Workbook
A Simple Guide for Writing Educational Theses and DissertationsBy Ojoma Edeh HerrAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Ojoma Edeh Herr
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-8767-6Contents
INTRODUCTION............................................1CHAPTER I Background....................................13CHAPTER II Review of the Literature.....................31CHAPTER III Method......................................53CHAPTER IV Results......................................71CHAPTER V Discussion....................................83
Chapter One
Background
For this chapter, briefly answer the following questions. Keep in mind that the order in which you answer these questions is not as important as the sequential logic as it relates to your topic. Note: These questions are not meant to be answered with yes or no responses.
I. Do professionals think your topic is important?
Example from my dissertation: One of the broadly accepted goals of special education is to help students become competent adults (Perrone & Male, 1981). Competent individuals are "those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter daily, and who possess a judgment which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely miss the expedient course of action" (D'Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971). Naisbitt (1982) has suggested that students who are skillful have bright futures because of their ability to meet personal needs while being innovative and useful members of future societies. It continues ...
Now for your thesis/dissertation jot down brief, but important information in the space provided.
Do professionals think your topic is important?
__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
II. What do the professionals know about your topic and what is the timeline for this knowledge?
Example from my dissertation: Since the early 1970s, educators have increased their emphasis on the community placement of individuals with mental retardation (Craighead, Craighead, Kazdin, & Mahoney, 1994). With this trend has come the realization that there are a number of skills that facilitate adaptation in community settings. Increasingly, more developmentally advanced skills, such as telephone usage (Risley & Cuvo, 1980), money management (Cuvo, Veitch, Trace, & Konke, 1978), pedestrian behavior (Page, Iwata, & Neef, 1976), clothing-selection (Nutter & Reid, 1978), cooking (Johnson and Cuvo, 1981), use of fast food restaurants and buses (McDonnell & Ferguson, 1988; Marholin, O'Toole, Touchette, Berger, & Doyle, 1979) have been focused upon in order to facilitate adaptation of individuals with mental retardation into community settings. Initially, investigators working with persons with mental retardation emphasized the training of play skills such as toy contact or toy manipulation (Wehman & Marchant, 1978) and social interactions among children in a play situation (Strain, 1975). Keogh, Faw, Whitman, and Reid(1984)employed a treatment package consisting of modeling, verbal and physical prompts, and corrective feedback to train adolescent boys with severe mental retardation to play with commercial games.
What do the professionals know about your topic and what is the timeline for this knowledge?
__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
III. What are the professionals doing about your topic?
Example from my dissertation: With the emphasis on sheltered and supported employment, a number of studies have concentrated on developing work and work-related skills in individuals with mental retardation (Gold, 1972, 1976). Training programs have focused on teaching a variety of simple and more complex job skills, such as sorting different sized bolts and assembling bicycle brakes (Gold, 1972).
In addition to teaching specific job skills, research has focused on maintaining and increasing work output. A variety of procedures have been evaluated in the past studies, including differentially reinforcing higher rates of work (Bellamy, Inman, & Yates, 1978); changing the latency of reinforcement by decreasing pay periods from one month to one week (Martin & Morris, 1980); increasing the amount of money per task (Bates, Renzagalia, & Clees, 1980); and manipulating antecedent stimuli, such as providing specific job information and reducing environmental distractions through use of partitions (Martin, Palltta-Cornick, Johnstone, & Goyos, 1980).
What are the professionals doing about your topic?
__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
IV. Are professionals having problems in what they are doing?
Example from my dissertation: While problem solving is accepted as one of the basic skills children need, generally, it is not taught as such in most schools (Dolman & Williamson, 1983). The general method used to teach problem solving according to Treffinger, Speedie and Burner (1974) has been to follow a particular technique or to set steps, such as translating word problems into equations (Kaufman, 1979). The transferability of specific instruction to other problem sets is questionable (Treffinger et al. 1974). An example of this comes from the study by Treffinger et al. (1974) that used a test of problem solving as a criterion measure and found no growth in ability to solve real-life school problems.
Are professionals having problems in what they are doing? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
V. Do professionals neglect important aspects of your topic?
Example from my dissertation: A complication related to problem solving behavior is that various cultures emphasize different modes of problem solving. There is overwhelming evidence that culture plays an important role in children's cognition and that different cultures promote different learning styles and problem solving strategies based on their cultural values and backgrounds. However, no study was found to suggest whether culture plays any role in the problem solving of individuals with mental retardation or whether any particular cognitive strategy is more effective than others in training individuals with mental retardation from different cultural backgrounds to problem solve in social interpersonal situations.
Do professionals neglect important aspects of your topic? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
VI. If needed, provide descriptions/ and or definitions of terminologies you will use in this study.
Example from my dissertation:
Definition of Problem Solving and Decision Making
Problem solving is broadly defined by Anderson (1985) as the active process of trying to change the existing state of a situation into a desired state. Any problem situation contains three important characteristics: givens, a goal, and obstacles and define givens, a goal, and obstacles.
Decision making, on the other hand, has been defined as the process of making choices among competing courses of action (Band & Weisz, 1988). Decision making involves more than just an expression of preferences, it is also an understanding of an issue, identification and evaluation of options, communication of a decision, and a commitment to action (Jenkinson & Nelms, 1994).
Provide detailed definitions to terminologies you will use in this study/paper. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
VII. Provide a brief statement why the above definitions are important.
Example from my dissertation: In the definitions of problem solving and decision making above, a person must decide on a course of action to meet a need or solve a conflict in an encountered situation. However, the obstacles in the problem solving definition are not present in the decision making definition.
Provide a brief statement why the above definitions are important. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
VIII. If the above definitions have multiple components, state, define, and provide examples of them here.
Example from my dissertation:
Types of Problem Solving
There are many types of problem solving. For the sake of this study, three types (abstract, concrete, and social interpersonal) will be discussed with the emphasis on social interpersonal problem solving. Problem solving is important to school achievement and important in everyday life. There are many instances where children and adults have to solve problems daily, using either abstract, concrete, or social interpersonal problem solving skills.
Abstract problem solving is defined as ...
Concrete problem solving, on the other hand, is defined synonymously with information processing ...
Social interpersonal problem solving is the ability to generate ...
If the above definitions have multiple components, state, define, and provide examples of them here. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
IX. Remember question V. above (Do professionals neglect important aspects of your topic)? Define and strongly connect it to your topic.
Example from my dissertation:
Culture, Cognition, and Problem Solving
Cole (1988) found, based on his experimental studies of Kpelle people, that cultural differences in cognition reside more in the situations to which particular cognitive processes are applied than in the existence of a process in one cultural group and its absence in another.
Culture, according to Shade and Edwards (1987), is defined as the collective consciousness of a community with its own unique customs, rituals, communication style, coping patterns, and social organization. This definition is important because it illustrates the pervasive influence of culture on people's values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and approach to problem solving.
Remember question V. above (Do professionals neglect important aspects of your topic)? Define and strongly connect it to your topic. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
X. Now that you've proven that your topic is important, provide "The Statement of the Problem"
Example from my dissertation:
There is considerable research suggesting that the poor community adjustment of many adults with mental retardation is due as much to deficits in social competence as to limited intellectual abilities (Zigler & Harter, 1969).... According to D'Zurilla and Goldfried (1971), the goal in developing problem-solving skills is to train an individual in resolving new problems as they arise, rather than solving a single problem. Also, participants in Castles and Glass' study are adults with mental retardation, not children. Additionally, there was no indication that culture was a component in their study....
There is overwhelming evidence that culture plays an important role in children's cognition and that different cultures promote different learning styles and problem solving strategies based on their cultural values and backgrounds. However, no study was found to suggest whether culture plays any role in the problem solving of individuals with mental retardation or whether any particular cognitive strategy is more effective than others in training individuals with mental retardation from different cultural backgrounds to problem solve in social interpersonal situations....
Now that you've proven that your topic is important, provide "The Statement of the Problem" __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
Sources:
Note: Generally, Chapter one should not be in depth, but this depends on your study. Some theses/dissertations may have ten (10) pages for chapter one while others may have more or less, depending on the topic.
Chapter Two
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
For this chapter, answer the following questions in detail. Keep in mind that the order in which you answer these questions is not as important as the sequential logic as it relates to your paper (topic). Note: Some of the information here may overlap with the information in chapter one.
I. Provide an overview of chapter two. Keep in mind that you do not label it as such. Note: This part is usually written last.
Example from my dissertation: This literature review is organized into six parts: The first part describes the theories and research on problem solving with the focus on general problem solving. The second part describes theories and research on social problem solving. The emphasis here is on two areas: The limitations of the existing strategies used to teach social interpersonal problem solving to students with mental retardation from different cultural backgrounds and the effectiveness of general cognitive strategies used to train social interpersonal problem solving skills to individuals with mental retardation. The third part describes theories and research on culture and problem solving with the focus on African-Americans and Euro-Americans. The fourth part describes Nigerian culture. The fifth part describes Euro-American culture. The sixth part is the summary of the research followed by the rationale for the present study and the research questions.
Provide an overview of chapter two. Keep in mind that you do not label it as such. Note: This part is usually written last.
_________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________
II. What is the literature regarding the theories surrounding your topic? Note: This section is usually detailed.
Example from my dissertation:
General Problem Solving
Problem solving is important in all cultures. Almost everything that an individual does involves solving problems, or behavior that is directed toward achieving a goal (Anderson, 1985)....
Research in problem solving has come from several different fields, including experimental psychology, education, and industry.... In an attempt to explain why some people have difficulties in making the appropriate decisions when they encounter problem situations, three problem solving models are examined: behavioral models, cognitive models, and cognitive-behavioral models. Each of these models is briefly described below.
Behavioral Models
Behavioral models of problem solving examine the motivational forces, the processes that contribute to and shape behaviors, the degree to which external events influence an individual's life, and the degree to which the influence of such events can be modified....
Cognitive Models
The first cognitive revolution is said to have taken place in the decade between 1955 and 1965. That was the "information processing revolution", and it remains the best known phase of cognitive science (Craighead et al., 1994)....
(Continues...)
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