What do I write in my PhD conclusion chapter?
By the time you get to your PhD Conclusion chapter, I know you’re feeling like you’re running out of steam!
It can be very tempting to rush through the Conclusion chapter and just get this darn PhD submitted!
But take your time, ensure you have a Conclusion that’s going to do your research justice.
Include the following five things:
1. Restate the aim(s) of your research. What did you want to achieve? Write something along the lines of, “In conclusion, the aim of this study was to…”.
2. Restate your objectives straight after restating the aims. Remind the reader of how you achieved your aims. Write something like, “This was achieved through (then describe your research methodology)”.
You could even talk about your aims and objectives in the same sentence. For example, “In conclusion, the aim of this study was to explore young people’s experiences volunteering through an online survey and semi-structured interviews”. In this one sentence, you’ve covered aims and objectives.
3. Tell the reader about the implications of the findings. There’s no need to summarize the findings again, because the reader already has a good grasp of them by this stage of your dissertation. Instead, focus on what the findings mean. Do the findings suggest that a particular theory or approach is useful? Do they suggest that current understandings are not accurate? Do they suggest that something needs to change? It all depends on what you’ve been looking at in your research, but this but shouldn’t be another regurgitation of the findings, it should be about what follows on from them – what are the ramifications? Write something like, “The findings of this study suggest that …”.
4. Identify who could benefit from your findings. Could they be useful to particular organizations, groups or individuals? What difference could they make to them? They way they think about something? The way they do something? The way they plan something? What situations might people or organizations find themselves in where the things you’ve discovered in your research might be helpful?
5. Future research. If you’ve done a thorough job in your Discussion chapter, you’ve already written about this. So, you don’t need to repeat yourself. Instead, think about what the implications of that future research could be. What would the future research you’ve outlined in the Discussion do? Would it enable more detailed understandings? Would it allow us to explore how different people experience what you’ve studied? Would it help us to do a more rigorous investigation of a particular model or theory? Always ask the ‘So what?’ question!
It’s also worth me saying what shouldn’t be in your discussion too. I would avoid including anything completely new about your actual research. If you do think about something new – a different interpretation of your findings for example – that should go into your Discussion chapter. As you are preparing your Conclusion, keep a note of any thoughts or ideas and put them to one side. Then take another look at your Discussion later and figure out whether you do really need to put that in..
Need me to walk you through the discussion and conclusion?
Check out my guide on these chapters below!
