Writing Your Doctoral Dissertation

or Thesis FasterA Proven Map to Success

by E. Alana James and Tracesea Slater

Have You Finished Your

Data Collection?

The Purpose of Data Collection

• Your goal for data collection is to capture quality evidence that

then translates to rich data analysis and allows you to build a

convincing and credible answer to the questions you have

posed.

What Commonly Goes Wrong

During Data Collection?

• Permissions Are Withheld

• Where Are All the People Who Said They Would

Participate?

• How Much Data Do I Need?

• What Should I Do If I Need More Data?

• Beginning analysis

• About halfway through data

collection run beginning analytic

processes

• Outliers

• Keeping a research journal

• Develop codes and then

themes (running analyses)

• A clear journal can be used to

discuss internal validity

Common Headings for the

Results and Findings Chapter

• Description of the Participants

• Demographics

• Research Questions and/or Hypotheses

• Description of Data Collection and Treatment

• Subtopics as Required by Topic

• Description of Analysis

• Discussion of Results (not findings)

• Discrepant Cases and Nonconforming Data

• Credibility, Validity, and Reliability of Findings

• Summary

Common Headings for the

Discussion or Conclusion Chapter

• Overview (includes why, how of

study)

• Interpretation of Findings

(usually listed as per

question/hypothesis with

reference to discussion of data

upon which they are built

Chapter 4)

• Significance to the Field (tying

the study to the wider literature)

• Contributions

• Recommendations for Action

• Recommendations for Further

Study

• Summary of Chapter

Data Collection Tips

• Read and cross-examine your assumptions.

• Discuss your findings and analysis with people whom you

consider to have strong intellect and wide or diverse

backgrounds.

• “Member check,” go back to your participants and test your

themes/theories and ideas about the answers that developed

during your study.

Do

• Summarize what you hear during your qualitative data

collection.

• Forget to include a clear explanation of the demographics of

your final set of participants.

• Forget to include how often you met with your participants,

when and where surveys were given, and all other salient

details of how your data were collected.

Don’t

Where Should I Go to Dig Deeper?

Suggested Resources to Consider

• Guest, G., Namey, E. E., & Mitchell, M. L. (2013). Collecting qualitative

data: A field manual for applied research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. This is

an excellent resource for all types of qualitative data collection and

offers you a solid field manual for work with these methods.

• Prasad, P. (2005). Crafting qualitative research: Working in the

postpositivist traditions. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. This book gives

wonderful descriptions of hermeneutics, critical theory, ethnography,

and other traditions and how they impact qualitative data collection and

analysis.