PROBLEM STATEMENT AND GAP IN CURRENT RESEARCH

In writing your dissertation, there are two documents you will write to guide your work. The first is a Premise document that justifies your selection of a dissertation topic and begins to explore a gap in current research. The Premise will help leadership identify a strong mentor/chair for your dissertation committee. The second is the Prospectus that serves as a detailed roadmap for the dissertation. With your mentor/chair, you will further develop your Prospectus before beginning the dissertation.

In this course, you will develop your Premise document. In Module 1, you wrote one paragraph justifying the selection of your dissertation topic using information from specialists in your field. In Module 2, you read the abstracts of five research studies to find out what keywords and concepts are relevant to your topic. In Module 3, you will read those five research studies to discover what is already known about your topic by focusing on the findings of the research studies. This will enable you to identify a potential gap or need in current research.

If you are having trouble finding research studies on your topic, you might consider looking for synonyms for the keywords you are using. Another strategy is to use upside-down triangles to help you choose content. Watch the media piece Concept Maps and Literature Source Triangles to see how to broaden your topic if you are thinking too narrowly and how to refine your topic if you are thinking to broadly.

To prepare:

Review the article on Essentials for Planning a Literature Review located in your course resources, and review the work you did in creating your mind map. Watch the media piece Concept Maps and Literature Source Triangles to see how your articles and concepts fit into a larger picture of research available on your topic.

Reflect on how the five research studies you reviewed meet the quality of evidence.

In Module 1, you justified your dissertation topic supporting your choice with three articles by professionals in your specialization field. In Module 2, you created a mind map of the key concepts you need to explore for your dissertation topic based on limited resources. In Module 3, you will provide a “logical argument for the need to address an identified gap in the research literature that has relevance to the discipline and/or area of practice” (Dissertation Premise Guide, p. 6).

Read completely the five research studies you located in Module 2 to determine what is known from current research about your topic. You will focus on the findings and conclusions of the studies. Reflect on what you know about your topic and on what you do not know. From this, you will be able to support your dissertation topic as providing something new. Be sure your gap aligns with the broader educational-societal problem you identified in Module 1. Be aware that you are only beginning this process with your Premise and that you will refine your topic as you read more research studies throughout the dissertation process.

Record the findings from each of the five research studies on your mind map under the appropriate topic. You will continue to build this mind map throughout this course and as you continue to work on your dissertation after this course if you find it to be an effective organizational tool.

• One paragraph of preliminary findings that provides evidence that your dissertation topic contributes new knowledge to your field and meets a gap in current research. For the introductory sentence of the paragraph, include the gap your dissertation will address. Then, share the findings of each research study in one or two sentences to demonstrate what is known from current research about your topic. If more than one study has the same finding, you can combine the findings with a citation that includes multiple research studies. Provide a synthesis sentence to end your paragraph that tells what is not known about your topic that will be addressed in your dissertation. 

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