Important Steps For Conducting Primary Research For PhD Dissertation

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It is midnight, and you are still sitting at your study table and thinking of how to conduct primary research for your PhD dissertation. Well, to be honest, you are not doing it right. You cannot achieve anything by sitting at the table; you need to scroll down the internet and find some steps to conduct this kind of research. Primary research is the research that you conduct yourself. Therefore, it is not an easy task to conduct this research.

In order to conduct good and thorough research, you must know the important steps involved. In today’s article, we will discuss all the steps required for effective research for the Ph.D. dissertation. But before going into the discussion of the steps, let’s define the term primary research and explain its importance.

What does it mean by primary research?

Primary research is a method of collecting information for a research study. This method involves the collection of data directly from the sources. In this type of research, the researcher does not rely on the data collected by other researchers. Technically, primary data is the data that is owned by whoever collects it. This kind of research is only conducted when there is a need to discuss a research problem, which requires an in-depth analysis. Hence, this is what it means by primary research.

Important steps for conducting primary research for a dissertation

After reading the information above, you have an idea of what this research is. As your base is now set, it is time to discuss the important steps for conducting this research. There are 5 main steps involved in conducting effective primary research. A brief description of all the points one by one is as follows:

1. Define the research objectives

First, you need to define your research objectives. It means you need to know what your research problem is and what you want to achieve after conducting research on this. When defining research objectives, also make sure to define what kind of information you need to solve the research problem. Defining research objectives makes things clear in your mind and allows you to research better.

2. Develop the research plan

Once the problem is defined, the next thing you need to do is to develop a research plan. The research plan includes details about what data sources you intend to use and what research tools you intend to use for this purpose. As primary research involves direct data collection, the data collection tools in your plan are always interviews, surveys, or questionnaires.

3. Start the research process

The third most important step for conducting primary research is to start the research process. To start this process, you can take help from the research plan. The research plan has all the details and can guide you in the best possible manner. As you are conducting a primary study, you must use primary sources of data collection. Some of the primary sources are interviews, surveys, and questionnaires. Make extensive use of these techniques and collect the most relevant data for your research study.

4. Analyse the data

Analysis of the data collected is an important step in conducting primary research for a dissertation. When you are going to analyze the data, make sure that you choose the right method of analysis. The choice of a particular analysis method depends on the type of data. If you have primary qualitative data, you should consider techniques like content and thematic analysis. However, if your data is numeric, you may consider regression analysis. Whatever your data type is, just use the right method for analysis. However, if you feel any difficulty in data analysis, do not hesitate to get PhD dissertation help from online writing companies.

5. Interpret the data right

After the analysis of the data, there comes the stage of interpreting the data. This is the most important step for conducting good and effective primary research. The reason is that it is the crux of your research for your Ph.D. dissertation. It is where you explain what you have found after years of research work and struggle. Hence, you need to look at the data from each angle and side to better interpret it. Along with the interpretation of the data, you must also present your findings in the dissertation. This is the last but most important step for primary research.

Conclusion

Primary research is the type of research in which we collect data directly from the respondents or by performing an experiment. Performing this research is not easy as it takes time and effort to conduct such a research study. However, by following the 5 steps mentioned above, you can easily conduct this research. Therefore, read all the information given above and conduct this type of research accordingly.