Lecture 3 THE KEY SKILLS TESTED IN A DISSERTATION

Lecture 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES to become familiar with the key skills involved in the preparation of dissertations to know how to incorporate those key skills into your work to be able to improve your work with critique, analysis and evaluation

Lecture 3 LECTURE OUTLINE recommended reading how your work will be assessed: the criteria what knowledge and understanding is, and how to display it how to use analysis to improve your work how to improve your work by using critique the role of synthesis and creativity how to evaluate sources and your own work

Recommended reading: Chapter 3: The Key Skills Tested in the Dissertation, in the associated book: Horn, R. (2009) Researching and Writing Dissertations. London: CIPD

THE KEY SKILLS TESTED IN A DISSERTATION The main skills being tested are: knowledge and understanding critique and analysis synthesis and creativity evaluation

Work-alone activity: KEY SKILLS Time allowed: 10 minutes’ preparation 3 minutes’ feedback Wite down a definition of the following key skills: knowledge and understanding critique and analysis synthesis and creativity evaluation Feedback to the group

KNOWLEDGE There is no simple and agreed meaning for the word knowledge – philosophy has debated its meaning for centuries. A working definition for the purposes of a dissertation would probably focus on the following aspects: the state of knowing something familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study specific information about something acquaintance with facts relating to a topic

Knowledge: DEMONSTRATING KNOWLEDGE Types of knowledge that you will most probably need to display in a dissertation are: facts theory, concepts, models, typologies research data approaches to method approaches to data-handling benchmark and best practice approaches to standard institutional problems

UNDERSTANDING Rather like knowledge, understanding is a concept that is hard to tie down. Most people can recognise it when they see it – but what is it, and how can you demonstrate it in a dissertation? Understanding might be considered to be the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows. Clearly, this will require knowing something, which is where the definition of ‘knowledge’ comes in useful – but how can we demonstrate understanding? Using our definition above – ‘the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows’ – would lead us to at least the following three ways of demonstrating understanding...

Understanding: DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING By offering explanations – People display their understanding of things by offering explanations. This involves highlighting critical features of a theory or idea, as when someone explains an enthusiasm for doing a task by telling of their desire for the reward that is obtained by completing the task. This displays a rudimentary understanding of expectancy theory.

Understanding: DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING By displaying relational knowledge – People express their understanding in explanations constructed of relational knowledge. This is a complex web of cause-and-effect explanation. A sparse explanation involving only one simple rule would in contrast suggest a sketchy understanding of an idea or theory. Such an explanation would therefore need extension to display multiple motivations and theories.

Understanding: DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING By displaying a revisable and extensible explanation – People demonstrate their understanding by revising and extending their explanations. Explanations must thus be both highly extensible and revisable in fundamental ways. If they are not, we would perceive limitations to the level of understanding.

Understanding: DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING Demonstrating understanding typically takes place in the following sections of a dissertation: the literature review the methodology data analysis conclusions and recommendations

ANALYSIS Firstly, it is almost impossible to demonstrate analysis without having an understanding of the relevant knowledge of the area you are analysing, so this section is linked with the sections Knowledge and Understanding, and a similar connection should exist in your dissertation. Secondly, analysis on its own will not guarantee that your dissertation is awarded a good grade. Analysis must be linked with critique in order to utilise a skill and approach called critical analysis

Analysis: DEFINITIONS Definitions of analysis tend to focus on these types of approach: the study of the constituent parts and the interrelationship of the parts the breaking down and separation of the whole into constituent parts simplifying the whole into parts to display the logical structure an explanation of a process and the parts of that process

Analysis: DEFINITIONS The study of the constituent parts and the interrelationship of the parts and The breaking down and separation of the whole into constituent parts A research study looking at, say, reward management might reasonably need to investigate the constituent parts of reward management. In business analysis there is a need to use theory, ideas, models or typologies to carry out analysis. How can we look at the constituent parts of reward management using theory?

Analysis: DEFINITIONS Perhaps the simplest theory to demonstrate the approach would be to consider reward as being made up of extrinsic rewards and intrinsic rewards (Sansone and Harackiewicz, 2000). Using this theory immediately separates the research phenomenon into two parts and allows further analysis of those parts and the relationship between the parts. The analysis might then progress by looking in more detail at the nature of extrinsic rewards using Mahaney and Lederer’s ideas (2006) to analyse the practical use of extrinsic rewards in the success of information system projects and the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Analysis: DEFINITIONS Simplifying the whole into parts to display the logical structure Reducing a thing, idea or concept to smaller and simpler parts is often an effective form of analysis. Workplace attendance is a complicated organisational problem. It is possible to use a theoretical model to simplify the main phenomenon into parts that are easier to research. Steers and Rhodes (1978) present such a model that separates institutional issues from cognitive personal issues. Using this model would allow for more effective research to be carried out on absence management.

An explanation of a process and the parts of that process Explaining a process and separating out the parts of that process is another slightly different form of analysis. In business and organisational studies, ‘change’ is often the subject of research. Descriptive explanation of the change process takes the analysis so far. Introducing a model of the change process and analysing the change against the model reveals more about the nature and extent of the change. Kotter (1996) proposes an eight-step change model for managing change in organisations. By comparing the subject of a research study with the change model it is possible to analyse the changes. Closer inspection of the various parts of the change process should lead to further analysis. Analysis: DEFINITIONS

Analysis: DEMONSTRATING ANALYSIS Analysis is a skill that can be demonstrated in various parts of your dissertation and will typically be worth between 30% and 50% of the available marks. In a completed dissertation, analysis would be displayed in several areas: the problem statement and aims the literature review the methodology data analysis conclusions and recommendations

CRITIQUE ‘Critique’ is the term given to the process of estimating the quality of something – strictly defined, it is the critical examination of something. Critique and evaluation are closely related ideas. The aim in using critique is to select the strong elements of literature and discard the weak elements.

Critique: A CHECKLIST Paraphrase the theory, article or research. Draw out the main claim or claims. Consider the argument that builds towards the claims. Is a balancing or counter-argument presented? Review the evidence for each of the claims. Bring the thoughts of other scholarly work to bear on the theory, article or research. Report the findings of your critique.

Critique: DEMONSTRATING CRITIQUE The main areas of the dissertation where critique is vital to the success of the work are: the literature review the methodology the claims made in the findings section the accuracy of the recommendations the claims for the contribution of the research

Work-alone activity: SCHEDULING MY DISSERTATION Preparation for the next learning session Prepare two PowerPoint presentation slides setting out: how you spend your 168 hours a week what you must change in order to complete your dissertation

REFLECTION on the learning points of this lecture The following key skills will be assessed in your dissertation: it is vital to display a good level of these.