Interview -- Doctoral Researchers Writing

Interview -- Doctoral Researchers

Writing a Dissertation

With the objective of achieving a wider perspective in dissertation writing, I have interviewed two doctoral-degree holders about their dissertation experiences. My respondent Jane* holds a doctoral degree in Sociology and for her, choosing the research topic is pivotal in research. Her research project was a quantitative understanding of how religiosity is correlated with belief in the paranormal. She explored two major dimensions of religiosity: i.e. belief system and rituals. Carlos*, on the other hand, worked on migration for his Psychology doctoral degree. His qualitative data was gathered with university undergraduates as respondents.

On Research Topic

According to Jane, "choosing the research topic was one of the harder processes for me because it requires a personal touch on my end. I needed a topic that could sustain my interest for a long while." Carlos believes likewise. Indeed, it is important for the researcher that he works on a topic that is of great interest for him because working on a dissertation could last for a year (or even longer). It requires endless and thoughtful considerations. When choosing the research topic, issues such as research methodology is also of consideration at this stage. A research topic with a more appropriate methodology that a researcher may not be very well-versed in may be problematic. Jane adds, "…that's why I chose my topic because it suits quantitative analysis very well, something I am more inclined in doing."

The Dissertation Chair & Committee

For her dissertation chair, Jane chose a professor who she have collaborated with a number of research works already. This professor was an expert on her research domain. Carlos, on the other hand, chose a professor who has inclinations in qualitative research like him as his dissertation chair. Carlos quips, "By doing so, you don't have to spend much time and effort in trying to defend your methodology because they are very well acquainted with it…" Both of them have chosen their committee based on their area of specialties, methodological inclinations, and related experiences which can be of great contribution to the subject-matter their working on. Choosing professors from different but related academic programs allows one to have a wider perspective on their subject-matter.

The Research Proposal

The research proposal stage allows you to fine tune your methodology before you go to field. Somehow, it already gives you numerous ideas on how the research is going to be like. The literature review is a very important component of the proposal as you will anchor almost everything (from methodology to data collection and analysis) on the literature review.

Data Collection and Processing

This seemed to be the most expensive stage of research. In Jane's quantitative work, she had to produce questionnaires and encode each one of them in the statistical software she used. Tokens were also given to respondents. Data collection and processing took a big chunk of her timelines. Carlos, on the other hand, had to spend much time interviewing his respondents because it is a qualitative research. He needed to revisit his respondents multiple times in order to build rapport with the respondents and ensure high quality of data. Data processing was also tedious because Carlos had to devise the usual matrix of answers of the many respondents he had.