Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Timeline for Your Action Research Dissertation
This article will sketch an actionable timeline for crafting an action research design for a dissertation. Join us as we explore essential strategies and insights to help you succeed; make sure to read to the end!
Action research dissertation plays a critical role in addressing real-world problems through systematic inquiry and reflection. Before you start on the journey of writing a dissertation, meet your advisor and sketch out a timeline that is realistic in nature. An action research dissertation has a definite structure and provides readers with a sense of what will happen next.
Every successful route to completing a dissertation starts with a workable action plan. Such a plan keeps people focused and motivated throughout the journey. When crafting such a timeline, students must include each chapter of their research work.
Let’s start by understanding what exactly an action research dissertation is.
What Is an Action Research Dissertation?
As per Sage Publications Inc., action research is a method you use for the improvement of your research practice. Using this, you can simultaneously investigate and solve a given problem. It is also known as PAR (Participatory Action Research).
You can view it as a highly interactive research method that is used quite frequently in educational settings. The action research method ensures that all the chapters are thematically relevant to the given topic.
How to Create a Timeline for Your Action Research Dissertation?
Per a research paper titled What is to be done? The place of action research, action research not only changes the practices of people but also deals with the research conditions. Furthermore, it is concerned with the history of research. Regardless of the type of action research and dissertations, the timeline must be structured.
Here is a step-by-step guide that provides detailed instructions on how to create a timeline for your action research, which you can follow while doing your dissertation.
Let’s explore the topic in further detail now.
1. Planning the Time
An action research dissertation outline is important if you want to manage your time before the deadline for work. For effective work organisation, you should break down your dissertation into smaller stages so that it can be completed effectively. Ensure that the data collection, literature review, and compilation of reading materials are finished on time so that you may avoid the hassle later on. You should also set aside the time regularly to work on your dissertation.
2. Gantt Charts
You will have to deal with a lot of processes simultaneously while crafting an action research dissertation. You can easily use Gantt charts to organise your time and manage all the activities. Basically, it is a bar chart that shows the project schedule. It looks like this:
Image Source: The University of Westminster
You also mention the start and finish date of each project on the Gantt chart. Some tasks are scheduled at the same time of the day, while others can overlap. It means that you have to do some dissertation projects at the same time, while others can be started once the first task is finished.
3. Prospectus of Dissertation
The timeline of an action research dissertation starts when you have generated the idea for your dissertation research. Generally, it appears in the form of a prospectus. In a prospectus, the readers talk about what you are planning to do in your research work.
After that, you have to get the approval of your committee about the reasonable nature of your research topic. Overall, it may take a month for you to come up with your idea because you might have to look for a gap in the research.
4. Research Proposal
After the prospectus, we move towards the proposal of your research. At most universities, you will have to craft just a few pages while others demand students talk about the research proposal in detail.
Generally, a research proposal takes almost 3 to 4 months the complete. Before you start collecting the data for your research, you have to get the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Keep in mind this approval is super important if your research has sensitive aims and goals.
5. Approval of Review Board
The approval from an IRB is important for the implementation of your research methods. This approval means that you are not going to do any harm to the participants in the study. Also, the IRB approval doesn’t take quite a lot of time and can be secured quickly.
However, if you have questionable research choices, for instance, you have to research small children, it may take longer to get the approval. Once you get it, it will be time to collect the data.
6. Data Collection
The collection of data for an action research dissertation can take a few hours if you are collecting data from secondary sources. However, in order to get the data from the database, you will have to invest more time in the process. After that, the requirements of the process are figured out, and the data collection methods are mentioned.
In case the process is longer than a month, you should also cover interviews and transcribe them into appropriate statistical software programs. Here, following different themes can be helpful.
7. Analysis and Conclusion
Once you have all the themes and statistical results, you can craft the data analysis and conclusion chapters of your action research dissertation. In this chapter, you discuss and analyse the results of your research work.
You can also compare your results to the literature that you used to start your research work. Also, don’t forget to discuss what you should do in your future research. This phase can be as long as 09 months.
8. Dissertation Defence
After finishing the action research dissertation, you have to go back to your committee and get their approval. After that, you will be all set to do your dissertation defence. This entire process can even take a month but if your committee has issues with your research, you will need to do more work. Hence, the dissertation defence process can take weeks to months to finish.
What Are the 5 C’s of Action Research?
Generally, action research combines both quantitative and qualitative data to interpret and analyse the information for problem-solving purposes.
As per the Western Oregon University, the five Cs of the action research are the following:
- Commitment – dedication to the research process and implementation of changes.
- Collaboration – working with the co-researchers and stakeholders.
- Consideration – reflecting on the implications, findings and process.
- Concern – focusing on the issues and the matters related to the broader community.
- Change – implementing the transformations and improvements on research findings.
Action Research Dissertation Example
For refinement in your research work, you should review a couple of the action research thesis and dissertations. We have taken this example from the ResearchGate and it provides an overview of the action research in different practice-based doctoral degree programs.
Conclusion
This extensive guide has covered the step-by-step details of crafting the action research dissertation. Action research is sharply different from other forms of research as it produces actionable processes during research. It is summative and formative in nature and conducted in an iterative way.
Furthermore, such research methods are usually not theoretical and need statistical data to support them. Trusted dissertation writing companies often provide statistical and empirical data to PhD scholars to derive results. Hence, they make logical and causal relationships between different variables.
The bottom line is that you must be clear about the context, significance, and purpose of the action research. This kind of research is a good fit for people who work to implement systemic change.
