Dissertation Research and Writing for Construction Students

Second edition Dr S. G. Naoum

Alv\STERDAM· BOSTON, HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YOR!< • OXFORD PARIS· SAN DIEGO· SAN FRANCISCO· SINGAPORE· SYDNEY ·TOI(YO Ii)"""Ti'I~

ELSEVIER Bunerworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier

L:

twice), 2006

1eI" LId. All rights reserved

of Ibis work has been Patents Art 1988

a retrieval system :hanical, photocopying,

on ofthe publishci'

& Technology Rights 30: fax (+44) (0) 1865853333;

ubmil your request online by rmi~sions, and selecting

I andlor damage to persons otherwise, or from any use

eontained in thc material . in particular, independent

Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgemems Xill

1 Introduction 1 Rationale for conducting a dissertation 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 Research Design and Methodology

4 Approaches to data collection 37

Summary 50 References 51

Research strategy 37 Approaches to data collection 43 Secondary data collection 48

/ \ 0\

VI ContenlS

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 01 the Results

7 Measurements and probability 91 Level of measurement 91 Probabiliry 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 the 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 referenceslbibliography 153 Summary 159 References and additional reading 160

2

ofthe Results

98

as bivariate

131

138

Contents VI!

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 01 dissertation proposals 171

Appendix 2 Construaion management and economics list 01journals 187

Appendix 3 London South Bank University: Example 01 a questionnaire 191

Appendix 4 Statistical wbles 198

Appendix 5 Construction industry employee injury statistics 202

Index 203