ABSTRACT
This chapter presents issues students should consider in selecting the focus and research design of their thesis or dissertation. Discussions with the advisor will help keep students focused and motivated, and should reduce the amount of tangential, unproductive work that they do. Dissertations adhering to the principles of psychological science can involve description, prediction, or control, but “explanation” can be a particularly important aspect of dissertations. The goal in this type of research should not simply be to describe functional relations, differences between groups, correlations between variables, or the effect of a manipulation but to explain those differences, correlations, and effects. A dissertation should fit within a program of research or other scholarly activity. The main responsibility of agency and institution administrators is to maintain the smooth functioning of the organization, not to help with a dissertation. Whenever possible, the participants in a dissertation should be selected from the target population about whom students intend to make inferences.
