How to write chapter 4 Research findings

How to write chapter 4 Research findings

Chapter 4 for Qualitative Research carries different titles such as ‘Analysis of Data’, ‘Results of Study’, ‘Analysis and Results’ and so forth. The keywords are ‘analysis’ and ‘results’ which implies that you have ‘analyzed’ the raw data and are presenting the ‘results’ or what you discovered in the fieldwork carried out, in this Chapter.

Students always find it difficult to document their findings. Chapter four is the heart of your work. Sometimes,  supervisors don’t start the reading of your work from chapter one, they jump to chapter four because that is the chapter that tells your reader all that you did, the instrument you used, how you analyzed your data and finally your findings.

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Hence, a well written/organized chapter four is all you need to present a convincing result.

Think about these common errors

You have spent so much time collecting and analyzing data but do a poor job of reporting the results. You may under-report despite having collected large amounts of data.

Alternatively, after collecting all the data, your presentation of the results lack organization and clarity.

Your reader struggles to try to figure out what you have written in this Chapter.

You may have done a good job writing Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 with such clarity and make a mess of Chapter 4.

You’ve just wasted your precious time and possibly the cost of compiling the chapter.

Your Chapter 4 should ‘stand-alone’ what does this mean?

This means that you could ask a friend to read it and s/he would understand what you discovered in your study without having to read Chapters 1 to 3.

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For you to achieve this, your chapter four should be aligned to the purpose of the study, the research questions, why the study was important, how it connects to the underlying theories, literature review and reflective of the conceptual framework. Chapter 4 is the culmination of your study and represents your best thinking and how you answered the research question you had formulated/stated in chapter one of the research project.

The researcher should begin this chapter with two or three introductory paragraphs. A transition from chapter three is very important too. The researcher should also provide a very brief review of the overall research design.

It is not necessary to list all of the secondary questions and hypotheses at the beginning of the chapter, but the introductory section of the chapter should focus the reader’s attention on the primary research question and hypothesis.

Don’t border detailing everything, the bulk of the chapter will consist of the presentation of findings for the secondary questions and hypotheses set forth in Chapter 3.

How to write chapter 4 Research findings – Outline for Chapter Four

1. Introduction to the Chapter.
2. A transition from chapter three. (Very important)
3. Provide a brief overview of the research project: like I stated earlier, chapter four should be able to stand alone, this means it should be presented in such a way that one can read it and understand everything about your study, this means that a BRIEF overview of the research project is very important in this chapter.
4. Describe the purpose of the chapter.
5. Explain the organization of the chapter.
6. Data Analyses and Presentation of the Findings: this is the heart of this chapter, the presentation of the findings should be very concise and clear, make sure that you present it in such a way that even a layman can understand it.
7.  State null hypothesis.
8. Present the statistical results in a table.
9. Draw statistical conclusions for accepted and rejected hypotheses.
10. Draw a preliminary research conclusion
11. Conclusion and Transition to Chapter Five

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