Surviving and Thriving in Postgraduate Research

This handbook provides an in-depth exploration of the entire journey of postgraduate research in the social and behavioural sciences, from enrolment to its culmination in the form of a thesis, dissertation or portfolio, and beyond. It is written in an accessible and example-rich style, offering practical and concrete advice in virtually all areas. It also includes references to additional resources and websites, and each chapter features key recommendations for improving the postgraduate research experience. 

The book addresses not only research-related aspects (e.g. supervisors; selecting your guiding assumptions; contextualising, framing and configuring research; reviewing literature; sampling; writing proposals; ethics and academic integrity; selecting a data gathering strategy; surviving your thesis/dissertation/portfolio examination; and publishing), but also questions concerning how to integrate, manage, and balance the research journey in the context of the postgraduate student’s broader life-world (e.g. skill development and supervisor relations; effective time and project management; a healthy work–life balance; maintaining motivation; and dealing with criticism). The book adopts an explicitly pluralist perspective on postgraduate research, moving beyond mixed methods thinking, and offers concrete examples from postgraduate students’ real-world experiences. 

• postgraduate research
• social sciences
• behavioural sciences
• research methods
• proposal writing
• research ethics
• academic integrity
• plagiarism
• literature review
• data gathering
• time management
• project management
• academic supervisor
• work-life balance
• data analysis
• qualitative research
• quantitative research

• UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, Australia

  Ray Cooksey

• RMIT University Vietnam , Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

  Gael McDonald

Ray Cooksey is an Emeritus Professor at the UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. His research mainly focuses on the areas of decision making and cognition, chaos and complexity theory, organisational and behavioural systems theory, leadership, teacher judgment, pluralist approaches to research, climate change and adaptation, and multivariate statistics. 

Gael McDonald is a Professor and President of RMIT Vietnam. Her main research interests are in international marketing, human resource management, and organisational behaviour. 

Policies and ethics