Finding a suitable topic is the first of many challenges you will face in the dissertation process. Where do you even begin?

The best place to start is with your own interests and the questions that have arisen for you over the course of your studies. You want to have familiarity with your subject matter. You will be working with it for quite a while!

But what about that elusive gap in the literature? There are two valuable resources, (1) your committee and (2) the literature.

Your Committee, Gotta Love ‘Em!

Often a committee member or two will be actively involved in their own research and may be open to offering suggestions for further pursuing their research via your dissertation work.

Although working on a committee member’s pet project sounds like an easy option, and it is in the beginning, it can become cumbersome for you as a researcher. A committee member with a vested interest in your success to enhance his/her research goals may be compelled to direct (meaning: control) your research more than you’d like. And often you will end up feeling like a research assistant who is only working to further the committee member’s goals and agenda.

Having said this, many researchers do take on a committee member’s research and survive the process. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!

The Literature, Your New Best Friend

I cannot stress enough the need for a thorough literature review in your area of interest. Even if you have an idea of your topic, a literature review is necessary to:

• Confirm interest in your planned topic, not just for yourself. Do others care? Is it considered important, even if by just a handful of people? Who are these people?
• A literature review may also show you that work on your chosen topic has been exhausted and that the gap you were considering has been filled. No worries, it is better you know now than after you’ve written and submitted your proposal.
• Inform you of the most recent findings and gaps in the research. The gaps can be found by reviewing the “implications for further study” in the Discussion sections of journal articles and other dissertations related to your planned topic. You could be just the person to address that need of further study, and in deciding to do so, BOOM, you have found your problem statement and literature gap!
• A literature review is a possible first step in establishing relationships with renowned and current researchers in the field.
• Why re-invent the wheel? Think about replicating a study, or gently tweaking a study, that you’ve found in your literature search. It is not plagiarism if you ask permission from the author(s) of the original study and if you note that you are replicating the study, with proper citations, in your work. Check the “suggestions for further research” sections of discussion chapters to see what the author thought were the next steps research. One of these “next steps” could be the basis of your study! For the most part, researchers love it when someone wants to replicate their work or use their instrumentation in a new study!

Some General Advice

• I mentioned earlier that you should be familiar with your topic because you will be working with it for quite a while. Also, your topic should be something that you are interested in. The time and money involved in the dissertation process is like remodeling a kitchen. It takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you think it will. So a topic that interests you will be much less mind numbing for you.
• However, don’t study something that makes you emotionally upset (or joyful) or for which you have already formed a strong opinion. Bias is not a good thing in research and this is probably the best way to introduce it into a study. So avoid topics that are emotionally charged for you, no matter if the charge is positive or negative.
• Parsimony is our friend. Only one gap needs to be addressed. So don’t attempt to fill in all the empty spaces. A big saying in my field is, “The best dissertation is a done dissertation.” Some of the best studies are simple and specific. And done!! Here is where the skills of a statistician who knows how to design a solid and robust research are needed. So keep my email and number handy and call when you are ready to design your study.
• Don’t design your own survey instrumentation unless you absolutely on your life have too. There are all sorts of survey tools for any number of topics. So try to avoid designing your own unless you want to run a validation study for your tool inside of your actual study. Instead, search the literature for some tools that might work for you, and ask for permission from the designer of a tool to use it. The author’s email and place of work is usually right at the bottom of the first page of the journal article. Reach out. Most researchers love to see their instrumentation re-purposed because it adds to the validity of their tool.

Next Steps?

The second major challenge in the dissertation process is taking the research topic and designing a workable study around it. In a future post I will share some tips on how to turn your research topic into a research question.

I am also planning a webinar to give you some tips and resources for refining your topic into a workable study! I’m still working on it, so keep in touch!

In the meantime, check out a past webinar, Overview of Research Design, in the archives of the Omega Statistics channel on YouTube. And remember to sign up for the FREE literature review webinar in September, 2017. I look forward to seeing you there!