5 Checks to Ensure that Your Thesis Can Fulfil its Promises

In your first chapter, your thesis or dissertation makes all sorts of promises. But can it do what it says it’s going to do? Can it actually fulfil its promises?

Well, that’s largely up to you. You need to set it up so that it can.

Here are 5 essential points that you need to check:

1. Your research approach and promises of generalisability:

If you’ve adopted a qualitative approach, it’s most unlikely that your findings will be generalisable beyond your sample or similar samples. The strength of the qualitative approach is its exploratory potential rather than its generalisability.
The message: Check that you’ve not made promises of generalisability unless your research approach lends itself to generalisability – usually findings of a qualitative study are not generalisable.

2. Your thesis consistency and promises of addressing the knowledge gap:

Make sure that the empirical side of your thesis addresses the research question(s) and ultimately the knowledge gap that you specified in your first chapter.
The message: Check that your empirical research fulfils your promise of answering your research question(s) in line with the knowledge gap.

3. Your research rationale and unrealistic promises:

Don’t make huge claims like your research will change a certain policy for the country, or inform a government department how to change some intervention. Unless your research is exceptional, it probably won’t. Rather say, more realistically, that it will contribute to a body of knowledge on the specific knowledge gap of your topic.
The message: Don’t exaggerate the importance of your thesis or dissertation when you’re proposing or justifying it.

4. Your research design and promises of causation or impact (quantitative research):

The results of your thesis are constrained by your design. For example, if you promise to assess causation, your design needs to be a true experiment. Similarly, if you promise to assess impact, you need a design that allows for comparison against a baseline or comparable group.
The message: Check that your promises of causation or impact accord with the limitations of your design.

5. Your sampling adequacy and promises of testing an effect (quantitative research):

If you promise to test an effect or a causal relation like the efficacy of a treatment, make sure that your sample has adequate power. If it is underpowered and you don’t find an effect, it doesn’t mean that the effect isn’t there. Remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (Altman & Bland, 1995).
The message: Check that your experiment has sufficient power to interpret your (non-significant) results correctly.

In summary, don’t overpromise on behalf of your thesis or dissertation. Rather, make realistic promises and deliver on them well.

Do you want help with your thesis or dissertation?
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