1. Define a Clear Topic
Whether you are interested in gender issues, Instagram as a marketing tool, intersectionality, the impact of credit constraints on exports, or digital transformation you need to be clear about where your interests lie. Note that your topic needs focus and narrowing down. For example, what aspect of gender issues will you be looking at, or from what perspective will you research digital transformation. Once you have a clear topic you are now ready to come up with a research question.
2. Devise a Research Question
It is important to define the research question that will guide your research. This should be phrased as a question and in many cases will form the title of your dissertation. A research question can be quite general. You can then narrow it down or focus the question either on a subtitle or in your introduction. Note that in some cases you can have more than one research question.
3. Write a Literature Review
You need to provide the reader with an overview of the topic you are studying. Whether this mean critically engaging with certain theories, setting out a theoretical framework, or clarifying a model, you should use the literature review as setting up shop.
4. Methodology and Method(s)
You now need to think about whether your question is better answered through a qualitative or quantitative methodology. In some subjects you are a priori expected to use a particular methodology. However this is not the case in the majority of dissertations in the social sciences.
Once you have defined your methodology you now need to decide which method or methods you will use: surveys, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups are some of the most widely-used methods for dissertations. You can also choose to use more than one method in your dissertation.
5. Sampling
It is fundamental that you choose a sampling approach that is in line with your methodology and research question. In some cases you will have to use probability sampling whereas in others it is more likely that you are expected to use non-probability sampling.
6. Ethics
Now that you have decided your methods and your participants you now need to consider what ethical issues your research elicits. Bear in mind that your department will expect you to follow their ethics guidelines. You may need to submit an ethics form for approval from your supervisor or department.
7. Data Collection
It is now time for you to collect your data. You can either collect primary data or use secondary data, or both. This is one of the most important stages of your dissertation.
8. Analysis
Now that you have your data, you can proceed to analyse it. This should be in line with the methodological approach you chose. You may use software programmes to analyse your data such as SPSS for quantitative data or NVivo or Atlas.ti for qualitative data but this is not always necessary.
9. Write Up
This is not necessarily a separate step as such as you should have been writing throughout all the previous steps. It is time now however to bring all the sections together and think, for example, if changes need to be made to the literature review – they often do- or to revisit your research questions and methodology.
10. Proofreading and Submission
Now that your first final draft is complete it is time to go over it. Your text needs to be well-written and well-structured if you are to convey your arguments clearly. It is important that you give yourself a few days, I would suggest at least 5 days to a week, to work on your text and structure. It is now time to submit your dissertation!
Good luck with your dissertation work. Hope you found the above helpful.
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