Presentation

3 December 2019
DISSERTATION WRITING
 CHAPTERS IN A DISSERTATION
• There are 5 chapters in a dissertation,
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Literature review – 20 marks – 3,000
words
• Chapter 3 – Research methodology – 15 marks
• Chapter 4 – Analysis and discussion – 15 marks –
2,000 words
• Chapter 5 – Conclusions – 15 marks
• 10,000 to 12,000 words, 30 – 40 pages
 The flow in writing a dissertation
• Find a subject
• Find a topic in the selected subject
• Narrow the topic to a specific area
• Reading of literature to find researches that support your topic
• Decide on the variables – independent, dependent, moderating and
intervening (mediating)
• Draw your research model
• Formulate your hypotheses
• Design your questionnaire
• Collect data from certain population
• Use SPSS to analyse the collected data
• Use the outputs from your analysis to accept or reject the hypotheses and
answer the research questions – match your outputs against your literature
 Searching for a topic
• Customer satisfaction (dependent variable) on
financial advisory industry
• What factors (independent variables) can contribute
towards customer satisfaction?
• - branding, experience, word of mouth, establish
rapport, build relationship, follow up, regular
feedback, counseling, financial education,
• Reading of literature – help your observation, give
you the foundation to build your research objectives,
questions, research model and hypotheses
 Searching for a topic
• Topic – internalisation of SMEs (dependent
variable)
• Define SMEs, which industry
• Define internalisation
• What factors will influence internalisation of
SMEs
 Chapter 2 Literature Review
• Assuming the Dependent Variable is Customer satisfaction
• And there are 4 Independent variables – 1. follow up, 2. regular feedback,
3. counseling, 4. financial education.
• The section headings in Chapter 2 could be:
• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 Customer Satisfaction
• 2.3 Follow Up
• 2.4 Regular Feedback
• 2.5 Counseling
• 2.6 Financial education
• 2.7 Relationships among the variables
• 2.8 Research Model
• 2.9 Research Hypotheses
 Table of contents (an example)
• Acknowledgement i
• Abstract ii
• Tables iii
• Figures iv
• Chapter One 1
• 1.1 1
• 1.2 2
• Chapter 2
 Format of the Dissertation
Always start a NEW chapter with a new page.

Chapter One – could also be written as Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter Two – could also be written as Chapter 2

Literature Review

Chapter Three – could also be written as Chapter 3

Research Methodology
 QUESTIONNAIRE
• Questions are asked to obtain data to test the Null
Hypotheses
• Null Hypothesis is expressed as – There is no
significant relationship between regular feedback and
customer satisfaction.
• You have to ask questions that would reflect the
variable, for example - Regular Feedback, e.g.
• To what extent do you receive feedback within 3 days.
• 1. very seldom, 2 seldom, 3 occasionally 4, often, 5
very often – ordinal data