SPECIFICITY AND

FEASIBILITY
O F T HE P R O B L E M
“This is a quote. Words full of wisdom
that someone important said and can
make the reader get inspired.”

—SOMEONE
FAMOUS
 Specificity
Specificity is calculated as the proportion of true
negative cases divided by all cases without the
condition. The outcome of the test is typically
referred to as being positive (indicating the
condition is present) or negative (the condition is
not present).
 Feasibility
Feasibility studies are used to determine whether an
intervention is appropriate for further testing; in other
words, they enable researchers to assess whether or not the
ideas and findings can be shaped to be relevant and
sustainable
 Feasibility
● A feasibility study is an analysis that takes all of a
project's relevant factors into account—including
economic, technical, legal, and scheduling
considerations—to ascertain the likelihood of
completing the project successfully.
Is Your Topic
Feasible?
 For some students, choosin
g a topic for
their dissertation comes or
ganically, or it
may have even been part o
f the reason
they pursued their PhD in
the first place.
However, for others, it can
be a bit more
of a struggle. This can be fo
r a number of
reasons.
Perhaps you had something in m
ind at your
workplace, but then changed job
s so the
population of interest is no longer
available for you to sample. Perh
aps you
discover that a study you had you
r heart
set on involves a vulnerable popu
lation.
 In order to discover a study topic
that is not only feasible but also
reasonable, justifiable, and
necessary, you may find it helpful
to ask yourself the following
questions:
 
 01 02 03
What is the specific What theory can I use to What methodological
problem? explore this study? approach can I use?
 04
Who is going to participate in
this study?
What is the specific problem? This pertains more to
being able to identify the variables of you chosen
topic so that you can devise research questions.
This is also an important moment to pause and dig
through the literature to ensure that you can
identify support for the existence of this problem
as a gap in the literature with other (recent)
research studies.
What theory can I use to explore this
study?  Whether you choose to do a
qualitative or quantitative study, you
will need a theory to ground it.
 
What methodological approach can I use?  Is there
an instrument out there that is valid and reliable
that you can use to assess your variables? If not,
and you are studying perceptions or lived
experiences, you may have a qualitative study
on your hands.

 
Who is going to participate in this study? And, more
importantly, how will you access them? Can you
access them?
 
Once you are in a place where you can confidently and
completely answer each of these questions, you have a
solid, defendable dissertation topic.
END