Choosing a Good Topic for your Research Project

A Guide for Getting Started

The dissertation is an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of your hard work and to apply and
consolidate all the knowledge that you have acquired during your degree program. This
presents a chance to go into a chosen specialist area in which you are interested or enjoy.
Inevitably, course participants will differ in terms of their previous experience with academic
research and in their ability and commitment to their dissertation, whilst members of the
teaching staff can also have varying degrees of experience in supervising dissertations and
have different ideas about and expectations for research. This practical guide is an attempt at
reconciling these differences and at standardizing the process of producing a dissertation.
This is simply a guide, not a prescription for every detail of the work, but we hope that our
advice will be of value to you. In the final analysis the dissertation is your work, done in your
way, expressing your views, conclusions and recommendations.

Purpose of the Dissertation

The dissertation is a major part of your masters degree course. It should reveal an
understanding of at least some of the theoretical principles from the course subjects and an
appreciation of how they apply in practice. The dissertation gives you the opportunity to
conduct your own individual research, testing your academic knowledge, your analytical and
interpretation skills.

Key Features of a Good Topic

A good topic for your research study should be concerned with an issue of current major
concern to you and possibly a chosen organization. It should have sufficient scope and depth
to form the basis of a dissertation. It should be manageable, given your time and resource
constraints. It should be relevant to your course. And the issue/s in question should be
generally applicable to one or more organizations providing a context, but of general benefit
to others and your own professional or career development (e.g. to become a specialist in a
chosen field/area).
Gill and Johnson (1991) suggest the following in their characteristics of a good research topic:
1. Access - will you be able to obtain the data required for the research?
2. Achievability - can the work be completed in the allocated time?
3. Symmetry of potential outcomes - will the research be of value regardless of the
outcome?
4. Student capability - students with low numeracy skills should avoid topics requiring
complex statistical analysis. Students should choose topics that play to their strengths.
5. Value and scope of the research - both students and supervisors are much more likely to
be highly motivated if the outcome of the study is valuable to others.

Attributes of a Successful Dissertation

The following attributes of a good dissertation are modified from the advice given at the
University of Western Sydney:
Content
1. A carefully selected relevant issue or problem
2. Clearly defined problem/s or issue/s to be investigated
3. Clearly stated aims
4. An appropriate literature review
5. An appropriate research design to investigate the specified problem area including an
awareness of alternative approaches and a rationale of the chosen methods
6. Consistent and careful application of the adopted methodology
7. Where appropriate an unbiased and adequate sample, and an awareness of how sample
size and selection will affect your conclusions
8. Systematic, objective and efficient analysis of the collected data
9. Relevant conclusions drawn from the data analysis, which are supported by the data and
should be compared and contrasted with the findings of previous studies and put into
context.
10. The relevant theory has been integrated well into your dissertation
11. The study should be original
12. The conclusions should be followed by a set of recommendations where appropriate

SK Poon
Local Project Coordinator
January 2001