Quality in research is to be recognized and applauded for its conceptualization and high level thinking. This thinking must be visible in the text of the thesis so that experienced researchers, supervisors and examiners can acknowledge the scholarship of the thesis.

Conceptualizing involves many processes ~ reading, thinking, analysing, reflecting, drafting text, and designing models or textual accounts of the concepts.   Appreciating how high quality doctoral research depends upon high quality conceptualization helps candidates understand scholarship and linkages between literature, research design, data analysis and conclusions in doctoral research. For some candidates, this aspect of their doctoral journey is intellectually exciting and rewarding, while for others it is technically difficult and often frustrating.

So, how can candidates be assisted to reach the level of conceptualization which is expected from a doctoral thesis and to make it visible in their writing and defense event?

The workshop will illustrate how to approach research in a scholarly manner moving from the descriptive to the conceptual by considering critical factors that represent the high quality that doctoral research should demonstrate. It will show how candidates can raise their level of thinking and exhibit in their thesis that they are ‘thinking like researchers’ by:

• Identifying the features in theses where high level thinking is required;
• Illustrating how examiners review and assess these features through specific sets of questions;
• Using examples from theses and examiners’ reports that point to ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aspects of doctoral writing;
• Providing strategies for candidates to adopt in writing their thesis;
• Allowing participants to discuss some of these issues in small groups guided by assigned question/tasks.

.

.

.