Structuring the Thesis

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Critical Reflections on the Conventional Thesis Structure and a Guide to the Research Questions Addressed in the Book

      • David Kember

      Pages 3-13

   3. The Collective Voyage of Discovery: How the Book Was Developed and Produced

      • David Kember, Michael Corbett

      Pages 15-24

3. Mixed Methods

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

      PDF

   2. The Paradigmatic Challenge of Mixed-Methods Research: Positivism, Relativism or Pragmatism?

      • Rosemary Callingham, Ian Hay

      Pages 27-37

   3. An Exploration of Epistemological Beliefs, Learning Environment Expectations and Persistence Intentions: Insights into the Shaping of Student Persistence in the First Semester of University Study at Three Australian Universities

      • Julie Godwin, David Kember

      Pages 39-46

   4. The Challenges Faced by Male Primary Teachers

      • Vaughan Cruickshank

      Pages 47-54

   5. English Language Teaching in Nepal: An Investigation of Issues and Challenges

      • Ananda Aryal, Megan Short, Si Fan

      Pages 55-63

   6. How Do Students Make Decisions About Overseas Higher Education? A Case Study of Chinese International Students at a Regional Australian University

      • Qian Wu, David Kember

      Pages 65-76

   7. Linguistic Complexity in English Textbooks: A Functional Grammar Perspective

      • Vinh To, Ahmar Mahboob

      Pages 77-86

   8. Structure by Design: Reasoning About Covariation with TinkerPlots

      • Noleine Fitzallen

      Pages 87-96

   9. Researching in the ‘Cultural Interface’: Working Between Non-indigenous and Indigenous Research Paradigms

      • David Hicks, Mary O’Dowd, Michael Corbett

      Pages 97-106

4. Action Research

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107

      PDF

   2. Action Research and Criticality: Working Out the Stone in Your Shoe

      • Michael Corbett, Allen Hill

      Pages 109-119

   3. Students’ Understanding of Statistical Inference: Implications for Teaching

      • Robyn Reaburn

      Pages 121-127

   4. The Design and Implementation of a Short Course, Focusing on Metacognition, to Develop Writing Skills for University Students for Whom English Is an Additional Language: An Action Research Study

      • Adnan Satariyan, Bronwyn Reynolds, David Kember

      Pages 129-137

   5. Intersections of Indigenous Knowledge and Place Based Education: Possibilities for New Visions of Sustainability Education in Uganda

      • Kevin Kezabu, Jenny McMahon, David Kember, Allen Hill

      Pages 139-148

   6. ‘I Only Look Forward to Mondays’. Facilitating Creative Writing Groups: Ageism, Action and Empowerment

      • Joan Webb

      Pages 149-159

   7. A Journey Around Tongan Education

      • W. John Phelps

      Pages 161-168

The book is a collective investigation of the structuring of theses in education, the social sciences and other disciplines that commonly do not follow the standard procedures of the scientific method. To help research students design a structure for their own thesis and liberate their investigations from the constraints associated with the use of the conventional structure, it explains how the structures adopted were designed to suit the topic, methodology and paradigm. It also provides a wide range of examples to draw upon, which suit a broad spectrum of theory, methodological approaches, research methods and paradigms. Additionally, by analyzing the methodologies and paradigms, and reviewing the methodological and paradigmatic spectrum, it offers a significant contribution to the way research is conceptualized.

The book addresses a number of key questions faced by students, supervisors and examiners: 

•Why do examiners often find it difficult to read work in non-scientific disciplines when theses are structured in accordance with the conventional scientific method?

•Why do students in non-scientific disciplines struggle to write up the outcomes of their research in the conventional structure?

•What alternative thesis structures can be devised to better suit the wide range of methods?

•Which theories and paradigms are commonly followed in education and the social sciences and how do these perspectives influence the research process? 

•What methods, theories and paradigms are commonly adopted by education and social science students and what problems do these pose when students write their theses?

• thesis structure
• Thesis design
• Research Paradigm
• Presentation of Methodology
• Postgraduate Education
• Research training
• Doctoral thesis
• PhD thesis
• social science research
• Humanities research
• Non-scientific research
• learning and instruction

• University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia

  David Kember

• School of Education, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada

  Michael Corbett

David Kember is Professor in Education: Curriculum Methods and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania. Prior to that he worked in Hong Kong for 25 years, first at the Polytechnic University, then the Chinese University and finally as a Professor in Higher Education at the University of Hong Kong. He spent six years running an inter-institutional initiative operating across the eight universities in Hong Kong, known as the Action Learning Project, which supported 90 action research projects in which teachers introduced a wide variety of initiatives aiming to improve the quality of student learning. His research in the following areas has been particularly highly cited: student approaches to learning and the influence of teaching and assessment on them; the Chinese and Asian learner; motivation; reflective thinking; teachers’ beliefs about and approaches to teaching; action learning and research for teaching quality improvement; distance and online learning.


Michael Corbett is an educational sociologist whose work draws on social theory, as well as historical and geographic traditions. He has worked at the School of Education at Acadia University in Canada since 2002 with a three-year sojourn at the University of Tasmania (2015-17), where he held a research professorship in rural and regional education, and where he continues to hold an adjunct professorship. Corbett’s work focuses principally on rural education and he is a global leader in this field. He has studied youth educational decision-making, mobilities and education, the politics of educational assessment, literacies in rural contexts, improvisation and the arts in education, the position of rural identities and experience in education, conceptions of space and place, the viability of small rural schools, and "wicked" policy problems and controversies in education.

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