Chapter 5

Thank you for sending your draft of chapter 5.  There are some good passages here, but I think this chapter can be strengthened when you have revised Chapter 4.

I want to suggest that, near the start of Chapter 4, you need to add a section to summarise the members of the sample.  There are 5 parents and 4 teachers, as well as the school principal.; I suggest that you need to provide a brief summary of the demographics of the 5 parents and the 4 teachers.  Then, you need to provide a summary of the data collected from each of the three components of the sample: what did you learn from the 5 parents about what parents believed about the topic and the research questions?  What did you learn from the 4 teachers about what teachers believed about the topic and the research questions?   Were the insights from the school principal different, and if so how?  Then you can go on to the presentation of the findings as you have in Ch4.

The most important thing to achieve in Chapter 5 is to explain what you have learned from your research in response to the Research Questions and to address the research Objectives.  You need to show how you have met your objectives and answered the research questions, and identify clearly and precisely the extent to which your research has been successful.  If there are aspects of the original objectives that were not successfully achieved, you need to acknowledge these clearly.  You need to summarise clearly, precisely and briefly the conclusions that you have drawn from your research, showing clearly how these are founded in the data that collected and in the data analysis and findings that you presented in Chapter 4.

Then you also need to explain and summarise any recommendations that you make arising from your research.

 

I suggest that you might expand your discussion of your conclusions and recommendations.

Guiding questions:

  • Have the research objectives (research questions) been reviewed and addressed?

I suggest that, in Chapter 5, you begin by stating each research question explicitly before you discuss how it has been addressed and answered in this study.  In this final chapter you need to demonstrate clearly and concisely how your data analysis, and the findings that you have arrived at, are together able to provide answers to the research questions.  It will also be helpful to provide a clear summary list of the key findings from your research.

  • Do the conclusions and recommendations follow on from the findings?  Are they well grounded in the evidence and arguments presented?

You need to ensure that the conclusions drawn are firmly rooted in the data that you have collected, analysed and discussed in Ch4, and in the arguments from the literature in Ch2.  You need to make this very clear here.  You might include clear cross-references to the specific sections in the earlier chapters to support the conclusions in this chapter.  All the conclusions and recommendations need to be clearly stated and solidly founded in the study as presented here.

  • Has the relevance of the conclusions for education been discussed?

I suggest that you might make a clearer and stronger case here for the relevance and importance of your conclusions to the school and to the parents and teachers.  This matter relates to the extent to which the conclusions drawn from your research are trustworthy.  If there are any aspects of the findings and conclusions that are not sufficiently clear, then you might need to recommend further research.  If you do this, it will be helpful to try to specify how such research would be designed to ensure that it would be able to provide clearer conclusions.

  • Are the conclusions and recommendations discussed in context and are they more widely applicable?

You need to summarise the limitations to the current research.  You need to show that you are able to reflect upon and identify the weaknesses in your research approach.

I would like to see a clear summary list of recommendations.  This need only be brief, and a very short justification for each recommendation, showing how the recommendation is based on the data analysed in Ch4 and the arguments from Literature presented in Ch2.