PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY

URDANETA CITY CAMPUS, URDANETA CITY, PANGASINAN

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT

RESEARCH WORK NO. RSW – MT – 02

DATE ISSUED: OCTOBER 17, 2022

TITLE: “ELEMENTS OF CHAPTER 4 AND

PREPARING A RESEARCH PROPOSAL”

COURSE AND TITLE: STUDENT NAME: DATE DUE: FINAL

RMA4 - RESEARCH METHOD GUMALLAOI, JUDELLE V. RATING:
JAN. 16, 2023
FOR ARCHITECTURE
INSTRUCTOR: COURSE/YEAR/SECTION: DATE
SUBMITTED:
AR. ALVEN T. BACTAD, uap BS-ARCHITECTURE 4-a
FACULTY INSTRUCTOR JAN. , 2023
 Elements of Chapter 4

What needs to be included in the chapter?

The topics below are typically included in this chapter, and often in this order (check with your Chair):

 Introduction
o Remind the reader what your research questions were
 In a qualitative study you will restate the research questions
 In a quantitative study you will present the hypotheses
 Findings (qualitative), Results (quantitative, and Discussion (quantitative)
o In a qualitative study the information to be reported is called findings. Findings are
those themes that have emerged from or have been found in the data you collected. They
are the product of your analysis.
o In a quantitative study the results of the quantitative analyses conducted may be
presented on their own, without any accompanying connections to the larger literature.
o When quantitative data are presented without any accompanying explanation
a discussion section is presented separately in order to explain the meaning of the
results.

Considerations

 How do you organize your chapter?

o Your chapter needs to be organized in a way that answers your research questions. The
information must be organized in a way that is logical and easy to follow for your
reader.
 You may describe your sample here if this is something that emerged from your
data collection and analysis or if you believe it helps provide context for your
findings. You may also describe your sample in chapter 3 if it is not a part of
your findings and it becomes a distraction from your actual findings.
 You may organize your chapter in terms of themes or categories or cases or
research questions.
 Use of pseudonyms
o When presenting qualitative data, all names are masked to provide confidentiality. You
made this commitment to your participants during the consent process and in your IRB
application.
 Use of tables, charts, figures
o You may use tables, charts, or figures in both qualitative and quantitative capstones.
o Never present a table, chart, or figure that you are not planning on explaining.
 Tables, charts, and figures should be able to be interpreted without supporting
text BUT
 It is your responsibility to tell your reader what you think is the most important
information in the table, chart, or figure.
 When do you use a table, chart, or figure?
o In qualitative research, when providing quantitative data that compares different cases or
different populations, or different members of a given population. When you have
information that is hard to grasp only in text and the reader will have greater insight by
seeing it displayed in more than one format.
  Descriptive statistics
o In quantitative research, when presenting important results.
o Consult APA to ensure that you use the appropriate format for tables, charts, and
figures.

You will want to consider what information goes in an appendix as opposed to in the body of the
chapter. For example, if you have extra tables representing results that you think are worth sharing with
your reader but are not the main substance of your dissertation, you should consider creating an
appendix. Similarly, if you have other relevant but not essential information, you should consider
adding an appendix. And finally, you may decide to locate the instruments you used for data collection
in an appendix.

You may be wondering about any of the following things as you are writing your Chapter 4. Some
students worry about the following things:

 What if I don’t have any significant findings?

o In qualitative research there is never a risk of finishing without something worth
reporting. Qualitative research is about understanding an experience and gaining insight.
It is always the case that the data will provide insight into an experience.
 What if I find something for which I do not have a research question?
o If the finding is substantial enough to warrant reporting, you develop a research question
that aligns to the finding.
 Under what circumstances do I revise my research questions?
o Qualitative research questions can and often should be revised up until the dissertation is
completed. The research questions match the findings, not the other way around.

Presenting Results (Quantitative) 

How do you present your results (quantitative)? 

In a quantitative dissertation or capstone you will be presenting your results. You may present your
results with or without a discussion explaining what those results mean. You will want to consult your
chair to make sure you are following the approach 
preferred by your chair. Thus, your chapter 4 may include the following: 

 Introduction 
 Results 
 Discussion 

First you should remind your reader what your research question(s) is/are. Your results should then be
presented in response to your research question(s). Your results are the “solution(s)” or “answer(s)” to
that/those questions. 
Example: Nollner Dissertation, p. 58 
Your results should focus only on data that enables you to answer your research questions, not simply
raw data. 
If you are also providing a discussion of the results in this section, your discussion should be related
back to your conceptual framework. 
How do you present your findings (qualitative)? 

When crafting your findings, the first thing you want to think about is how you will organize your
findings. Your findings represent the story you are going to tell in response to the research questions
you have answered. Thus, you will want to organize that story in a way that makes sense to you and
will make sense to your reader. You want to think about how you will present the findings so that they
are compelling and responsive to the research question(s) you answered. These questions may not be
the questions you set out to answer but they will definitely be the questions you answered. You may
discover that the best way to organize the findings is first by research question and second by theme.
There may be other formats that are better for telling your story. Once you have decided how you want
to organize the findings, you will start the chapter by reminding your reader of the research questions.
You will need to differentiate between is presenting raw data and using data as evidence or examples to
support the findings you have identified. Here are some points to consider: 

 Your findings should provide sufficient evidence from your data to support the conclusions you
have made. Evidence takes the form of quotations from interviews and excerpts from
observations and documents. 
 Ethically you have to make sure you have confidence in your findings and account for counter-
evidence (evidence that contradicts your primary finding) and not report something that does
not have sufficient evidence to back it up. 
 Your findings should be related back to your conceptual framework. 
 Your findings should be in response to the problem presented (as defined by the research
questions) and should be the “solution” or “answer” to those questions. 
 You should focus on data that enables you to answer your research questions, not simply on
offering raw data. 
 Qualitative research presents “best examples” of raw data to demonstrate an analytic point, not
simply to display data. 
 Numbers (descriptive statistics) help your reader understand how prevalent or typical a finding
is. Numbers are helpful and should not be avoided simply because this is a qualitative
dissertation. 

Recommended Resources and Readings

Online Resources 
Keywords Searches: 

Recommended Readings are all from texts used in Inquiry II: 

Merriam, S. B. (2009). Chapter 10: Writing qualitative research reports. Qualitative research: A 
guide to design and implementation (pp. 237-264). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 
Glesne, C. (2011). Chapter 8: Crafting your story: Writing up qualitative data. In Becoming 
qualitative researchers: An introduction (4th ed.) (pp. 218-240). Boston: Pearson. 

BASIC TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION