It’s difficult—if not impossible—to flesh out a thesis statement before beginning your preliminary research. If you’re at the beginning stages of your dissertation process and are working to develop your dissertation proposal, you will first need to conduct a brief but broad literature review. You’ll conduct a more in-depth literature review after your topic is approved.
Based on your findings from the extant literature, you can begin to formulate your own original ideas regarding your topic. For instance, let’s say your dissertation focuses on the ways in which secondary school athletics affect students. Scholars have already produced much research about the benefits of sports for students, but you might notice research gaps in certain areas of the field. For example, what effects do sports have on students after graduation? Do years in sports relate to amount of soft skills in students?
You can begin to shape your thesis statement based on the questions that arise during your preliminary literature review. For instance, you may find existing research that indicates high school sports teach students to work cooperatively and communicate effectively with their peers.
Of course, because you’re writing a quantitative, data-driven dissertation, you will need to express these ideas numerically. Therefore, your thesis statement might look like this: “High school students who play sports are more likely to develop teamwork skills and develop solid communication abilities than high school students who do not play sports. My dissertation research will examine if these benefits persist long after students graduate.” As the above discussion and examples demonstrate, the key to writing a strong thesis statement is to substantiate your assertions with concrete statistics using your own quantitative data analysis.
Grand Canyon University’s College of Doctoral Studies is pleased to offer a wide variety of doctorate degrees, including the Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership: Health Care Administration (Quantitative Research) degree, the Doctor of Business Administration: Data Analytics (Quantitative Research) program and more. Click on Request Info above to begin planning your doctoral education today.