Writing Your Thesis by Paul Oliver

Author:Paul Oliver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2018-01-09T14:33:37.597001+00:00

The background of the researcher

Social science research increasingly recognizes that the definition of a research question, and the subsequent collection and analysis of data, is very much an activity which involves interpretative processes on the part of the researcher. Research questions do not arise in a vacuum. They are developed by a researcher during a process of interaction with the social context in which they are working. The research question which evolves may depend upon many factors including the interests of the researcher, the reading which they have done on previous research, and the environmental influences to which they have been subject, for example in the workplace. From these various factors and influences, the researcher develops a research idea which will ultimately become the subject matter for the thesis.

A great deal of research in education and the social sciences derives from practical issues and problems which are located in the related professions. For example, a teacher who is concerned about issues of pupil discipline in schools, may well be interested in researching a specific aspect of the improvement of pupil behaviour. A social worker who spends a good deal of time involved with the issue of drug taking, may well be interested in strategies for providing better drugs education for young people. However, perhaps one significant aspect of this process is that it is the researcher who at some point makes a choice of the research subject. The choice is very much subjective and influenced by the interests and background of the researcher.

It is important to acknowledge the complexity of this process, since it is easy to treat the selection of thesis subject and methodology as if they are rather more simple and straightforward decisions. In fact, the choice of research subject depends upon the complex interplay of factors, and the manner in which the researcher interprets them. Having acknowledged this, it becomes important that the researcher documents some of these influences in the thesis. Not only does this documentation explain something of the background to what are complex decisions, but it also provides useful contextual information for the reader to begin to appreciate decisions taken later in data analysis. If the subject is connected with the workplace of the researcher, then it is important to describe the researcher’s role, and relevant aspects of the functioning of that workplace. Here again, there are interpretative decisions to be taken to describe one aspect of the workplace, and to omit another.

It is important that the researcher takes the opportunity in the introduction to explain some of these issues which may be relevant to the choice of research subject.The researcher’s previous academic background may be relevant, in that it may be used to explain how an interest in the research subject arose. If the research is connected with the researcher’s current employment role, then it may be very relevant for the researcher to describe that role, and to analyse the relationship between that and the research subject. Again, if the research subject has

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