’s thesis: a guide for novice authors. J Genet Couns. 2010;19(3):217–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-009-9276-2 .

United Kingdom Research and Innovation. Framework for research ethics. 2021. https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics-guidance/framework-for-research-ethics/our-core-principles/ . Accessed 23 Jan 2023.

Cordrey T, King E, Pilkington E, et al. Exploring research capacity and culture of allied health professionals: a mixed methods evaluation. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022;22:85. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-07480-x .

Frakking T, Craswell A, Clayton A, Waugh J. Evaluation of research capacity and culture of health professionals working with women, children and families at an Australian Public Hospital: a cross sectional observational study. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2021;14:2755–66. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S330647 . Published 2021 Oct 1.

Matus J, Wenke R, Hughes I, Mickan S. Evaluation of the research capacity and culture of allied health professionals in a large regional public health service. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2019;12(83):96. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S178696 .

King O, West E, Lee S, Glenister K, Quilliam C, Wong Shee A, Beks H. Research education and training for nurses and allied health professionals: a systematic scoping review. BMC Med Educ. 2022;22(1):385. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03406-7 .

King E, Cordrey T, Gustafson O. Exploring individual character traits and behaviours of clinical academic allied health professionals: a qualitative study. BMC Health Serv Res. 2023;23:1025. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10044-2 .

Barr H, Koppel I, Reeves S, Hammick M, Freeth DS. Effective interprofessional education: argument, assumption and evidence (promoting partnership for health). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated; 2005.

Book   Google Scholar  

Famure O, Batoy B, Minkovich M, Liyanage I, Kim SJ. Evaluation of a professional development course on research methods for healthcare professionals. Healthc Manage Forum. 2021;34(3):186–92.

Madi M, Hamzeh H, Griffiths M, et al. Exploring taught masters education for healthcare practitioners: a systematic review of literature. BMC Med Educ. 2019;19:340. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1768-7 .

Duncanson K, Webster EL, Schmidt DD. Impact of a remotely delivered, writing for publication program on publication outcomes of novice researchers. Rural Remote Health. 2018;18(2):4468.

Schmidt D, Duncanson K, Webster E, Saurman E, Lyle D. Critical realist exploration of long-term outcomes, impacts and skill development from an Australian rural research capacity building programme: a qualitative study. BMJ Open. 2022;12(12):e065972.

Whitehouse CL, Copping J, Morris P, Guledew D, Chilson B, Gray R, et al. An organisational approach to building research capacity among nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (NMAHPs) in clinical practice. Int Pract Dev J. 2022;12(2):1.

Slade SC, Philip K, Morris ME. Frameworks for embedding a research culture in allied health practice: a rapid review. Health Res Policy Sys. 2018;16:29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-018-0304-2 .

Matus J, Walker A, Mickan S. Research capacity building frameworks for allied health professionals - a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18(1):716. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3518-7 .

Reed MS, Ferré M, Martin-Ortega J, Blanche R, Lawford-Rolfe R, Dallimer M, Holden J. Evaluating impact from research: a methodological framework. Res Policy. 2021;50(4):104147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104147

Belcher B, Halliwell J. Conceptualizing the elements of research impact: towards semantic standards. Humanit Soc Sci Commun. 2021;8:183. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00854-2 .

Jones NL, Cooke J, Holliday J. Making occupational therapy research visible: amplifying and elevating the contribution and impacts. Br J Occup Ther. 2021;84(4):197–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308022620988473 .

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the allied health professionals who gave their time to participate in this survey.

Dr Owen Gustafson, Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow (NIHR301569), is funded by Health Education England (HEE)/National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, NHS or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Oxford Allied Health Professions Research and Innovation Unit, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK

Terry Cordrey, Elizabeth King & Owen Gustafson

Centre for Movement, Occupational, and Rehabilitation Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

Barts Health NHS Trust, Royal London Hospital, London, E1 1BB, UK

Amanda Thomas

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors conceived and designed the study. All authors designed the survey content and structure. TC prepared the online survey. All authors promoted recruitment to the survey. EK and OG undertook data analysis and interpretation. TC prepared Fig.  1 . OG prepared Tables 1 ,  2 and  3 . AT wrote the background and part of the discussion. TC wrote the abstract, methods, part of the discussion, and conclusion. EK and OG wrote the results. All authors reviewed the manuscript and consented to publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Terry Cordrey .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

The study was approved by Oxford Brookes University research ethics committee and assigned registration number: 221613. This study was conducted according to the relevant guidelines and regulations of the Declaration of Helsinki. Survey respondents were required to read the participant information sheet and provide informed consent prior to taking part.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Supplementary material 1., supplementary material 2., supplementary material 3., rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Cordrey, T., Thomas, A., King, E. et al. Evaluating the perceived impact and legacy of master’s degree level research in the allied health professions: a UK-wide cross-sectional survey. BMC Med Educ 24 , 750 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05582-0

Download citation

Received : 20 March 2023

Accepted : 21 May 2024

Published : 12 July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05582-0

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Master’s degree
• Research training
• Allied health professions
• Research capacity
• Research impact

BMC Medical Education

ISSN: 1472-6920

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Social justice
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Reasoning skills of large language models are often overestimated

Press contact :.

Previous image Next image

When it comes to artificial intelligence, appearances can be deceiving. The mystery surrounding the inner workings of large language models (LLMs) stems from their vast size, complex training methods, hard-to-predict behaviors, and elusive interpretability.

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers recently peered into the proverbial magnifying glass to examine how LLMs fare with variations of different tasks, revealing intriguing insights into the interplay between memorization and reasoning skills. It turns out that their reasoning abilities are often overestimated.

The study compared “default tasks,” the common tasks a model is trained and tested on, with “counterfactual scenarios,” hypothetical situations deviating from default conditions — which models like GPT-4 and Claude can usually be expected to cope with. The researchers developed some tests outside the models’ comfort zones by tweaking existing tasks instead of creating entirely new ones. They used a variety of datasets and benchmarks specifically tailored to different aspects of the models' capabilities for things like arithmetic, chess, evaluating code, answering logical questions, etc.

When users interact with language models, any arithmetic is usually in base-10, the familiar number base to the models. But observing that they do well on base-10 could give us a false impression of them having strong competency in addition. Logically, if they truly possess good addition skills, you’d expect reliably high performance across all number bases, similar to calculators or computers. Indeed, the research showed that these models are not as robust as many initially think. Their high performance is limited to common task variants and suffer from consistent and severe performance drop in the unfamiliar counterfactual scenarios, indicating a lack of generalizable addition ability.  The pattern held true for many other tasks like musical chord fingering, spatial reasoning, and even chess problems where the starting positions of pieces were slightly altered. While human players are expected to still be able to determine the legality of moves in altered scenarios (given enough time), the models struggled and couldn’t perform better than random guessing, meaning they have limited ability to generalize to unfamiliar situations. And much of their performance on the standard tasks is likely not due to general task abilities, but overfitting to, or directly memorizing from, what they have seen in their training data. “We’ve uncovered a fascinating aspect of large language models: they excel in familiar scenarios, almost like a well-worn path, but struggle when the terrain gets unfamiliar. This insight is crucial as we strive to enhance these models’ adaptability and broaden their application horizons,” says Zhaofeng Wu, an MIT PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science, CSAIL affiliate, and the lead author on a new paper about the research. “As AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our society, it must reliably handle diverse scenarios, whether familiar or not. We hope these insights will one day inform the design of future LLMs with improved robustness.” Despite the insights gained, there are, of course, limitations. The study’s focus on specific tasks and settings didn’t capture the full range of challenges the models could potentially encounter in real-world applications, signaling the need for more diverse testing environments. Future work could involve expanding the range of tasks and counterfactual conditions to uncover more potential weaknesses. This could mean looking at more complex and less common scenarios. The team also wants to improve interpretability by creating methods to better comprehend the rationale behind the models’ decision-making processes. “As language models scale up, understanding their training data becomes increasingly challenging even for open models, let alone proprietary ones,” says Hao Peng, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The community remains puzzled about whether these models genuinely generalize to unseen tasks, or seemingly succeed by memorizing the training data. This paper makes important strides in addressing this question. It constructs a suite of carefully designed counterfactual evaluations, providing fresh insights into the capabilities of state-of-the-art LLMs. It reveals that their ability to solve unseen tasks is perhaps far more limited than anticipated by many. It has the potential to inspire future research towards identifying the failure modes of today’s models and developing better ones.” Additional authors include Najoung Kim, who is a Boston University assistant professor and Google visiting researcher, and seven CSAIL affiliates: MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) PhD students Linlu Qiu, Alexis Ross, Ekin Akyürek SM ’21, and Boyuan Chen; former postdoc and Apple AI/ML researcher Bailin Wang; and EECS assistant professors Jacob Andreas and Yoon Kim. 

The team’s study was supported, in part, by the MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT Quest for Intelligence, and the National Science Foundation. The team presented the work at the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) last month.

Share this news article on:

Related links.

• Jacob Andreas
• Zhaofeng Wu
• MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
• Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
• Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Related Topics

• Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (eecs)
• Quest for Intelligence
• Computer science and technology
• Artificial intelligence
• National Science Foundation (NSF)

Related Articles

Technique improves the reasoning capabilities of large language models

Natural language boosts LLM performance in coding, planning, and robotics

Using ideas from game theory to improve the reliability of language models

Previous item Next item

More MIT News

AI method radically speeds predictions of materials’ thermal properties

Read full story →

How to assess a general-purpose AI model’s reliability before it’s deployed

Professor Emeritus John Vander Sande, microscopist, entrepreneur, and admired mentor, dies at 80

Polina Anikeeva named head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering

MIT OpenCourseWare “changed how I think about teaching and what a university is”

Study reveals how an anesthesia drug induces unconsciousness

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

• Kindle Store
• Kindle eBooks
• Business & Money

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Buy for others

Buying and sending ebooks to others.

• Select quantity
• Buy and send eBooks
• Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Exploring Perceptions of Business Owners on Competency-Based Hiring:: A Dissertation Study Kindle Edition

• Print length 131 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publication date July 13, 2024
• File size 1882 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CW1GWK5M
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 13, 2024
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1882 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 131 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B0D9G5Q92N

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

Report an issue.

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Why your cat scratches furniture – and how to get it to stop

Charlotte Engrav

Why do cats scratch furniture? A new study found answers

Cats scratching furniture may not be inevitable. Getty Images hide caption

Even the biggest cat lover has to admit feeling a little helpless when their pet just won't stop scratching the furniture.

Fortunately, there may be a science-backed way to prevent our feline friends from shredding our couches and rugs. Yasemin Salgirli Demirbas, a professor of veterinary physiology at the University of Prince Edward Island co-wrote a research paper on why cats scratch. It’s not because they’re out to get you.

Scratching “is not a behavior that’s displayed to punish the owners,” Demirbas said in a Morning Edition interview with hosts Sacha Pfeiffer and A Martinez.

She says the research team found a relationship between scratching and environmental factors like loud noises or kids. This highlights the importance of shielding your cat from these stressors when crafting a plan to solve your cat’s furniture-scratching habit.

Still, cats are divas, says Mikel Delgado, a certified animal behaviorist and cat behavior consultant from Sacramento, California, so giving them an outlet for damage-free scratching like several scratching posts can be helpful.

“You need to have more than one scratching post, and you want to put them in locations that your cat is likely to use them,” said Delgado. “That might mean right next to your couch if the couch is a place that your cat really enjoys scratching.”

Demirbas and Delgado detailed these additional steps cat owners can take to keep their favorite feline from scratching up the furniture.

Cats need space to hide

You could build these spaces in your home by making a pillow cave, or getting a cat bed or crate. These escapes could help your cat calm down, and reduce its desire to scratch. Demirbas said the research team saw a decrease in scratching when her team “designed an environment for our cats.”

Main Character of the Day

The murderous creature you live with is a murderous creature, a study confirms, use positive reinforcement.

It’s easy to get frustrated if your cat is resistant to this training. Delgado notes it is easy to do more harm than good if you take that frustration out on the cat. She still recommends nudging them towards alternative outlets, which she says is “much more effective than yelling at your cat, or trying to chase them away from the couch, or squirting them with water - all methods I do not recommend.”

Cats on leashes ... yes, it's a thing

Monitor the way you play.

Your behavior could also contribute to the cat’s stress. If your cat doesn’t get to catch its prey when playing, that pent-up energy can get released later on through scratching. Demirbas discussed one example: “if you let them play with laser toys, you will see that they keep chasing this dot, but at the end they get nothing.” The cats don’t like this, she says, it made one cat frustrated: “he felt like he’s an unsuccessful hunter.”

The audio version of this story was produced by Christopher Thomas. The digital was edited by Treye Green.