ABSTRACT
This chapter offers suggestions for aspects of research methods that are applicable to theses and dissertations, regardless of their foci. The primary goal of the participants’ aspect of students’ dissertation is to strengthen the internal validity of results and provide information about their potential generalizability. Measurement is the process of obtaining data from students’ participants, the process of administering an instrument and deriving a measure, and is a central component of their dissertation research. Errors in measurement strategies are often the basis for the rejection of manuscripts submitted for publication. When multiple measures of the same construct are obtained that differ in their metric or normal distribution, they can be combined into a single composite measure through z-score transformations. A description of the statistical analysis plan for students’ dissertation/thesis is often a separate section of a proposal Methods section, coming right before the Results. In research with humans, a formal informed consent process is an essential aspect of ethical research.
