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Content validity is based on the extent to which a measurement reflects the specific field of content on which you are focused. It depends on the careful selection of items to include in a test, survey, or set of observations, and the items to include are chosen after a thorough examination of the subject. For example, if researchers aim to study strategies for coping with stress and create a survey to measure people’s ability to cope with stress, if the researchers only focus on social support as a means for coping with stress and then draw conclusions about coping mechanisms in general, the study would have limited content validity because the results excluded other possible coping mechanisms. However, what is said about social support strategies may well be valid. So, to ensure content validity, one needs to have thoroughly explored the concepts and constructs in one’s field of study, evaluated their relevance, and defined and provided a rationale for those constructs to be included for the purposes of one’s own research. And because not all concepts in a given field can be included in a single research project, all research is limited.  

Face validity concerns whether the measures used appear to measure what they are supposed to measure. One has to assess to what extent an instrument is a good measure of a construct (or not). Unlike content validity, face validity does not depend on theory; it is an intuitive assessment, an estimate about the whether the survey or semi-structured questions asked or items measured will answer the research question. For example, if you are attempting to measure the efficacy of social support for reducing stress, asking people how often they interact with family members, friends, and colleagues with fixed options and then their evaluation of the level of support received on a 7-point Likert-type scale, on the face of it, appears to have validity.

Criterion-related validity, also called instrumental validity, means evaluating the accuracy of a measure or procedure by comparing it with another already validated measure or procedure. There are two types of criterion-related validity: Concurrent and predictive validity.

1. Concurrent validity refers to the degree to which the construct on which you are focused correlates with other measures of the same construct measured at the same time in the same research. For example, imagine an impromptu speech test has been shown to be an accurate test of English proficiency. By comparing the scores on a written comprehension test with the scores from an impromptu speech test in the same research project, the written comprehension test can be validated using a criterion-related strategy in which the results of the impromptu speech test are compared to the written comprehension test in order to assess to what degree the written comprehension test also accurately reflects proficiency in English. If there is a high correlation, for example, between those who score high on the impromptu speech test and the written comprehension test, on average, the written test can be said to possess criterion validity. So, one uses an already validated measure to evaluate the validity of a new measure of the same phenomenon or construct, in this instance, English proficiency.
2. Predictive validity refers to the degree to which a construct correlates with behavior in the future, for example, someone who scores high on agreeableness in a new personality test is later observed to express modesty, kindness, and a willingness to help others in various contexts. If that is the case, you can be sure that your new personality test did, in face, measure agreeableness.  

Construct validity focuses on the agreement between a theoretical concept or construction and a specific measuring device or procedure. It involves linking empirical and theoretical evidence for the construct. For example, a researcher constructing a new personality test might spend a great deal of time defining various personality traits so that, for example, when measuring agreeableness, the measure is sufficiently distinct from measures for passive-aggression traits. Construct validity can be broken down into two sub-categories: Convergent validity and discriminate validity.

1. Convergent validity is where measures that should be theoretically related demonstrate agreement among ratings that are gathered independently of one another. It refers to the degree to which a measure is correlated with other measures with which it is predicted to correlate, at least theoretically. For example, scores on one instrument for measuring the depth of depression correlate with other measures that test for the depth of a person’s depression.
2. Discriminate validity is the degree to which a measure does not correlate with other variables that, theoretically, should not correlate. For example, one would expect people who score high for agreeableness to not score high on a scale measuring aggression. In fact, one might expect the two to be inversely related.

So, when testing for construct validity it is important to evaluate to what extent the instrument correlates with other instruments that measure the same thing as well as ensure that it does not measure a construct to which it should have not theoretical relationship.

So, that’s just the half of it with respect to validity in quantitative research designs. In the next blog I will consider internal and external validity and the various threats to those types of validity and how to meet those challenges.

If nothing else at this point, I hope you have gained insight into how research is a deliberate and considered process. One does not just do research; one conducts research: It is a carefully orchestrated process in search of a sliver of truth.

I say ideally because I have become aware of how many postgraduate students and even academics pay other people, so-called ghost writers, to do the course papers, literature reviews, methodological designs, and sometimes the entire research project for them. Just this week I respectfully declined what could have been a lucrative project with what appears to be an agency when I pointed out that where I come from, what the agent was asking me to do would be considered unethical: I am not registered for that course at that university. I suggested that if the student felt inclined, he or she could approach me directly on Upwork, and I would be willing help the student better articulate his or her answers to the questions posed in the course handout. I pointed out also that the question paper made it clear that a student paying someone to complete the question paper is as about as close as one gets to plagiarizing.

Here is why it not a good idea to have a ghost writer write your dissertation, thesis, or paper for you:

• In the long-term, the value of the piece of paper you receive is scuttled: Being awarded a degree allows others to assume you are adept at sifting through, processing, and distilling information (text and data) and possess and can apply those skills in order to come to considered or evidence-based opinions that will set a course of action. Some of you with a ghost’s piece of paper are going land responsible positions, positions that affect and influence many people—powerful positions: public service, executive status, government. If you have not taken the time and trouble to learn the skills involved in sifting through, processing, and distilling information to reach a considered or evidence-based opinion, you will flounder, and your followers will flounder with you. Using a ghost writer in an academic context is setting yourself up to fail.
• A second reason is that as it becomes more and more evident that students employ people to read their degrees for them, when they flounder at what they are assumed to have mastered, the worth of the piece of paper for those students who actually earned their degrees is also devalued.
• A third reason rests on the degree to which the practice is fraudulent. On a deeper level, we reveal ourselves in how we write, in the words we choose and the way we put our sentences together as well as what we choose to address and how. If someone else writes a student’s paper, chapter, or entire dissertation, there will be a notable incongruence between how the person awarded the degree presents in person and what he or she claims to know in writing.
• The final and perhaps most important reason is that the graduate with the voice of ghost has also done him or herself out of an opportunity to become empowered. Having someone else process and give voice to the distillation process means you have never taken up the challenge of developing your own voice. If you are going to be counted among those who made a difference in this world, you need to have a voice, your own voice, not the voice of a ghost.

That said, the story has a beautiful ending. Just hours after respectfully declining the offer, I received a literal flurry of invites from students who are willing to earn their pieces of paper but were needing help with learning how to think like a researcher, distilling and articulating their understanding of others’ considered and evidence-based opinions, and writing their own understanding (and considered and evidence-based opinions) up in their own voices, or just simply needing a trained eye to make sure they had not missed something.

And so, my faith in the next generation is restored. Let’s hope those students who actually earned their degrees and took up the challenge of developing their own voices are the one’s appointed to responsible positions because there is an awful lot to be reconstructed going forward, and it is going to take a generation who can think clearly and voice their considered opinions.

          .  

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Remember that particular methodologies answer particular kinds of questions, and each method has its own limitations.

Quantitative research designs are focused on answering questions about what, how much, how many, and to what extent already identified variables are related. Sophisticated designs can test the strength of relationships between variables or even establish causal relationships. For example, if I had access to a database that documented people’s blood types, vaccination history, and health events, I could test the correlation between blood types, exposure to vaccines with fetal matter, and adverse vaccine reactions. I can crunch those numbers and then interpret the results for statistically significant relationships. So, quantitative research designs are about the measure of things and processes.

Qualitative methodologies, on the other hand, are focused on the meaning of things. The aim is to reach greater understanding of the problem or phenomenon by identifying what is essential for understanding the problem or phenomenon. The motivating questions are about how and why does this work or not work and the “data” is generally narrative text rather than counts and measures. For example, rather than asking how many people are bored with their jobs, I might ask, “What does it mean to feel bored with a job?” Or rather than asking how many or to what extent are leaders in public service transformational leaders, I might ask, “What does it mean to be a transformational leader in public service?” Aspects of the essences identified can later be tested in quantitative research but testing the relationships between themes or aspects or the experience identified in the explication of the narrative would not be the focus of a purely qualitative methodology.

When it comes to distilling the meaning of a phenomenon or even relationships between the themes explicated, you need to be clear from the outset if you are approaching the narrative with a pre-existing lens or theory or allowing the essence to emerge by intentionally suspending your preconceptions about the phenomenon and relationships within it. So, there are two ways of approaching qualitative data, one in which you are honest about the lens with which you are attempting to gain understanding, or second, you will attempt to suspend your preconceptions based on the literature review and personal experience and allow answers to the research question and resolution of the problem to arise from the data itself. Arguably, human beings are perspectival, in other words, as human beings, we always experience phenomena from a perspective or point of view, and the researcher as a human being can therefore only be honest about the preconceptions with which he or she arrived at an answer to the research question.

Since I completed my PhD, apps have been created, like NVivo, to make the processing of the narratives text, easier, but here is the dilemma: While its convenient to have an app like NVivo count the themes and categories you are either looking for via your theoretical lens or that emerge from the narratives, NVivo sometimes misses a truth that just one person uttered but could be subsumed under lesser truths expressed by all the participants. For example, only one participant in my sample for my PhD included the metaphor of Mother as Snake Woman, but the essence the image evoked, namely, the persecutory mother, was a strong theme expressed in all participants’ dream series and descriptions of their relationships with their mothers gathered through amplification of their dream series. Strictly speaking, if you use NVivo or any of its alternatives to process the narratives, you have reduced the narrative to measures and counts and are, technically, using a mixed-method design. So, bear in mind that qualitative methodologies are not about how many people expressed the same idea but about the depth of understanding reached in the explication of what participants said. Moreover, these apps process the data rather than distill the meaning.Mixed method designs can occur on several levels other than the data gathered and the strategies used for processing that data, for example, counting themes that emerge from a series of narratives. A mixed method design can be primary. Social surveys, for instance, can, from the outset, collect both statistics and narrative data. In trying to assess mine employees’ trust of management in the 1980s, one question was, “To what extent do you believe management attends to your physical welfare?” We used a Likert-type scale to measure how many (white and black) miners perceived that statement about management to be true and to what degree they thought it true, or how much. That’s a very simple quantitative design. However, the question, “Why do you say this?” was also asked with an open-ended follow-up question. The question, “Why do you believe that?” evokes narrative data that not only alerts the researcher to what aspects of their physical welfare participants deem important but also for what aspects of their physical welfare they hold management responsible. So, in this example, a mixed-method data collection strategy was used: We collected both quantitative and qualitative data, but the processing of the narrative or qualitative data was quantitative: the number of times a theme emerged was counted, and the themes were listed in the order of frequency or occurrence. So, bear in mind that, for the most part, research is about making strategic decisions in your efforts to answer the research question and solve the research problem. Choosing and developing the methodological design is about finding the best means to approach and gather information about the topic and process it to answer the research question.

Besides the research question, a number of other issues will influence your choice of research design, for example, one consideration is access to reliable data, be that medical records or people who can describe their experience. Access may also depend on the sensitivity of the information the research requires. For example, in a society where same-sexed partnerships are illegal and even persecuted, one is unlikely to have people volunteer to share their experience of their same-sexed relationships, and such people are unlikely to be honest in a general survey. Another consideration is the amount of time, money, and energy available to do the research. Still another is what is possible at your institution. For instance, it would silly to propose doing research about the meaning of boredom and creativity if the department specializes in neuropsychology. But you could, if you have access to the equipment, measure brain wave activity and other physiological responses among bored and creative people.

So a methodological design may well be a mosaic of quantitative and qualitative data collection procedures and processing strategies that offer the best chance of answering the research question, and the kind of methodology for answering the question may well be constrained by considerations related to the amount of time, money, and energy that can be invested in the research. For example, a longitudinal design following the degree to which participants’ stress levels decreased after a workshop about preventing burnout over five years is not achievable if your research report must be submitted within six months of being approved. And regardless of what methodological design you choose to do, you have to show that the design you chose is as good if not better than any other design you could have chosen given your research question and circumstances.

The feedback may be disappointing for any number of reasons. It may speak but say nothing because your supervisor/ mentor/promoter lacks interest in the topic, is afraid of offending you, or simply does not have the time to think too deeply about how your research might develop. It may be encouraging for any number of reasons, for example, the supervisor/mentor/ promoter engages with your topic, offers insights and direction, and lets you know you have made a great start. It may be devastating for any number of reasons, for example, your approach is met with skepticism or your focus brushed off an irrelevant.

Whatever the feedback, use it to your advantage. If you are disappointed, find an external sounding board against whom you can bounce your ideas. If encouraged, bless the universe and use the energy to forge ahead. If devasted, address the issues or develop an argument that shows your supervisor/mentor/promoter that you considered the options to which you were alerted and convince him or her of the relevance of the focus when making your corrections. For example, perhaps you have to read more and integrate another perspective or ensure your rationale as more explicit and convincing. Alternatively, you might have to argue that a suggested extension to what you proposed is beyond the scope of your study. In either instance, your work will be strengthened by considering and integrating the questions raised by the feedback.

For example, one of my external examiners noted that during the period I was writing up my PhD, a new theorist had emerged that I should integrate. I ended up not only integrating that theorist in a way that supported my approach to the topic but also wrote another chapter that brought the research to a conclusion in a more thorough fashion. Sure, I was devastated because I thought I was done, but then I was challenged to present an improved product, which I did. Sometimes our thinking is not finished when we meet the deadline to submit, and the extra time given by the evaluation when receiving a pass with conditions can prove a blessing in disguise because that time allows for an even finer distillation of the sliver of truth being offered. 

Whatever the quality of the feedback, you ignore the feedback at your peril. There is nothing worse for a busy supervisor/mentor/promoter locked into a publish or perish world than to invest effort in a student and see no fruit. So, regardless of the quality or nature of the feedback you receive, use it strengthen your offering. See it as a problem to be solved on the way to resolving the problem that motivated your initial research question.

While it is best to be aware of that limitation from the outset and cut your cloth accordingly, fitting what you need to say about what you have done and found into a word limit can be challenging.

I recall how, having completed an edit, the client suddenly realized she had a word count and that the thesis needed to be two-thirds as long. The complexity of her topic meant the content included was necessary and even essential.

And so began the process of whittling down the report of her research by a third. Here are some of the strategies you might apply if you are faced with the same issue. These range from

• deleting words that do not add meaning to a sentence (superfluous words),
• replacing wordy phrases with a single word that captures the essence of what you mean,
• reconstructing sentences, which might include
  • losing unnecessary prepositions, articles, and determiners,
  • learning how to use the possessive form correctly,
  • avoiding the expletive form or sentences that begin with “It is/there is (are)”,
  • shifting from the singular to the plural, and
  • using more judicious punctuation. 

Remember that when writing for academic and business purposes, you are not writing poetry or prose. Academic writing aims for succinctness of expression. The aim is to convey information as concisely as possible. That means making sure that each word in a sentence counts and is essential to the meaning of the sentence.

Consider some examples of the first strategy:

• The reason why I was late is because my car would not start. (13 words)
• The reason I was late is because my car would not start. (12 words)

Reason and why mean the same, so “why” is a superfluous word in this instance.

• I thought that I could settle with a high school diploma, but I see education is everything. (17 words)
• I thought I could settle with a high school diploma, but I see education is everything. (16 words)

The word “that” can often be deleted from a sentence without compromising the meaning of a sentence.

A second strategy is replacing wordy phrases with a single word. Consider the following sentences:

• Themes were distilled further in order to extract the essence of the experience. (13 words)
• Themes were distilled further to extract the essence of the experience. (11 words)

The phase “in order” does not add meaning to the sentence, and in general, it is best not to use two or three words where just one would effectively convey what you mean. Transition word, or those words and phrases used to smooth the links between ideas, like consequently, therefore, ultimately, etc., should be used only if the link would not be obvious to the reader.  

A third set of strategies involves reconstructing sentences. This strategy more work, but it leads to a more refined expression of what you mean.

Consider the following examples:

• Transformational leaders seek to include followers in their decisions, to create a shared vision that can be pursued, and to trust their followers will do what is required. (28 words)
• Transformational leaders include followers in their decisions, create a shared vision that can be pursued, and trust their followers will do what is required. (24 words)

The phrase “seek to” is nice to have rather than essential, and if all the prepositions introducing the list are the same, you only require the first preposition to introduce the list.

• Gathering of the data included employing a social survey to determine how associates of Chimera perceived the brand. (18 words)
• Gathering the data included employing a social survey to determine how Chimera’s associates perceived the brand. (16 words)
• A social survey was used to determine how Chimera’s associates perceived the brand. (13 words)

• The means of execution involved figuring out how associates of Band Brand perceived the brand. (15 words)
• Execution involved figuring out how Band Brand’s associates perceived the brand. (11 words)  

Notice how the first example includes three revisions. First, the “of” is superfluous. Second, using the possessive form lets go of another preposition. In the third case, I have a more direct statement. The second example removes a wordy phrase and uses the possessive form to lose four words.  

• There are teachers who believe that children should be spanked if they disobey instructions. (14 words)
• Some teachers believe children should be spanked if they disobey instructions. (11 words)

• There is a difference between a and b. (8 words)
• A difference exists between a and b. (7 words)
• A and b are different. (5 words)

Avoiding the expletive form not only results in a more active sentence but can also save a great many words. Finally, shifting from the singular to the plural in a sentence removes the need for articles and “him or her” if you are wanting to express yourself in a politically and linguistically correct fashion.

• Each participant was provided with an explanation of what was expected of him or her. (15 words)
• Participants were provided with explanations of what was expected of them. (11 words)

So, let’s look at a passage in which I was asked to reduce a post from 1113 characters to under 1000 characters.   

Until September 2021, I was reviewing in excess of 100 student essays per month for largely an American audience. To get a sense of the American ‘zeitgeist’, I made it my business to read the comments under media reports, both (Blue) and “alternative” (Red). Texas will be challenging in that respect. I would go so far as to suggest that some of the main proponents (amongst ‘we people’, not the career politicians) are obsessed with the idea, for example, that Kamala Harris and Belinda Gates, just about every powerful Blue female, is a born-man who transformed into a woman, based mostly on a strong jaw and broad shoulders. It comes second to the obsession with clones.

It is a real learning edge for the Red. They forget that God experiments—being the Creator—and that biology might not be as simple as just xx and xy.

However, I have noticed a shift from shock and horror to the kind of giggle adolescents give when first learning about sex on the playground (back in my day, anyhow), so maybe there is a shift you can coach forward. One way of doing that, with strong facilitators, would be to connect them with their inner child as they attend the lessons their children will attend and have a debriefing afterward. If they can feel (and I mean feel) the lesson isn’t predatory propaganda, it might calm their fears (and allow them to grow).

Applying the strategies described above, I easily met the requirement:

Until September 2021, I was reviewing some 100 student essays per month for a largely American audience. To get a sense of the American ‘zeitgeist’, I made it my business to read the comments under media reports. Texas will be challenging in that respect. I would go so far as to suggest that some of the main proponents (amongst ‘we people’, not career politicians) are obsessed with the idea, for example, that Kamala Harris, Belinda Gates and Michelle Obama are born-men transformed into women based on strong jaw lines and broad shoulders.

It is a real learning edge. They forget that God experiments—being the Creator—and that biology might not be as simple as just xx and xy.

Lately, I have noticed a shift from shock and horror to the giggle adolescents give when first learning about sex on the playground (back in my day, anyhow). Maybe there is a shift you can coach forward. One option, with strong facilitators, would be to connect parents with their inner child as they attend the lessons their children will attend and include a debriefing afterward. If they can feel (and I mean feel) the lesson isn’t predatory propaganda, it might calm their fears.

In this simple exercise, you can see how I

• Replaced phrases with a single word (in excess of to some)
• Reworked an example to show the same more succinctly
• Sacrificed nice-to-haves rather than essentials
• Used the plural rather than singular to avoid the use of articles.

So, do not despair if you need reduce your word count. Instead, allow your thinking to fully expand, and once you have that documented your thinking, you can contract your documented thinking by applying the strategies above to whittle down your word count.

(© Michelle L. Crowley 30/12/2021)

It is easy to avoid that frustration and the time it wastes if, from the outset, you develop a system for documenting what you have read as you read the literature you have read and are accessing.

The following system assumes you are clear about and have formalized your research question, at least vaguely, and have developed the list of keywords for accessing the relevant literature based on your research question and the context in which you asked your research question.

Each time you access a work that is relevant, and by relevant, I mean the paper would contribute to your and the reader’s understanding of the topic, take a minute or two to

• Copy the details that would be included in the references list, for example, the author or authors, date of publication, title of the work, the container in which the work can be found, and the DOI number, if available, and make sure you include the URL. Some sites make that really easy.
  • At this point, it does not matter in what order the information is documented, so do not waste your time perfecting the font and order of the information. You just want to ensure that when you construct your References list in the style you have been asked to use that all the necessary information is in one place and at your fingertips.
• Copy the Abstract, if available. An abstract includes information about the focus of the work, the methods employed, and the findings.
  • If no abstract is evident, note the focus of the work, the methods employed, and the findings of the authors. Key words will do, and perhaps even one or two pertinent quotes.

The critical step…

The critical step for making who said what when available is to include a comment on where the information might be used in your document, be it a section or theme or even theme within a section. Where in the literature review might that author’s views be accommodated or serve to support your approach to the topic?

Bear in mind that themes for some works might include a section of the literature review and a methodology chapter or section: The methodological design must also be defended. Moreover, in the methodology chapter (or section) of your document, you also need to discuss why you did not choose alternative methods for answering your research question.  

Applying this strategy, you will end up with what some might call a basic and useful annotated bibliography in a Word file. In the course of doing that, you will also have begun developing the framework for writing up the literature review. In other words, the beauty of this strategy is the following:

• In identifying themes, you will begin developing and revisiting the initial framework or template for conveying your conceptual understanding of your topic and research focus. It enables the necessary distillation process.
• You can use Find in Word to search for themes to identify who said what when: The citation information is literally at your fingertips as you begin using the framework to write your literature review.
• The content of your Reference list is in place. You will not waste time hunting down an obscure source that supports your argument.

Consider if my research question is about the extent to which adverse vaccine reactions and blood type are correlated.

Notice that I am proposing that there is a correlation, so my alternative hypothesis is that there is a correlation between blood type and adverse vaccine effects. The null hypothesis would be that blood type makes no difference with respect to adverse vaccine effects.

My literature review would need to focused on defending the assumption that there is a correlation because a keyword search reveals some research about vulnerability to being infected with various pathogens, including COVID-19, by blood type, but little about vulnerability to adverse vaccine effects and blood type, with one exception: a 1965 paper that suggests a link with respect to the smallpox vaccine. None of the authors seem to have published in that field since, and the one that continued to publish shifted focus to thinking about how we think and statistical models for making sense of medical data.

I therefore need to access literature that allows me to argue that attempting to answer the research question is worthwhile and that theoretically, at least, it is possible that blood type and adverse vaccine reactions are correlated, especially vaccines that include fetal matter.  

So, for example, I would need to discuss blood types and their characteristics. I would need to point out, for example, that people with O-Neg blood are universal donors but have adverse effects to transfusions with any other blood type. I would need to show that some vaccines include fetal matter and discuss those vaccines and what fetal matter they include and any research results pertaining to that. I would then have to argue, based on genetic theory and the creation of Molly, the first cloned sheep, that matter from an individual cell of every organic entity contains the blueprint for the entire entity, and that would include the entities’ blood types. So, if it is true that matter from the individual cell of every organic entity contains the blueprint for the entire entity, including fetal tissue in vaccines may explain why some people, and particularly those with and O-Neg blood type have adverse reactions to vaccines that include fetal matter.

Notice how, in the process of accessing the literature, my research question is refined to vaccines containing fetal matter and my conceptual framework expanded to a discussion of the mechanics of cloning creatures and the theory that supports that. As I read and come to understand the field in which I will be conducting my research, the framework is refined so that I can convince the reader that the research is worthwhile and may yield fruit. I can show, at least in theory, why some people may have adverse reactions after being vaccinated and others not and develop the grounds for establishing whether (or not) blood type is a significant factor or makes a difference to adverse reactions to vaccines, or at last those containing fetal matter. The next step would be to do the research to establish if the data supports my hypothesis. Even if the research does not support the hypothesis, it is a valid finding because I will know with relative certainty that blood type makes no difference to whether people suffer adverse reactions to vaccines and consider looking at alternative explanations for adverse vaccine reactions.

So, when reading around your topic for the purposes of the literature review, from the outset, consider

• Documenting the references entry information for each work you have read.
• Copying the Abstract or summarizing the work
• Identifying the works’ relevance for your research question
• Categorizing the themes evident in each entry
• Using the themes to develop the framework by which you will convey (write about) your conceptual understanding of your field and topic.

Once your literature file and framework are in place, you can more confidently begin with the writing.

(© Michelle L. Crowley 14/01/2022)

The statement of the problem is focused on what is not known or the gap you are attempting to fill with your research. For example, using the research question, “To what extent are adverse vaccine reactions related to blood type?” the problem is that some people suffer adverse effects after a vaccination, but it not known why some people suffer adverse effects and others do not. Given the centrality of blood type in transplant and transfusion medicine, it is possible that adverse reactions are the result of the blood-type of the fetal matter included in some vaccines being incompatible with the recipient’s blood type.

The nature of the problem and its phrasing leads to the statement of the purpose of the research, for example, “The purpose of this quantitative research design is to establish to what extent adverse vaccine reactions are correlated with recipients’ blood types.” I might further refine that statement of the purpose by including the type of vaccines I intend to examine to establish the extent of the relationship, for example, vaccines containing fetal matter and the COVID-19 shot in particular, and I might even include the method in order to further refine my statement of the problem. 

Here is another example to consider: The research question is “What is the relationship between the perceived attractiveness of a teacher and the attribution of transformational leadership behaviors to that teacher by his or her colleagues?” In this example, the problem is that it is not known how attractiveness and the attribution of transformational leadership behaviors are related with respect to teachers and their colleagues. In other words, does being an attractive teacher mean one is more likely to be thought of as a transformational leader, in the same way as people who are more attractive are perceived to be more intelligent [1]?

A statement of the purpose of the research is the next step, and it includes a description of the means for collecting and analyzing data in a scientifically or an academically acceptable manner. Before finalizing the purpose statement, therefore, I must have explored what is possible methodologically in order to answer the research question posed.

Continuing with the above example, in a quantitative research design, the purpose statement might read as follows:

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study using a self-administered survey method is to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the attractiveness of their colleagues and those teachers’ perceptions of those colleagues’ transformational behaviors in three Californian high schools.

Notice that the purpose statement includes

• the methodological design (quantitative correlational design),
• the method (self-administered survey),
• the relationships or variables I intend to examine (relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the attractiveness of their colleagues and those teachers’ perceptions of those colleagues’ transformational behaviors), and
• the geographical location of the sample.

In essence, then, a purpose statement is a clear and concise description of the research focus that includes the main variables to be examined, the way in which the variables will be examined, and the population or context in which those variables and their relationships will be examined. Most often, the title of the research and the problem statement are closely linked, for example, in this instance. “Transformational Leadership and Teacher Attractiveness: A Survey of Three Californian Schools.” Notice that I have met the APA requirement that the title be no longer than 12 words.

In summary, the statement of the problem allows you to generate a researchable question, while the statement of the purpose of the research informs the reader about how you intend to answer that research question. The statement of the purpose of the research must be not only be congruent with the title of the research, the literature reviewed, and the methodology used to answer the research question, but also be consistently stated each time.

So, it is a good idea to keep a file from which you can cut and paste the research question, problem statement, and purpose statement when required. They are two critical foci that will help you tame the beast of information overload, the sometimes hundreds of articles you might access in a literature search.

Reference

[1] Satoshi, K., & Kovar, J. L. (2004). Why beautiful people are more intelligent. Intelligence, 32(3), 227‒243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2004.03.003

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Friends share their personal worlds, marketers sell products, journalists inform people about events and opinions about those events, and academics formally contribute their slivers of truth, be it the extent to which an immune system is compromised by a Western lifestyle to what it means to be an effective leader. Besides the intention to discover truth rather than share, sell, or inform, differentiating academic or scholarly writing from other types of writing, academic writing also differs in its purpose, structure, and tone.

Academic Writing Has a Particular Purpose

Perhaps the most important aspect of academic writing is its overall purpose, which is to answer a research question. In addition, each section of the report has a purpose or precise focus. For example, chapter one in a dissertation provides an overview of what you intend to do and how you intend to do that. Even if the first chapter is written first, it should be the last chapter reviewed, edited, and proofread before finalizing your submission because what you said you would do must be congruent with what you actually did.

One critical section of a first chapter is clarifying the background to the “problem” or unanswered research question before formalizing the statement of the problem and purpose statement [1]. For example, if you are asking a question about gender-based violence, you might cite credible statistics to show that it is an issue worthy of discussion. Other sections might highlight how published research contributes to an understanding of the topic but does not answer the specific research question posed. Still other sections might outline how you intend going about answering the research question or provide an overview of the methodological design. So, Chapter One would be focused on the implications of those statistics for motivating the research question and developing a methodology to answer the question.

Academic Writing has a Particular Structure

Academic writing is also structured in a particular way. It is intended to lead a reader to the same unambiguous conclusion as you based on the literature reviewed and the data collected and analyzed. To achieve that, when writing, it is best to be clear about the point you want to make in each section, gather the evidence in support of those points, be it from the literature you have reviewed or the data you have analyzed.

In other words, each paragraph in a section should include a focus and elaborate upon that focus. Beginning paragraphs in a section might outline what you intend to cover to make a point in that section because readers appreciate knowing where they are going, and final paragraphs to a section may draw the ground you have covered in support of a point together and sometimes also provide the foreground for what is to come in the next section.

Keeping the PEEL strategy, meaning point, evidence, explain, and link, can be helpful:

• Introduce the point you wish to make,
• Illustrate the point with an example or data (in other words, evidence),
• Include elaboration or analysis of the point in terms of that example or data, and
• Conclude with a sentence that sums up the point and links it to the paragraph that follows, the question you are attempting to answer, or the argument you are making.

Bear in mind that writing to reveal the truth is not a linear process: Each paragraph of your report is part of a spiral that deepens your own and the reader’s understanding of the topic, and there are spirals within spirals. For example, the introduction and conclusion to each chapter, section, and subsection can be seen as containers for those respective chapters, sections, and subsections. The introduction, be it a paragraph or sentence, opens the door to the point you will make, and the concluding section, paragraph, or sentence closes the door on that point or takes it forward.

Academic Writing has a Particular Tone

Academic writing also requires a certain degree of formality. That does not mean it should be sound pompous. To write formally means avoiding shortened or contracted word forms, for example, using should not instead of shouldn’t; popular phrases or cliches, like in a nutshell or often times, and casual everyday words such as okay, maybe, and really. So, bear in mind that writing a dissertation is not the same as writing a message on a social media platform. In general, one uses whole and precise words.  

Choosing words precisely is critical. The words used to convey meaning are chosen carefully so that your meaning is clear and unambiguous. There are words to avoid, for example, vague measurements like many/most, often/rarely, high/low. Consider, for example, the difference between “Most students struggle to begin writing an essay” versus “At least 62% of students struggle to begin an essay.” In other words, a reader should not be left guessing what you mean by “most.”

Likewise, absolute terms are best avoided. Even in the most robust statistical research, there would be 0.01% risk that the correlations occurred by pure chance, so it cannot be true that everyone desires to find a soulmate or that everybody responds to extrinsic motivation or that all students are motivated by excellence. In other words, nothing in science and more especially the social and business sciences can be said with absolute certainty. Data support a hypothesis, model, or finding; they never prove a hypothesis, model, or finding.

Third, academic writing is concise, straightforward, and direct. It is not about being wordy and convoluted. The complexity must be demonstrated in your thinking about the topic rather than your word choices, so if one word will do, avoid using a phrase that means much the same. Practice whittling down the word count [2] of passages you have written in those moments when you lack the energy to move forward.   

Fourth, academic writing is objective, but does not objectify. Where possible, sentences should be restructured to avoid first-person speech singular and plural (I, my, mine; we, our, ours). The focus and therefore the subject of the sentence should be on the topic, not the person who wrote about it with some notable exceptions. For example, in some qualitative methods it would be important to make one’s personal perspective on the topic explicit so that the reader can take that into account when evaluating the truth of the explication that follows. Likewise, it is preferable to use the first-person singular (I) if the only alternative is to use the rather awkward and alienating “the researcher” when reporting on the strategies you followed to gather the data.

So, for example, rather than saying, “The researcher measured the amount of oxygen emitted over a period of four minutes” or even, “I measured the amount of oxygen emitted over a period of four minutes,” I might say, “Thereafter, the amount of oxygen emitted over a period of four minutes was measured.”

Bear in mind also that the words you choose have implications: they reveal your assumptions. Consider, for example, “The researcher used a random sample of students to complete the self-administered questionnaire.” The sentence turns both the researcher reporting on what he or she did and the participants into objects, things sans consciousness. In that case, “A random sample of students was chosen to complete the self-administered questionnaire” or even, “The self-administered questionnaire was completed by students chosen on random basis” is preferable. Even, “I chose a random sample of students to complete the self-administered questionnaire” is less objectifying even if not, strictly speaking, objective.   

Bear in mind, too, that being objective does not mean objectifying your part in the research. For example, research does not conduct itself, so it inaccurate to say, “This research focused on…” It would be better to say, “This research was focused on…” or “In this research, the focus was on…” That phrasing makes the agent present but not explicit. It is very important to be clear when writing with the intention of discovering truth that one is clear about who or what has the agency in the sentence. Inanimate or externalized objects do not have the ability to act, so it is inaccurate to suggest that a ” study claimed…” It is the authors who claimed that based on the study they conducted.

To Sum It Up

Ultimately, academic writing is about presenting a clear, concise, well-structured report about how you applied appropriate methods in a rigorous, methodical, and systematic fashion to answer a question about a topic that is relevant to the field with which you are engaged. The claims or statements made are carefully and logically argued and/or supported by evidence. The intention is to present the truth discovered about the topic whilst acknowledging that all human experience and thinking is perspectival and in that sense limited.

So, while your concluding paragraph or chapter will bring the research report to completion and add your “sliver or truth,” be that a new way of looking at the topic, a refinement in the current thinking about the topic , a refutation of a finding supported by previous research, or a challenge to assumptions that have been taken for granted, your conclusion will not (and should not) ever be the final word on the topic.  

Notes

[1] The next blog focuses on the problem and purposes statements.

[2] Consider reading the previous blog, “Whittling Down the Word Count”

Ultimately, the motivation underlying a research project is a search for Truth, but it is well to remember that the Truth will always elude us because there are as many slivers of truth that contribute to the Truth as there are human beings on the Earth. So, until we have a framework or paradigm that can accommodate all 7.9 billion slivers of truth, never mind all the passed human beings that contributed their slivers of truth, we are still busy trying to figure out the Truth, and as long as there are contradictions and conflicts between the slivers of truth contributed, the challenge remains that of constructing a framework that resolves those contradictions and conflicts. That means that not only will there always be room to conduct further research, but also, when writing up your research, you are formally contributing your sliver of truth about a particular topic in a particular field to the project of constructing a framework that can contain the Truth.

To make your contribution to that framework, you might confirm someone else’s contribution, with or without including a different context or relationship; challenge another’s contribution, with or without offering a meta view that refutes or accommodates the opposing view; or offer insight by approaching the same question from a different vantage point.

For example, research in the life sciences might replicate a study exactly to confirm or dispute published findings that, for example, mice deprived of calcium are vulnerable to osteoporosis. In the social and business sciences, one might replicate a study in a different context. One might explore the extent to which, for example, job satisfaction is correlated with extrinsic motivation (monetary reward) in an individualistic culture, based on research by Huang (2013) showing a strong positive correlation between job satisfaction and extrinsic motivation in more a collectivist culture like China [1]. 

Research may also arise out of a challenge or practical problem to be solved, such as conflict in the mining industry or the challenge of humanizing remote work, or it might arise from a contradiction in a theoretical framework, such as social support both mediating and exacerbating stress. In the former examples, one might collect data that helps one better understand the problem and then propose solutions and even implement solutions and measure their success or not, thus engaging in what is called action research. In the latter instance, when the focus in on a theoretical contradiction, one might try to understand when and how and under what conditions social support mediates or exacerbates stress.

Research may also involve looking at a phenomenon or topic in a new way and/or pushing the envelope, and such motivations are considered appropriate at a PhD level. For example, after thinking about leadership and publishing his initial ideas about what leads leaders to excel (Bass, 1985), Bass (1990) proposed a leadership style that went beyond controlling and transacting toward facilitating and empowering followers. Since then, further developments in the field of leadership include Robert Greenleaf’s servant-leadership [4] and collectivist leadership [5], which makes it possible for the most skilled person in the moment to step up and then step down when another is more skilled for leading in the next moment. Arguably, leadership research has shifted from a focus on the leader and what the leader does to the follower to what the follower needs from a leader.

So, what is the nature of your inquiry and research question? Are you seeking to confirm a sliver of the Truth? Such studies confirm (or challenge) previous findings and are generally considered appropriate at a master’s level. Or is your intention to resolve a practical or theoretical problem or contradiction or attempting to contribute to the expansion of the frameworks that hold what truths we have discovered about the Truth? The latter two would be considered more appropriate at a PhD level.

References

[1] Huang, Y. (2013). How intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation affect organizational commitment and job satisfaction: A cross-cultural study in the United States and China, Theses and Dissertations, 89. https://rio.tamiu.edu/etds/89

[2] Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press.

[3] Bass, B. M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, (Winter), 19-31.

[4] Greenleaf, Robert. K. (1998). The power of servant leadership: Essays. L. Spears (Ed.). The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership. Berrett-Koehler. [5] Yammarino, F., Salas, E., Serban, A., Shirreffs, K., & Shuffler, M. (2012). Collectivistic leadership approaches: Putting the “we” in leadership science and practice. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(4), 382-402. doi:10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01467.x

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