Significance of the Study

IM 311
Outline
• What Is The Significance Of Study
• The Questions That Significance Should Answers
• The Purpose Of Significance
• Techniques Of Significance
• Examples For How To Write Significance
• In writing the introduction of a thesis, a section is devoted
to the significance of the study.
• This section, often referred to as the "rationale" is crucial,
because it is one place in which the researcher tries to
convince an audience that the research is worth doing.
• It should establish why the audience should want to read
on. It could also persuade someone of why he or she would
want to support, or fund, a research project.
 The questions that the significance should answers:
• Why is this work important?
• What are the implications of doing it?
• How does it link to other knowledge?
• How does it stand to inform policy making?
• Why is it important to our understanding of the world?
• What new perspective will you bring to the topic?
• What use might your final research paper have for others in this
field or in the general public?
• Who might you decide to share your findings with once the
project is complete?
 THE PURPOSE OF SIGNIFICANCE
The researcher should think about how the research:
• May resolve theoretical questions in the research area
• May develop better theoretical models in the research area
• May influence public policy
• Change the way people do their jobs in a particular field, or may
change the way people live.
• And if there are other contributions the research will make, the
researcher should also describe them in detail.
 TECHNIQUES OF SIGNIFICANCE
There are two techniques to follow in writing
significance:

A. Refer to the statement of the problem

Your problem statement can guide you in identifying the
specific contribution of your study. You can do this by
observing a one-to-one correspondence between the
statement of the problem and the significance of the study.
 For example:

• "Is there a significant relationship between the teacher's teaching style

and the students' long quiz scores in mathematics?"
• Then the contribution of your research would probably be a teaching
style or styles (among say, three teaching styles you evaluated) that can
help students perform better in mathematics. Your research will
demonstrate that that teaching style really works.
• That could be a groundbreaking approach that will change the way
teachers teach mathematics which many students abhor.
 Write from general to specific contribution

• Write the significance of the study by looking into the

general contribution of your study, such as its importance to
society as a whole, then proceed downwards — towards its
contribution to individuals and that may include yourself as a
researcher.