Dissertation research and writing for construction students PDF
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Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page i Dissertation Research and Writing for Construction Students Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page ii To my mother,Rose Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page iii Dissertation Research and Writing for Construction Students Second edition Dr S. G. Naoum AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEWYORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page iv Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Linacre House,Jordan Hill,Oxford OX2 8DP,UK The Boulevard,Langford Lane,Kidlington,Oxford OX5 1GB,UK 84 Theobald’s Road,London WC1X 8RR,UK Radarweg 29,PO Box 211,1000 AE Amsterdam,The Netherlands 30 Corporate Drive,Suite 400,Burlington,MA 01803,USA 525 B Street,Suite 1900,San Diego,CA 92101-4495,USA First edition 1998 Reprinted 1998,1999 (twice),2001 (twice),2002,2003 (twice),2006 Second edition 2007 Copyright © 2007,Dr S.G.Naoum.Published by Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved The right of Dr S.G.Naoum to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988 No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford,UK:phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830;fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email:[email protected] you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions,and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability,negligence or otherwise,or from any use or operation of any methods, products,instructions or ideas contained in the material herein.Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences,in particular,independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Naoum,S.G.(Shamil G.) Dissertation research and writing for construction students.– 2nd ed. 1. Dissertations,Academic 2. Technical writing I. Title 808’.066624 Library of Congress Control Number:2006 929340 ISBN–13:978-0-7506-8264-0 ISBN–10:0-7506-8264-7 For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications visit our website at www.books.elsevier.com Typeset by Charon Tec Ltd,(A Macmillan Company),Chennai,India www.charontec.com Printed and bound in the UK 07 08 09 10 11 11 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page v Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements xiii 1 Introduction 1 Rationale for conducting a dissertation 1 The meaning of research 2 Purpose of the book 2 The plan of the book 3 Part One Preparing the Ground and Reviewing the Literature 2 Selecting a topic and writing the dissertation proposal 11 Choosing the topic 11 The dissertation proposal 14 Summary 17 References and additional reading 17 3 Reviewing the literature 18 Rationale for undertaking a literature review 18 Knowing the sources of information 20 Understanding how the library works 25 Note-taking 27 Organising the literature review 28 Critical appraisal of literature review 29 Summary 33 References and additional reading 33 Part Two R esearch Design and Methodology 4 Approaches to data collection 37 Research strategy 37 Approaches to data collection 43 Secondary data collection 48 Summary 50 References 51 Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page vi vi Contents 5 Techniques for data collection 52 Postal questionnaire 52 Personal interview 55 Sampling 58 Summary 62 References and additional reading 62 6 Questionnaire construction 63 How to construct a questionnaire 64 Types of questions 68 A pilot study 85 Covering letter 85 Summary 86 References 87 Part Three Analysis and Presentation of the Results 7 Measurements and probability 91 Level of measurement 91 Probability statement 95 Summary 96 Additional reading 97 8 Analysis of the results 98 Exploratory data analysis (open-ended questions) 98 Coding open-ended questions 99 Recording the information 101 The descriptive statistics method 103 The inferential statistics method (also known as bivariate statistical analysis) 110 Summary 129 References and additional reading 130 9 Structuring and writing the dissertation 131 Typical dissertation structure 131 Writing the abstract 133 Writing th e introduction chapter 133 Writing the literature chapters 134 Writing the chapter on questionnaire design and methodology 138 Writing the chapter on analysis of the results 141 Writing the conclusion chapter 153 Writing the references/bibliography 153 Summary 159 References and additional reading 160 Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page vii Contents vii 10 Dissertation supervision and assessment 161 Getting started 161 The role of the supervisor 162 What is not the role of the supervisor? 163 Planning your dissertation 163 Dissertation supervision log 165 Dissertation assessment:Qualities in assessing at MSc level 165 Summary 169 Reference 170 Appendix 1 Examples of dissertation proposals 171 Appendix 2 Construction management and economics list of journals 187 Appendix 3 London South Bank University:Example of a questionnaire 191 Appendix 4 Statistical tables 198 Appendix 5 Construction industry employee injury statistics 202 Index 203 This page intentionally left blank Prelims-H8264.qxd 10/3/06 4:13 PM Page ix Preface This book has grown out of my involvement in supervising BSc and MSc dissertations as well as my accumulated experience of teaching research methods to postgraduate students at London South Bank University.Over the years,I became convinced that construction students needed something akin to research methods lectures,in addition to tutoring,that could provide them with guidance on basic research techniques and how to write a dissertation.There have been an enormous number of text books which presented research design and methodologies but few,if any,are related to built environment studies. This book approaches dissertation research and writing as a process,involving a sequence of learnable activities. Each activity prepares the student for the next step and some steps are best taken before others. I have divided the process of dissertation research into three parts,which are best carried out in the order presented. Part one is ‘preparing the ground’.It involves: 1 Identifying the problem (including narrowing and clarifying the problem); 2 Writing a proposal (including the aim, objectives, hypothesis and/or key research questions; 3 Reviewing the literature (including critical appraisal of literature). Part two is ‘research design’.It involves: 4 Approaches to data collection (deciding whether to use a survey or a case study); 5 Techniques for data collection (deciding whether to use the post or go for interviews); 6 Constructing and sampling the questionnaire. Part three is ‘analysis of the results’and producing the dissertation.It involves: 7 Measurement of data; 8 Analysis of data (including interpretation and discussion of results). 9 Structuring and writing the whole dissertation; 10 Dissertation supervision and assessment.
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