How To Choose A Research Topic For A Dissertation Or Thesis (7 Step Method + Examples) — Transcript

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1. 0:00In this video I'm gonna show you how to choose the best possible
2. 0:04research topic for your thesis or dissertation, in the shortest amount of
3. 0:08time. Plus I'm going to tell you how you can get free feedback and critique
4. 0:12on your research topic idea from the Grad Coach team. Hey guys welcome to
5. 0:22another episode of Grad Coach TV. My name is Derek and today we're going to be
6. 0:26looking at how to find, how to evaluate and ultimately how to choose a
7. 0:31research topic for your dissertation or thesis. We're going to be
8. 0:35talking about a seven step process that we've used successfully with hundreds, if
9. 0:39not thousands of students here at Grad Coach. If you follow this process
10. 0:43step-by-step I have no doubt that you're gonna find a really really good research
11. 0:48topic to work with and that that research topic is gonna be the smart
12. 0:52choice for your dissertation or thesis. This video is based on an extract from
13. 0:58our dissertation eBook which you can download absolutely free of charge. I'll
14. 1:03include the link below this video. You might also be interested in some of
15. 1:07the other dissertation and thesis related videos - we've got videos on how
16. 1:11to write a research proposal, how to write a literature review, and pretty
17. 1:15much everything that you'll need to get through the dissertation and thesis
18. 1:17process. So we've got a playlist on that you can just visit our YouTube channel.
19. 1:22I'll include the link below this video again. So without any delays let's jump
20. 1:26right into it. Right so the very first step of finding and choosing
21. 1:35a solid research topic is that you need to familiarize yourself with the
22. 1:40basic research process. What I mean by the basic research process is that
23. 1:45you need to understand things like research problems, research questions, a
24. 1:50literature review, field work, methods such as surveys and questionnaires and
25. 1:55focus groups, methodologies such as qualitative quantitative and mixed
26. 2:00method methodologies. Now this might sound like I'm putting the cart before
27. 2:04the horse somewhat but it is really important that before you start running
28. 2:08down a path of inquiry looking at potential research topics it's really important
29. 2:12that you understand the big picture of how research
30. 2:15works and the essential components to pulling off credible research. If you
31. 2:20don't understand these things if you pursue the idea before you understand
32. 2:25the research process what you're gonna do ultimately is waste a lot of time
33. 2:30pursuing ideas that simply aren't viable, pursuing ideas that have already been
34. 2:35extensively researched, pursuing ideas that you want to execute in a certain
35. 2:41way, but it's just not practical it's just not rigorous enough for for the
36. 2:45requirements of your school. So it is really important to to first understand
37. 2:49the core concepts, the basic concepts of research. Now you don't you definitely
38. 2:54don't need to have an in-depth understanding but you do need to have a
39. 2:57basic understanding. So when we talk about things like research problems and
40. 3:01research design and methodologies and so forth that you understand what we're
41. 3:05talking about this. So step one is get that under your belt have a basic
42. 3:10understanding of how research works. Your university should provide you with a
43. 3:14textbook or other resources to guide you in that respect. Failing that there's
44. 3:19loads of information online. A little little Google will provide a lot of
45. 3:23information. You can also check out the Crad Coach blog - we've got a section
46. 3:27dedicated to to academic research which I'll include the link to below this
47. 3:32video. So step one make sure that you understand the basics of the research
48. 3:37process and then we can move on to step two. So once you've got a basic
49. 3:44understanding of core research principles and and the basics of the
50. 3:49research process, the next essential step is to make sure that you really
51. 3:53understand what it is that your university requires from you for your
52. 3:57specific research project. Now this might sound pretty obvious but I can't tell
53. 4:02you the number of times I've seen students run down a path, spend so many
54. 4:06hours days weeks months entertaining some research idea only to find out
55. 4:12that for some reason that's not allowed by the university. So it's really really
56. 4:17important to start with the core requirements, understand what the
57. 4:21essentials are from your university and understand what the deal-breakers might
58. 4:25be in terms of topics that are not allowed. At a
59. 4:28minimum you want to make sure that you understand the following. Firstly the
60. 4:32originality requirements, in other words how unique does your research topic need to be?
61. 4:37Now this will vary a lot depending on your degree and and what sort of course
62. 4:42you're enrolled in but you need to get clarity on what topic originality and
63. 4:46uniqueness requirements they have for your specific research project. The
64. 4:51second thing you need to look at is research topic restrictions. In other words what
65. 4:55areas are you allowed to research. Do they need to link to certain modules or
66. 5:00do you pretty much have freedom in in terms of what you can choose as long as
67. 5:04it's within the domain of your degree. Another thing you need to understand is
68. 5:07the data requirements - specifically does your university require that you
69. 5:12have primary research that you have secondary research or do they require
70. 5:17both. Another really important thing that you need to understand is what are the
71. 5:20research methodology requirements. In other words do they have specific requirements about
72. 5:25whether you need to do a quantitative study whether you need to do a
73. 5:29qualitative study perhaps they have a requirement or they encourage you to do
74. 5:33mixed methods. So it's really important to understand what are the expectations.
75. 5:37The last really important thing that you need to understand is ethical
76. 5:41requirements. All universities will have some sort of ethical framework and
77. 5:45and some sort of ethical standards and and guidelines which everyone needs to
78. 5:51adhere to and so you need to understand what those are and what that means in
79. 5:55terms of limitations on your field work. It might mean that you can only
80. 5:59interview certain people or that you can only ask certain types of
81. 6:03questions and/or that you need clearance for for certain types of work or areas
82. 6:09of research. So it's really important to understand what are those ethical
83. 6:13requirements and what do they mean in terms of restricting your research topic. As you can
84. 6:16see it's really important to understand what does the university need from you
85. 6:21what what are the restrictions that they put in place. Otherwise you can spend a
86. 6:25huge amount of time ultimately to land up in a dead end. The lesson here is know
87. 6:30the rules of the game before you play and with that we can move on to step
88. 6:34three. So now that you understand the rules of the game,
89. 6:40you have license to start looking at potential research areas. The approach
90. 6:45that we take to research topics is to start really broad and then narrow that down
91. 6:49narrow that down until you get to a set of research potential research
92. 6:54topics that we can then evaluate. We'll get to that later but the starting
93. 6:58point for now is to identify broad research areas that interest you. So what you're looking for
94. 7:04here is areas of your studies, the modules that you've done, that interest
95. 7:10you. For example in an MBA context it might be something like social media
96. 7:15marketing, it might be something like leadership, it might be something like
97. 7:19innovation or innovative cultures. Whatever broad research areas have
98. 7:25interested you as you've worked through through your degree. Make a list of those
99. 7:30broad interest areas and they don't need to be at all pointed or specific. As you
100. 7:36can see in the example that I just gave,
101. 7:38we're not asking any specific question at this point in time. We're just saying
102. 7:42what are the areas of research/theory that you've worked through through your
103. 7:45studies and you've said wow that I really like that, that's really
104. 7:48interesting, I'd like to know more about it. Now the caveat yeah is that the
105. 7:54interest areas need to be areas that are intellectually appealing to you, that you
106. 8:02have a curiosity about, but not that you have some sort of emotional charge or
107. 8:06some sort of attachment or some preconceived notion about because
108. 8:10ultimately if you take something that you really hold strong beliefs about and
109. 8:15you go and delve into researching that, you're gonna bring all your biases with
110. 8:20you. You're gonna bring subjectivity to your research which is really not
111. 8:24welcome in in an academic context. What you're looking for is to go into an
112. 8:29area of research with an open mind and to ask questions and and be comfortable
113. 8:33with whatever answers you get. So it's really important to choose something
114. 8:37that interests you, choose something that's going to keep you motivated
115. 8:40through this long process, but don't choose a research area that is emotionally charged.
116. 8:45While you're thinking about your broad interest areas there's two things that
117. 8:49you might want to be thinking about at the same time. The first thing is faculty
118. 8:53support. In other words, for whichever research topic areas that you're
119. 8:57identifying, are there full-time faculty that would be interested, that
120. 9:02have a research interest in that area that could potentially support you, could
121. 9:07potentially be your supervisor. Generally it's smart to choose a topic or at least
122. 9:11choose a research area that your university has good support for because
123. 9:17that person will be able to guide you they'll build to give you feedback and
124. 9:21they'll be able to assess the quality of your work as well a lot better. So you do
125. 9:26ideally want to be looking at how can you line up your areas of interest with the
126. 9:30areas of interest and held by the faculty. So that's one component. The
127. 9:35other thing that you want to think about at this stage (and again this is it's
128. 9:39just an ask to have and something to consider) is where you want to take your
129. 9:43career post graduation. The dissertation or the thesis is a nice
130. 9:48opportunity to build some specialism in terms of whatever direction you want to
131. 9:54go in your career. For example if you are wanting to pursue, if you're studying
132. 9:59a marketing degree but you are wanting to pursue something digitally oriented
133. 10:03or online marketing oriented, then your dissertation is a nice opportunity to
134. 10:08go and to zoom into that little niche so that you have a unique
135. 10:13perspective when you start going for interviews and you can bring something
136. 10:16unique to the table by way of this research that you've already done. So
137. 10:20those are just two things to consider while you think about these broad areas
138. 10:24of interest. Don't don't stress too much about this right now. As I say we'll just
139. 10:28start really broad and then we'll narrow it down according to criteria. So
140. 10:32at this stage pen down a few of your interest areas and then let's move on to
141. 10:36step four. Right now that you have a good idea of your broad research interest areas it's
142. 10:45time to start narrowing that down, time to start narrowing it down into a more
143. 10:49niche area or more niche set of areas.
144. 10:52The best way to do that the most
145. 10:54efficient way to do that is to have a look at past dissertations by other
146. 10:58students at your university and ideally within your same program, for example within an
147. 11:04MBA program or MSc program. So the first step is to head over to the
148. 11:09dissertation library or dissertation database for for your University and use
149. 11:14your research areas your broad areas that you just identified, use those as
150. 11:19keywords to search for dissertations in the database. At this point just pile
151. 11:24all the dissertations that you can find pile them into a folder and keep them
152. 11:29for review. The way that you're going to review them is quite simple. Now
153. 11:34obviously you're not going to go and read a bunch of dissertations from start
154. 11:39to end, what you're gonna do is you're gonna do a skim of some important
155. 11:42sections to to get the information you need. I'd recommend that you look at
156. 11:47the title because the title should be quite descriptive if it's a good title.
157. 11:51Have a look at the executive summary or the abstract because that gives you a
158. 11:56full idea of what the research is all about and then have a look at the
159. 12:00introduction chapter because that gives you a good idea of how they came to to
160. 12:04go from a broad research topic or a broad
161. 12:08research area and to justify that down into a tighter topic. As you're looking
162. 12:14at these dissertations or theses you need to ask yourself a few questions.
163. 12:18The first question you want to ask yourself is what kind of research topics did
164. 12:22these dissertations cover and and how did they turn these research topics into
165. 12:26research questions.You might want to look for each dissertation what
166. 12:31was the research topic and what were the research questions. Then importantly how broad or
167. 12:36how narrow were these research topics. What does this tell you about the the requirement
168. 12:41from the school in terms of how narrow and how niche they want you to go. Also
169. 12:46importantly how original were the research topics. Were they're really groundbreaking or
170. 12:50was it just a sort of localized twist on an established well-established theory.
171. 12:55Then importantly how well justified with these research topics. In other words were
172. 13:00the topics really important for society or at least for for the the area the
173. 13:06field or, were they're just nice to know is because this gives you a good idea of
174. 13:10what your university expects in terms of justification for a research topic. I can't
175. 13:15tell you how many dissertations you need to review how many theses you need to
176. 13:19review, but I would say that you need to keep
177. 13:21going until you have narrowed your your handful of research areas down into a
178. 13:27handful of more niche research areas. In other words until you've gone and taken
179. 13:31those four or five broad research areas and narrowed them down into something more
180. 13:36specific. Or perhaps you decided to scrap some of the the areas because you found
181. 13:41stuff that was more interesting. But you want to at least walk away from this
182. 13:44process with five potential research areas that are more tightly focused. For example if your
183. 13:50broad interest area in the beginning was something like social media marketing
184. 13:54then you might have narrowed that down to Facebook marketing or YouTube
185. 14:00marketing. If your broad interest area in the beginning was reputation
186. 14:04management you might have narrowed that down to consumer trust or consumer trust
187. 14:09building. In other words the important thing is that you have gone and narrowed
188. 14:13down from this broad interest area to something more specific something that
189. 14:17has a body of theory that you can go and look at meaningfully, which is the next
190. 14:22step. Right now that you've narrowed your thinking down from a broad area to a
191. 14:29more niche research area, the next step is to hit the literature in other words hit the
192. 14:34existing research the journal articles perhaps the textbooks and and get a good
193. 14:40feel for the state of knowledge in the interest areas that you have in these
194. 14:45more niche interest areas. The objective here really is just to
195. 14:48understand where the current research is at, what what does the the the existing body
196. 14:54of knowledge have to say about these research interest areas. Ultimately what
197. 14:58you're looking for is to find the gaps is to find the the little areas of the
198. 15:03puzzle the pieces of the puzzle that haven't been filled in yet because those
199. 15:07will be ideal research topics. So right now what you're looking for is to get into the
200. 15:13literature and understand what does the literature say about my areas of
201. 15:18interest. So how do you do this? The best starting point is to head back to
202. 15:23your modules head back to your coursework and use that as a starting
203. 15:28point for finding relevant journal articles. The way you do that is go
204. 15:33have a look at whichever parts of your modules spoke about these more refined
205. 15:38interest areas that you have and see which journal articles they referenced.
206. 15:42Go and pick those out. In addition to this you can head over to Google Scholar
207. 15:46and you can use your keywords or your refined interest areas you can use those
208. 15:53as keywords in Google Scholar. I'd say pick out the top five most relevant
209. 15:58articles for whichever area you're interested in for each area you
210. 16:02interested in and you should also have a look for any sort of annual review, any
211. 16:07sort of recent combined literature review-type articles when you're looking
212. 16:12on Google Scholar, because these will provide you with a really big
213. 16:17picture view of the state of knowledge.
214. 16:21So now you've got a whole lot of articles ideally five six seven high
215. 16:27quality articles for each of the research interest areas that that you that you
216. 16:32narrowed down to in the previous step and what you're gonna do with these is
217. 16:36you're just gonna skim read through them. So what you're looking for again is the
218. 16:41executive summary or in a journal context will be the abstract. Have a look
219. 16:45at the introduction and you can have a look at the conclusion. That should
220. 16:48give you a good idea of what each article is about and what are the key
221. 16:53issues that they're raising through through each section. If you managed to
222. 16:57get your hands on literature review type article that provides an overview of all
223. 17:02of the literature, then do you spend the time actually reading through all of
224. 17:05that because that is going to give you a really good view of the the full state
225. 17:10of knowledge, at least at the time of print of that article. Another area that
226. 17:17you want to have a look at at the end of each article is the reference list. So if
227. 17:22you find one article that is really interesting and really relevant and
228. 17:27is covering an area of the theory that that really interests you then
229. 17:31ideally what you want to look at is look at that reference list and then pick out
230. 17:36a few more articles that that article is reference and go and pull those out.
231. 17:40This is a process of snowballing finding more articles through articles.
232. 17:45Ultimately what you want to land up with is about 20 articles for each
233. 17:51research interest area that you have each niche interest area that you have, because this
234. 17:56number (it's hard to put a firm number to it) but if you've got the top 20 most
235. 18:02relevant and recent articles, you'll have a decent idea of what the theory has to
236. 18:08say about each research area. So spend the time in the literature review
237. 18:13and then once you've done that once you have a good understanding of where
238. 18:17things are at, then you can move on to the next step. Right now that you are
239. 18:24familiar with the literature for your interest areas now that you understand
240. 18:28what the current state of the research is in whatever areas you're interested
241. 18:33in you can finally get to the important part of finding potential research
242. 18:37topics. In other words we're now finally narrowing down from broad to niche to
243. 18:42actual research topic. But how do you do that? Well there's three techniques that I'm
244. 18:47going to show you that are really effective at finding suitable research topics.
245. 18:52So
246. 18:54the first technique for finding suitable topics finding original research topics is to
247. 18:59utilize what we call the FRIN - that's an acronym for further
248. 19:05research is needed. What I mean by this is that within most journal articles if
249. 19:10not all journal articles, towards the end they'll generally have some discussion
250. 19:14about the need for further research on that specific area. So if you're looking
251. 19:19at current articles in other words fairly recent articles if you look at
252. 19:25that FRIN section if you if you assess what they state as being needed in terms
253. 19:30of further research you're going to have a source of really really useful
254. 19:34research topic ideas . The upside to this approach is that provided the
255. 19:39articles you're looking at are recent, the upside is is that this is going
256. 19:43to be a really really original research in terms of the opportunity at hand. If a
257. 19:49recent article by a reputable researcher is saying that there's a need for
258. 19:55research over here, then you can be pretty sure that that is
259. 19:58is genuinely an original and authentic need (i.e. a strong potential research topic). So the upside is originality. The
260. 20:04downside is that these might not really be areas that interest you. You might
261. 20:09find that the areas that they proposed for further research or just not up your
262. 20:14alley or you might just have more practical limitations that they require
263. 20:19some sort of methodology or they require some sort of context that you just don't
264. 20:23have access to so there's pros and cons to this approach.
265. 20:27but if originality is really important, then the FRINis a fantastic starting
266. 20:32point. If you have a good bundle of articles that are recent you're going to
267. 20:37have many many FRIN opportunities just kind of sitting on a platter there. So
268. 20:41make sure you look at those. Right the second technique that you can use to
269. 20:48find good research topics is to assess whether the existing research is relevant and
270. 20:53suitable within a specific context. So what I mean by that is that you can take
271. 20:58a body of theory that has already been pretty well researched or just
272. 21:03moderately researched and you can assess whether that's relevant within a certain
273. 21:07context, such as a certain country or within a certain industry or within a
274. 21:13certain demographic group, socio-demographic conditions. You can assess
275. 21:18whether or not the existing theory is is relevant there and if there is any
276. 21:22question mark about whether it is relevant there, then that is a research topic that
277. 21:26is potentially worth considering. For example you might take a research topic like a
278. 21:31consumer trust (consumer trust is something that's extensively researched)
279. 21:36but you might say well consumer trust has been researched extensively but
280. 21:40largely in an American or a first-world country context and for certain types of
281. 21:46products or for certain types of services. So you might make an argument
282. 21:49that there is a need for for research into consumer trust within a third world
283. 21:55or developing country context and for a specific type of service or specific
284. 22:01industry. In other words you'll be putting a unique spin you'll be putting
285. 22:04a different contextual lens onto
286. 22:08existing research. So this can be very effective when you're interested in the
287. 22:12area where there is a good deal of research already but just nothing that's
288. 22:16been done close to home close to to a population that you have access to. An
289. 22:21important point to make with this is that there needs to be a legitimate
290. 22:25reason as to why the existing research might not be valid or might not be
291. 22:30relevant in a certain context. You can't just say well it was it's been
292. 22:35done extensively but it hasn't been done in this country. If this country is much
293. 22:40the same as the countries that it has been done in then there isn't really an
294. 22:45argument that this is essential research so you need to find a valid argument for
295. 22:50why the existing research might not be valid it might be something like well
296. 22:55this cultural differences. It might be that these socio-economic conditions are
297. 22:59very different and that impacts decision making by the consumer and impacts trust.
298. 23:04It might be that there's just different belief systems etc etc, might be this is
299. 23:09a different societal structure. Whatever the case might be you need to have some
300. 23:13sort of argument as to why this unique context might not hold the existing
301. 23:18research as valid. So that's a useful approach that you can use. The third
302. 23:25approach that you can use is far less structured and the third approach is
303. 23:28basically just brainstorming and mind mapping potential research topics - just allowing yourself to
304. 23:35have a bit of uncensored free thinking in terms of potential research topics.
305. 23:35What you
306. 23:40will often find is that once you've you've immersed yourself in the
307. 23:44literature, once you've immersed yourself in in the
308. 23:47state or the current state of the research, that can just stimulate a lot
309. 23:51of free thinking and so if the other two methods haven't really brought anything
310. 23:55for you, what you can do is you can just sit down and you can brainstorm research topic ideas. You
311. 24:00can mindmap a bunch of potential topic directions that the theory might be able
312. 24:05to go in and what you do there is you write down your your your your stack of
313. 24:10ideas from that session. Don't restrict your thinking just put it down on paper
314. 24:14come up with a list of ideas and then sit down with that list and go
315. 24:19to the research/literature and see whether that research topic has been covered.
316. 24:19So that's just a a
317. 24:23third technique that really isn't very structural I can't give you much
318. 24:28direction on but I'm giving you license to say well you can't just think freely
319. 24:33about this you don't need a specific systematic approach to research topic ideation.
320. 24:38The only caveat is whatever ideas you come up with there make sure you return
321. 24:42to the literature and see whether or not those research topics have been covered. Very often
322. 24:46what you think is unique thinking on your part has actually been covered
323. 24:49somewhere else already. So you've got to go back and validate those research ideas.
324. 24:55Using one of these techniques or ideally a combination of these techniques you
325. 25:00should be able to come up with a much more refined list of specific research
326. 25:05topics - in other words we've gone from broad area of interest to a niche area
327. 25:09of interest to a specific research topic and hopefully you've got a nice list of them.
328. 25:14The next step is to take that list take those research topics and to turn them into
329. 25:20specific research questions. The purpose of turning them into research
330. 25:24questions is to again get really really narrowed down to get specific about okay
331. 25:29so what are we actually asking so what does that look like let me give you an
332. 25:33example. So let's say through the techniques that we just discussed
333. 25:38you've come to one of your research topics being consumer trust in Robo advisors in
334. 25:44the UK, for example. So if consumer trust in Robo advisors is your potential research topic,
335. 25:50then you want to refine this even further to a set of specific research
336. 25:55questions, and these might be (1) what are the key drivers of UK consumer trust
337. 26:01in Robo advisors and (2) how do these drivers vary an impact between
338. 26:06demographic groups. so notice how we've gone from even a research topic which is quite
339. 26:12narrow already (consumer trust in in Robo advisors), with the research questions we
340. 26:17go even more specific we say well what is what are the drivers of this trust
341. 26:21and to how does that vary between demographic groups so it's getting
342. 26:25really really specific about this is the topic and these are the specific
343. 26:29research questions so you want to go through this process for whichever
344. 26:33topics you've identified list out the topic and then list out perhaps two or
345. 26:38three research questions that you're getting really really clear about what
346. 26:41it is that you are going to be potentially focusing on. Then once you've
347. 26:48got a good list of potential research topics and and their associated
348. 26:54research questions, you are ready to move on to the final step which is evaluating
349. 26:59the research topic ideas. So you finally got a good (hopefully a good) list of potential
350. 27:08research topics and the associated research questions and now it's time to sit down
351. 27:13and to evaluate these in a systematic fashion so that you can pick the most
352. 27:17suitable topic. The key is to do this systematically, not to go and and just
353. 27:22run with whichever one you are most drawn to because there are very
354. 27:26important considerations that we haven't looked at just yet to assess which is
355. 27:32the best potential topic. So let's have a look at that. For each research topic that you've
356. 27:37got you're gonna evaluate them against the following criteria and I'd suggest
357. 27:41that you create a little Excel spreadsheet and you assess a score for
358. 27:46each of these metrics or for each for each research topic give a score to each of the
359. 27:51following points. So the first one is originality so in other words is this
360. 27:56topic sufficiently original at least according to to your University's
361. 28:00requirements. Are you going to meet their criteria? This is why it's really
362. 28:04important right in the beginning the first or second step was to understand
363. 28:08the university's criteria and also the other dissertations that you looked at
364. 28:12should give you an idea of originality requirements. The second thing you want
365. 28:16to look at is importance. In other words is this research topic of real significance. So is
366. 28:21it just a nice to know is it gonna make a difference in whichever industry its
367. 28:26involved in? Is it significant or is it really just an intellectual curiosity?
368. 28:31Again the requirement from the university side will vary and that's why
369. 28:35it's really important to understand what what they require in terms of the
370. 28:39importance of any given research topic. The next criteria to assess against is the
371. 28:44availability of literature - in other words is there enough literature to base
372. 28:48your investigation on but not too much that it's it's overdone what you're
373. 28:53looking for here is a sweet spot. You don't want something that is so
374. 28:56radically new that there isn't really enough literature to base a literature
375. 29:01review on, which will be a requirement in your dissertation or thesis. So you want
376. 29:07something that isn't too new but also that isn't overdone and if it if it is
377. 29:11overdone you're gonna need a really good justification in terms of why your
378. 29:16specific context makes it more worthwhile doing again.
379. 29:19The next thing to evaluate on is data access in other words are you gonna have
380. 29:24access to the data that you need to answer your key questions? Are you going
381. 29:29to be able to get the information that you need? Very often this is overlooked
382. 29:34and then you run down a path and end up really really stuck in the middle of
383. 29:39your dissertation with with a data access issue. The next thing to consider
384. 29:44is resource access. Do you have a need for things like lab equipment or do you
385. 29:51have a need for additional resources as perhaps even a cash budget? Will you have
386. 29:57access to that think about what other resources you might need in order to to
387. 30:01really pull off the specific piece of research another consideration is your
388. 30:06data collection capabilities? What I mean by this is if you're gonna do
389. 30:11interviews, do you have the necessary people skills do you have a desire to
390. 30:17certain interview people is that something is you comfortable with
391. 30:20similarly if you're going to collect quantitative data do you do you have a
392. 30:24way to do this to you I have the means to actually collect the information and
393. 30:29the data that you need link directly to this is your analysis capabilities. Do
394. 30:34you have the skills necessary to analyze the data whether that's qualitative or
395. 30:39quantitative data and if not, will you get these skills or do you do you have
396. 30:43the the desire to go and learn how to how to run the numbers for statistical
397. 30:48analysis? Do you have the desire to learn software for a qualitative analysis?
398. 30:54Think about these these capability restrictions
399. 30:57that there are in place. Then importantly just personal attraction - so
400. 31:02how excited are you by any given research topic - and will well addressing it add some
401. 31:08value to your life to have solid add value to your career? If you're gonna use
402. 31:12this as as part of a career move will it help you build a skill that you've
403. 31:17previously wanted, or an area of knowledge that you wanted? So consider
404. 31:20just the personal attraction that's essentially an overall component. So once
405. 31:27you've scored all of your research topic ideas according to those criteria, tally
406. 31:31them up and very quickly you'll be able to see what your top three potential research topics are.
407. 31:32So you
408. 31:36want to refine it down to top three - you might want to just do a little logic
409. 31:39check on that see if your top three are actually research topics that you
410. 31:44quite like and take your top three and the next step is to develop what what we
411. 31:50call an elevator pitch. In other words a really quick summary of what it is that
412. 31:55each research topic is about with the idea of selling someone on it. In other words
413. 31:59think about selling a potential supervisor on approving your research. So
414. 32:05you want to develop for each of these top three research topics, develop an
415. 32:09elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is essentially just one paragraph covering
416. 32:14a few important points which I'll discuss now. The first thing is what will
417. 32:19the study be about? That just needs to be one sentence. The second point is why
418. 32:23is this original? Again just one sentence. The third is why is this important? Again
419. 32:30just one sentence. And the fourth is how you plan to answer this question - in
420. 32:36other words what's your research design in one or two sentences - qualitative
421. 32:40quantitative, rough idea of how you'll be collecting and analyzing the data.
422. 32:46Once you've done that you're gonna have a paragraph for each research topic idea
423. 32:51and that paragraph is really concisely going to convey the what,
424. 32:55the why, and the how of each topic. Now what do you do with these little
425. 33:00paragraphs that you create? Two things I would recommend the first thing is take
426. 33:06that little paragraph and shoot it off to as many people as you can.
427. 33:09Perhaps some friends and family perhaps some fellow cohort members and some
428. 33:13fellow students and it gets some feedback regarding which research topic do they
429. 33:18like the most, why do they like that, why is it appealing to them and and do they
430. 33:22potentially see any problems in terms of the execution on that research. So that's
431. 33:28gonna give you just a good layman's perspective on the research topic. Its
432. 33:33going to give you some perspectives from people who are not
433. 33:37specialists in the space. The second thing you can do (and a bit of a reward
434. 33:42for having watched this far into the video) is you can take your elevator
435. 33:47pitch and you can slap that straight into the comments below this video and
436. 33:50we'll get one of our PhD qualified research specialists from Grad Coach to
437. 33:56give you feedback on that idea. That's something we normally charge for, but
438. 34:00we'll give you that absolutely free. Just drop it in the comments below.
439. 34:03Importantly please it must be an elevator pitch it must be covering the
440. 34:08things we've discussed - please don't put just half-baked research ideas in the comments.
441. 34:13So do those two things and you should have some really good feedback
442. 34:17that you can use to to to inform your thinking. Once you've got that
443. 34:22feedback give some thought to what it all means to you and then make a
444. 34:28decision. If you you've got your top three and your top three have made it
445. 34:31through all those criteria that we've already gone through if you've been
446. 34:35honest with yourself and if you've done the work chances are all three of them
447. 34:38are pretty good research topic ideas. So pick the one that appeals to you most and stick with
448. 34:43it. You don't need to doubt it, you don't need to second-guess it. If you've
449. 34:47followed all the steps then you should have really solid
450. 34:50research topics - so pick it and then get on to your research proposal. So there
451. 34:58you have it a seven step process - the seven step process that we've used with
452. 35:02hundreds of students at Grad Coach covering how to find and choose a really
453. 35:09solid research topic for your dissertation or thesis. To recap on the
454. 35:14seven steps: Step one is get a basic understanding of research understand
455. 35:18what the research process is about understand the terminology
456. 35:22used in research. Step two is to get a really solid understanding of your
457. 35:27University's requirements. What do they require in terms of originality in terms
458. 35:32of importance in terms of of restrictions ethics etc. Once you've got
459. 35:37that, step three is to identify your broad interests. So this is just really
460. 35:42starting at the top starting with a broad not not at all specific area of
461. 35:48interest and the important thing to remember there is that it's something
462. 35:51that you must have an intellectual curiosity about but not something that's
463. 35:55emotionally charged for you. Once you've got those broad research interest areas
464. 35:59identified you've got to move on to reviewing the past dissertations and
465. 36:03then use those to understand how other people have narrowed these down into
466. 36:07niche areas. So you're gonna go and narrow things down from broad to more
467. 36:12niche. Once you've got your niche areas identified step 5 is to go and review
468. 36:17the literature have a look at the literature in those areas, familiarize
469. 36:21yourself with the current state of the research understand what is going on
470. 36:25understand what the key arguments are understand what's agreed on what's
471. 36:29disagreed on and then once you've done that you can go on and start identifying
472. 36:35specific clear narrowed research topics and and research questions using the
473. 36:40three techniques that we discussed. Once you've got your research topics
474. 36:44identified you're gonna go and systematically evaluate them using the
475. 36:49criteria that we discussed earlier and cut those down to your top three research topics.
476. 36:49Get your feedback from your friends, get your feedback by by dropping your elevator
477. 36:57pitch into the comments here and then make a decision about which one you're
478. 37:02gonna go with. If you follow these seven steps and put in the time and effort to
479. 37:07do them right there's no doubt in my mind that you will come out with a
480. 37:11rock-solid research topic and then you can get on to writing your dissertation
481. 37:15or thesis proposal. By the way we have covered how to write a thesis or
482. 37:21dissertation proposal in another video so I'll link to that below this video.
483. 37:26There you have it - how to find a good basket of research topics and then
484. 37:33ultimately how to choose a research topics in seven pretty straightforward steps.
485. 37:33As I've said feel free to leave any comments below the video,
486. 37:41any questions below the video and most importantly if you've gone through the
487. 37:45process and you have developed your rock-solid elevator pitches, then drop
488. 37:51them in the comments and we'll give you free feedback on that. You can also book
489. 37:54a free consultation with any one of our PhD qualified research specialists. That
490. 38:00is very easy to do on the Grad Coach website and I'll include a link to that
491. 38:04below this video. If you enjoyed the video please do give us a thumbs up, show
492. 38:07us some love and if you would like you can subscribe to our YouTube channel
493. 38:13Grad Coach TV. We do have loads of dissertation and thesis related content there,
494. 38:18Same for the Grad Coach blog - I'll include the link below this video. So for
495. 38:22today this is Grad Coach signing out.