Theses & Dissertations

Where do I start? 

Your thesis or dissertation work starts with identifying your broad areas of interest. From there, you'll need to learn more about the topics you're interested in so that you can narrow down from broad ideas to a focused research question. 

Generating Ideas

As you're thinking about possible topics, consider:

• What are you curious about?
• What would support your future work? 
• What topics came up in your class readings and assignments? 
• What type of research do you want to do? 

Initial Researching and Brainstorming

Before you finalize your research topic, it is helpful to survey existing literature and use brainstorming techniques like mind maps to visualize your topic, make connections to evidence from existing scholarly literature, and generate new ideas.

For each broad topic you're interested in:

• Brainstorm possible sub-topics
  • Population - who do you want to study or learn from?
  • Intervention - is there a particular approach, assessment, or other intervention you're interested in? 
  • Phenomenon of Interest - what behavior, experience, or concepts are related to your topic? 
  • Outcome - what do you want to measure or assess? (this could include experiences, attitudes, perceptions, etc.) 
• Search for relevant scholarly literature and make note of what is being researched in relation to your topic
  • Keep your review of the literature brief and high-level
  • Read titles and abstracts to get a birds-eye view of how researchers are discussing your topic of interest in the scholarly literature 

Narrowing Your Focus

As you progress, you will need to narrow your research focus. The FINER criteria (Hulley et al, 2007) can help you evaluate your possible research questions. A good research question should be:

Feasible - The research question can be answered given the timeframe and resources available

Interesting - The research question is interesting to the researcher and the wider academic community

Novel - Answering the research question will provide new insights into a field of study or will extend, refute, or confirm existing findings. 

Ethical - The research question can be addressed using ethical research methods which address necessary IRB / REB protocols. 

Relevant - The research question is relevant to scholarly study and/or clinical practice. 

Hulley, S., Cummings, S. and Browner, W. (2007). Designing Clinical Research. England: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.