BCH 408 Preparation of Theses or Dissertations and Papers Assignment Answers – This article will guide you to understand all about theses, dissertations or project work. Research work or project work is what you must do before you graduate from the University, Collage of Education, Polytechnics or any other tertiary institution. There are certain reasons why you choose a topic or why a project or research topic is been assigned to you by your supervisor. Those reasons are outlined below for a better understanding.

Choose any Research Topic of interest to you. Considering the key elements in preparing and writing a Dissertation/Thesis, discuss 3 reasons for your choice of research topic.

Before we move further to the assignment question, lets understand some concepts that would guide us.

A thesis or dissertation is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author’s research and findings.

Thesis is used for part of a bachelor’s or master’s course while dissertation is normally applied to a doctorate.

Research is the process of discovering new knowledge. This knowledge can be either the development of new concepts or the advancement of existing knowledge and theories, leading to a new understanding that was not previously known.

Research topic is simply the project topic given to you or the research work you wish to work on. For instance; The Influence of lateness on students’ academic performance, comparative analysis of black coffee on hyperglycemia of wistar albino rats etc.

Try to choose a topic of your choice, you can even choose your project topic to make it easier for you since you’ve gotten a better knowledge of it.

Key Elements in preparing and writing a dissertation/thesis

It includes;

• Ideas
• Planning
• Literature searching
• Research/Analysis
• Writing Up and
• Presentation

Reasons for your choice of research topic

The purpose of research is to enhance society by advancing knowledge through the development of scientific theories, concepts and ideas. A research purpose is met through forming hypotheses, collecting data, analysing results, forming conclusions, implementing findings into real-life applications and forming new research questions.

The purpose of research is therefore to find out what is known, what is not and what we can develop further. In this way, scientists can develop new theories, ideas and products that shape our society and our everyday lives.

The purpose of research is to further understand the world and to learn how this knowledge can be applied to better everyday life. It is an integral part of problem solving.

Although research can take many forms, there are three main purposes of research:

1. Exploratory: Exploratory research is the first research to be conducted around a problem that has not yet been clearly defined. Exploration research therefore aims to gain a better understanding of the exact nature of the problem and not to provide a conclusive answer to the problem itself. This enables us to conduct more in-depth research later on.
2. Descriptive: Descriptive research expands knowledge of a research problem or phenomenon by describing it according to its characteristics and population. Descriptive research focuses on the ‘how’ and ‘what’, but not on the ‘why’.
3. Explanatory: Explanatory research, also referred to as casual research, is conducted to determine how variables interact, i.e. to identify cause-and-effect relationships. Explanatory research deals with the ‘why’ of research questions and is therefore often based on experiments.

Key reasons why I choose my research topic: Influence of lateness of students’ academic performance.

Using the key elements as mentioned above:

• I chose my research topic before it motivates me and I see it as something that I can work on. See how students perform during examination especially those that comes to school late gives me concern as it makes the money spent on their academics seem as a waste. Students can be admonished through this my research work to rightfully understand the causes of lateness, effects and solutions.
• I have a good ground on it as I understand everything about the topic
• I chose my research topic because there are available materials that would help me
• I chose my research topic because there were previous works on them which will be helpful in developing mine.

Remember, you were asked to discuss, try as much as you can to add something on your own. Check the first one I just did on motivation. I added some facts and related it to my research topic. Don’t just list points without relating it to your project topic, it makes it incomplete.

There is a reason why you are working on that particular topic; what do you want to find out, why are you doing it, what will be the outcome. This will bring out the reasons if answered consciously.

Note: Don’t use the same research topic that was used here. This is actually why we did not use Biochemistry Project work related. So pick any topic related to your field and to make it differ you can even use your project topic.

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