Graduate students are forbidden to rehash any study and pass it as their thesis or dissertation. A simple change of research place, subjects/participants, retention of a more or less similar conceptual framework, related literature, problems, hypotheses, and instruments of a previous study will not amount to a pioneering study. For that means that one is not about to embark on a search for knowledge that would make a legitimate contribution to the present pool of knowledge. Being the first of its kind should be a quality that all graduate theses and dissertations must hold in common. The UP College of Education should thus exhort its graduating masters and doctoral candidates to submit a proposed topic that could lead to a pioneering research in education.
WHAT SORT OF WORK WILL MAKE PIONEERING STUDY?
Yet I often feel frustrated as well. Everywhere, much discussion about education remains mired in the parochial. Frankly, I am tired of writings by educators that focus on the instrumental or the momentary: Should we distribute vouchers so that youngsters can attend private schools? What are the advantages of charter schools? Are teacher unions the problem? The solution? Should teaching degrees be granted at the college level, only in graduate school, or only for those trained “on site”? How much education should take place at the computer or over the Internet? Should we have local control, national standards, international comparisons? (Gardner, 1999, p. 15)
Today, “pioneering” has a broader meaning. It could be taken as a research that is concerned with problems that had never been addressed in the past. But a planned research may also count as a pioneering study if it seeks to address research questions that other related studies had failed to answer adequately or correctly due to some errors committed by previous researchers. Let it suffice to say that the proposed thesis/dissertation topic should entail a study that does not simply replicate another work or other similar studies. As mentioned, the mere change of site of investigation and group of samples/subjects/participants will not suffice to say that the study is genuinely a pioneering one. For its problems and methodology are a copy of what could be found in a similar research that had been already concluded. Replication of the study, although not disallowed outside thesis/dissertation writing, is done simply to disconfirm another researcher’s findings or claims in the past. So, even if a duplicate study is a valid research that can be done by any teacher or student researcher, it will not constitute a pioneering thesis or dissertation as this exercise requires the student to contribute to the current fund of knowledge. Suffice it to say that a valid topic for a graduate study is a pioneering work that intends to uncover something that has yet to be a part of the current fund of human or public (verifiable) knowledge. In the words of Joe Wolfe: “…your research must discover something hitherto unknown.”
IS IT POSSIBLE FOR TWO STUDENTS TO PURSUE THE SAME TOPIC?
Yes, it is always possible for a researcher to pursue the same topic without necessarily replicating a thesis or a dissertation. One familiar example from the discipline of natural science will do to clarify this point. Although Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton wanted to know more about the universe, their inquiries led them to different cosmological models. That is to say, all of them pursued one and the same topic, but their respective investigative methods and evidence led them to different conclusions. We could say thus that they undertook pioneering studies. While, for instance, Ptolemy asserted that the earth is the center of a finite dimension (geocentric picture of the universe), Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton argued that it is more reasonable to maintain, based on their respective evidence or premises, that the earth is just a part of a system whose center is the sun (heliocentric picture of the universe). However, despite the shared general view that challenges the geocentric cosmological model, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton did not necessarily come up with identical theories. Moreover, albeit their theories have their own defects, they also have original contributions to the existing scientific fund of knowledge. For instance, Copernicus delivered the first blow to the Ptolemaic theory by arguing that the planets move in circles around the steady sun. Galileo later on added that a number of moons travel around the planet Jupiter. Another contribution of Galileo to the pool of scientific knowledge is the Law of Inertia. Kepler’s work, later on, gave rise to the idea that the planets are traveling in elliptical orbits. This led to the final rejection of Copernicus’ claim that the planets move in circles. It was Newton, however, in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematican, who explained that the planets move around the sun because of magnetic forces. Another contribution of Newton is the Law of Universal Gravitation. Notice here that the next generations of natural scientists remained busy as many things remain to be discovered and said about what appears to be a boundless thing that we call universe. The tasks that we have in mind here are all concerned with one topic, the complete picture of the universe, but we could expect a lot of pioneering works about it, owing to the original, significant, and verifiable findings that got rid of the previous untenable claims about the universe.
WHAT IS AN INTRODUCTION?
The introduction of the topic informs the readers of what they can expect in your work. It also tells the readers the reason why it was chosen and why it is relevant or important. The introduction should be written in clear and simple terms. On this Wolfe reminds us thus:
Especially in the Introduction, do not overestimate the reader’s familiarity with your topic. You are writing for researchers in the general area, but not all of them need be specialists in your particular topic. It may help to imagine such a person---think of some researcher whom you might have met at a conference for your subject, but who was working in a different area. S/he is intelligent, has the same general background, but knows little of the literature or tricks that apply to your particular topic.
In the U.P. College of Education, these readers are the area (e.g., EDFD) faculty members who will attend your scheduled topic presentation and defense. They include faculty members with different specialization but with more or less similar general background.
WHAT SORT OF PROBLEMS SHOULD YOU ADDRESS?
The set of problems that you wish to address should not be identical to the set of problems that had been addressed by any study (here and abroad), especially in the works that you are citing in your review of related literature. It is possible nonetheless to pursue the same topic if you intend to use a new methodology because you can demonstrate that the methodology of a previous study is questionable or is in need of further revision. Also, it would be helpful to cite the possible answers that you wish to give to your tentative set of problems, and to inform your readers the means by which you wish to arrive at or to test these answers.
RELATED LITERATURE: WHAT DOES IT CONTAIN?
The review of related literature is a proof that you have a comprehensive knowledge of the research developments and of the situation in the area of your concerns before confronting the selected problem(s) besetting your area of study. The review should support the rationale of the study. It answers the following questions. What did other studies fail to achieve/accomplish? What is your alternative solution on the matter at hand? What are the inadequacies, problems, and errors of the related studies? What are the methods used to solve the related problems. Also, the review presents what is known about the scope of your research concerns. It tells the readers what problems had been addressed, what sort of answers had been given to such problems, what controversies were generated by the related studies, etc.
The ensuing study, aside from being an evidence that further developments and progress are still possible along the same line of inquiry, should be replicable. But then again, this does not mean to suggest that one, in the future, could duplicate such study to come up with a thesis or dissertation. It should be replicable only insofar as the author wants to consider it as a scientific study. And in case another research wants to check the findings in the previous study, the confirmatory work is no longer a pioneering one.
DEFINITION OF TERMS: WHY THE NEED FOR IT?
The definition of key concepts is one of the neglected parts of the topic presentation. If they come with the draft, more often than not, they appear to be haphazardly formulated. Coming up with a sound definition of concepts is important in that these concepts are the building blocks or the foundation of the planned work. A definition should really be a clear explanation of how certain key expressions are used in the respective linguistic contexts of the researchers’ works. It is an evidence that the author have a good grasp of the central concepts upon which the theoretical framework of the work is built.
It must be remembered that though the section on the clarification of the key concepts is titled Definition of Terms, bear in mind that this is taken as the definition of concepts rather than of the written words. The names (terms) of such concepts are not always immediately clear to the readers (note that the presenter is the only expert who knows his/her work very well). This is so because the language that we employ allows the use of certain words that have various meanings in different linguistic situations. Take the case of the word “discipline.” Sometimes it is used to refer to a limited number of areas of study and sometimes to mean faithful adherence to a specific set of rules or standards of behavior. One thus needs to tell exactly what s/he meant by the words that s/he uses to refer to the key concepts that figure in his/her work. This is to avoid unnecessary controversies that may arise if readers are left to guess as to the exact use of the words and differ as to its application, or because the exact description of the function of a word had been left to conjecture.
Remember, those who are interested in your would-be work are nonspecialists on your topic. But they would probably consult your final output for purposes other than what you have in mind. And as mentioned earlier, the definition, operational or not, should be clear about the variables whose names usually refer to something other than what they ordinarily mean for the laypersons. Your definitions therefore must be precise and clear.
What are the common problems of unclear definitions?
Too broad
A clear and precise definition is not too broad such that a nonmember of a concept in question is not included. For example, the definition of tarsier as a nocturnal mammal is too broad because it includes non-tarsiers like bats, which, unlike tarsiers, are capable of sustained flight in the dark. Some UP students too behave like nocturnal mammals. The point is, exclude the definition should exclude the non-members of the class tarsier.
Too narrow
A good definition is also not too narrow to exclude the legitimate members of the concept. For example, the definition of media as an institution whose function is to broadcast newsworthy events is too narrow because the term also refers to printed (linear) and digitized (Internet or hypertext) means of communication.
Circular definition
A clear and precise definition is not circular. Circular definition mentions a part, sometimes the root word, of the term that it is supposed to explicate, thus it fails to clarify the concept in question. For example, defining educator as someone who educates is not helpful because it is first necessary to describe clearly the activity that is called education in more familiar terms, assuming that we are not quite clear as to the specific use of the word educator in a planned work. To avoid these types of problematic definitions, it is helpful to be guided by Wolfe’s reminder:
Obviously your examiners will read the thesis. They will be experts in the general field of your thesis but, on the exact topic of your thesis, you are the world expert. Keep this in mind: you should write to make the topic clear to a reader who has not spent most of the last three years thinking about it.
Definitions usually come in different forms. But it is common to see operational definitions and stipulative definitions in theses and dissertations. Both are sometimes mistakenly referred to as operational definition.
Operational definition
An operational definition cites the specific situation in which the term could be or could not be applied. This is done by formulating a rule that warrants the use of a term only when a specified test or action gives rise to a definite result. Hughes’s example is as follows:
A genius is anyone who scores over 140 on a standard I.Q. test.
Stipulative definition
A Stipulative definition is a rule and a reminder of the special usage or the restricted meaning of a word as it occurs in a specific linguistic context. As Soltis explains:
One might, for instance, say, “Look, I know that there are various definitions and views of education currently in vogue, but in order to keep things straight, I shall use the word ‘education’ throughout my discussion (speech, article, book, etc.) to refer only to that social institution created and maintained by a society in order to perpetuate certain aspects of its culture through purposeful teaching and learning.” This is a stipulation. It is saying, “This is precisely what I will mean by the word ‘education’ regardless of what others may mean.
The point to be underscored now is that definitions do not come in the form of operational definition alone.
REFERENCES
Since you will be citing some references in the topic presentation, you are required to include in your draft a list of references.
Gardner, Howard. (2000). The Disciplined Mind. New York: Penguin Books, p. 15.
Wolfe, Joe. How to Write a PhD Thesis. Retrieved 26 October 2001, from http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html.
Ibid.
Hughes, William. (1992). Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills. Canada: Broadview Press. p. 36.
Soltis, Jonas. (1968). An Introduction to the Analysis of Educational Concepts. U.S.A.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, p. 3
