Before I start, I have to say the readers I like for this article should be those who really want to write a good dissertation. You may be a funny person in your daily life, but that is different with your academic attitude. You must be serious about it. If you don't have a standard for yourself, please stop reading.
Before you choose to follow a qualitative way, I believe you have already been very clear about your proposal. It limits the topic and the research area of your study. Make sure that you will have continuous passion about the topic you choose. Many people lose patience during the middle stage of writing the dissertation. Only your passion can save it. If you cannot do that, go back to check your proposal until you are sure about it.
About how to write a good proposal is not what this article is about. It needs a thorough investigation about all existing literature within your research area, and it's time-consuming. All I can say is to save at least two months for it. If you don't do it well, you might find that all your research problems are not problems. Large amounts of scholars have done so much research on it, more than you originally imagined. It's not a good news for your marks, of course.
If you are clear about your proposal, congratulations. It means you have clearly addressed the 'research problem', which will help to form your 'rationale of the study'. Only when you are sure there are problems existing in your research area and figure out what they are, the research is worthwhile.
After identifying the problems and giving enough reasons why you will do this research, you can start to think of the purpose of study and the 'research questions'. This is one of the key steps. Make sure that the answers to these questions will satisfy the purpose. The questions must be interrelated, logical, and aligned with the purpose. Research questions are so important that they influence the whole analytical framework, conceptual framework, research design, the organization of findings, analysis and conclusion.
Fortunately, the research questions in a qualitative study is not fixed. It's flexible and can be adjusted when you go deeper into your research and find that the orginal questions are not so precise. Unfortunately, the flexibility of a qualitative study increase the complexity of this approach. The reason why I love qualitative study is its nature about people. How alive people are, how alive a qualitative research is. Qualitative study has all the pros and cons of human being. It endues the insight to a topic that a quantitative study can never provide, but suffers the pain of subjectivity coming from people's thoughs and behavior. What else can be more complicated than people? You can imagine the level of difficulty of a qualitative study. Unlike the quantitative one, which is easy to be presented through some beautifully designed graphs and tables, the qualitative study has high demand on the researcher's narrative skills and the ability to see something in-depth. It needs talent. But don't be afraid, it is as interesting as telling a story. There are good story tellers and bad ones, you have to consider again if qualitative approach suits you or not. (You still have time to regret at this stage!)
Therefore, bearing in mind the advantages and disadvantages about qualitative research will help to write the methodology chapter and find out the limitation of your study.
What's coming next is the objectives of the research. It's easy. Every objective is connected with one of the research questions. Make it concise and clear, that's all you need to do.
Now you can start to think about the literature review. If you have done enough homework in your proposal period, things become so simple at this stage. Come up with an analytical framework according to your research questions, arrange different literature into different big categories, and fit these categories one by one into the framework. One helpful tool I highly recommend is the literature map (Creswell, 2003). After drawing that map, you finish your literature review. It can be seen clearly that who has done what kind of research on your topic, to which extent the research reaches, and how your own research fills the gap of previous studies.
The literature review will also help to form the conceptual framework of your study. That means which theory you will use to analyze what, and what variables or hypotheses you will have and their relationships. The conceptual framework is also, like everything, closely related to the research questions.
Well here comes the methodology part, the most difficult and complicated part of the whole dissertation, in my opinion. You will give reasons and explanations of all the following issues:
1) Research rationale. It's not about why you want to do this research. It's about why you want to choose a kind of research strategy/approach/method to conduct it. Your research may be a qualitative one, a quantitative one, or a mix. It totally depends on the nature of your study. Give good reasons to support your choice, of course a lot of literature review about the features, pros and cons of each method should be done.
2) Research sample. What or who will you select to do the research? Describe what they are and the reason why you choose them.
3) Questions and objectives. This step is not very hard because you've done 80% of that at the beginning. Put the process of how you come up with your research questions here, and show the connection between questions and objectives.
4) Research Design.
a. Data collection methods. Since what I talk about is a qualitative research, you decide here which qualitative method you will use. There are many, but the most mentioned ones are interviews, focus group, observations, and documents.
b. Data analysis methods.
c. Validating the accuracy of findings.
For the about two parts, please read the famous work by Miles and Huberman (1994). Since how to analyze data from a qualitative study is an area not fully developed, a young person like me is not qualified to evaluate or comment on it.
d. Limitations. Every research has defects. And a qualitative one? So many. You will list not only the intrinsic limitations of qualitative research, but also other limitations in your own research design.
Well, the methodology part is completed! You now start your primary research according to the methods defined in that part. The next step is to present your findings in your research.
With your analytical framework and conceptual framework, presenting your findings seems to be very clear and logical. Just arrange them according to the framework with an objective tone and concise sentenses. Make sure that each research question must have at least one finding. It doesn't make a good dissertation if one question is not answered or not answered well.
Analysis, or you call discussion, is the most creative part in a qualitative dissertation. Here you become more subjective, giving interpretations of each of your findings. Try to think about what your findings mean from every possible or impossible perspective, give explanations and reasons, make sound arguments, once a topic. Do not forget to link your interpretation with the literature review, to see whether some theories are confirmed, contradicted, or developed, whether your hypotheses or assumptions are proved or disputed, or if you don't have any assumptions, whether a new theory emerges from the findings. Well this is the most valuable part of a dissertation.
Compared to so many previous steps, drawing conclusion may be an easy task. Try to abstract what you now know is true from every finding, and what you don't know before the research but now you know it for sure. List them one by one according to every research question. Now, all questions have answers. What a wonderful feeling!
It's close to the end. Don't forget about the recommendations, and if you have time, contributions. Make your recommendations practical and reasonable. Don't ask the others to do something fansy and not connected with the topic you discussed and the major you study. It really needs some experience here to make good recommendations. I always think that people should work for a while before continuing further higher education.
About contributions, hmm. It's a pity that you don't praise yourself after so much hard work, isn't it? This chance is not in everywhere. Take good advantage of it!
Finally, all I want to say is deep appreciation to:
1) The book 'Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation: A Roadmap from Beginning to End'
2) The British Library. In my toughest period of time, it is the BL that provides me a place to look at myself and concentrate on my study. The academic atmosphere, the rich resources, the nice coffee and muffins, ...I love and will never forget every day inside. BL is the bridge to the knowledge of the world, thanks for freeing my mind.
3) My tutors. I will not repeat what I have said to you :) But saying thank you is far from enough...
4) All friends that giving me help physically and psychically. I never expected that there were so many friends around me when I was weak. A letter, a smile, a hug, even a word, everything you did has encouraged me so much. I am thankful for having all of you, loving and being loved.
"Tomorrow is another day. " said Scarlett.
