PhD proposal advice

[S81]

Phd

 

Hi

 

I have submitted a PhD proposal,and the university said it should be more theoretical depth and provide substantive challenge.and it has lack of a strong theoretical base.

 

My research proposal mainly depends on qualitive method ^interviews^ 

 

Please advise how I overcome these points, I don’t understand it clearly 

[AP]

1. Talk to your advisor. 
2. Talk to your advisor.
3. Talk to your advisor.
4. Talk to other students in your department (in my department proposals are defended so by the time I did mine I had read several proposals).
5. The theoretical framework should illustrate your choice for this particular topic. Since you don't provide any information, I'll work with what you gave us. 
   • Frame your question within the literature. Who has done what? What have they argued? How does this research help us better answer this question?
   • Frame your methods within the literature. Interviews can look very differently from study to study. Who are you going to interview? What questions are you going to make? Are you going to record these interviews? Do you need IRB approval? How has your field used interviews? How has the literature of your topic used interviews? How will you recollect, store, and process data? 
   • Frame your questions beyond your field, if possible. Eg. If you work on migration and you are in polisci, how would your question help other scholars of migrations beyond polisci (anthropologists, for example)? Why would anyone read your research? What's novel about it?

Hope this helps. 

   

[S81]

I don't have advisor yet, I didn't get enroll yet

[PsyDuck90]

You are defending a proposal before being in the program?

[AP]

13 hours ago, S81 said:

I don't have advisor yet, I didn't get enroll yet

I don't understand your situation then. Could you explain?

[PokePsych]

In some countries it's quite common to go in with a specific proposal - I assume that's your situation?

My hunch would be to read this as do you lit review better (elaborate more and broader), link it to more relevant and related topics, and show what gap in the literature there is and that you're gonna solve. And not like a tiny hole, but like a big giant gap (it's a PhD after all). 

[ILoveOnlineSchool2019]

Look on youtube, Dr. Guy White has excellent videos on all phases of the dissertation process including choosing your research questions, which should only be done after a literature review and should aim to fill a gap in existing knowledge. Hope this helps.

Edited January 18, 2019 by ILoveOnlineSchool2019