Thesis or Dissertation Chapter 4: What to Include and How to Write It

Chapter 4 reports what the study found. It lays out the evidence so the reader can see how it answers each research question, and it holds back the broader interpretation for Chapter 5.

The chapter looks different depending on your design. A qualitative chapter presents themes supported by participant evidence. A quantitative chapter presents statistics, tables, and the tests that address each question or hypothesis. A mixed methods chapter does both and shows how the two relate. Some programs merge results and discussion into one chapter, so confirm what yours expects before you structure the draft.

What goes in it

Open by restating the purpose and the research questions and telling the reader how the chapter is organized. Then describe your participants or sample, using the characteristics that matter to your study. In qualitative work, give each participant a pseudonym and a short profile. In quantitative work it means sample size, response rate, and a table of sample characteristics.

Report briefly how data collection and analysis went, and flag every departure from the plan in Chapter 3. The full procedure stays in Chapter 3.

The body comes next, and it should follow your research questions in the order you introduced them. Give each question its own findings under its own heading, so a reader or examiner can turn to the answer for question two without searching. A short summary at the end gathers the main findings and leads into Chapter 5.

Qualitative findings

State each theme, explain what it means, and support it with evidence from the data. A quotation illustrates a theme and cannot stand in for your explanation of it. Leave quotations as participants said them, apart from the minimal edits your program allows and discloses.

Show which research question each theme answers, and report data that complicate or contradict a theme alongside the data that support it. Our article on presenting themes clearly covers this in detail.

Quantitative findings

Report descriptive statistics first, then the tests that address each question or hypothesis. For each test, name it, give the result, and say in plain language what the result means. Report the assumptions you checked and what you found. Include effect sizes next to significance values where your field expects them.

Put detail in tables and figures, formatted to your style manual, and refer to each one in the text. The text should state the point of a table and leave the individual numbers to the table. Check every figure in the text against the table it came from, because an examiner will.

Keep results and interpretation apart

Chapter 4 says what the data show, and Chapter 5 says what that means. If a results paragraph begins explaining why the numbers came out as they did, or comparing them with earlier studies, move it to Chapter 5, unless your program combines the two.

Report what did not work as well. A non-significant result, an unexpected theme, or missing data belongs in the chapter. Committees are more suspicious of a results chapter in which everything went as planned.

Write with the same terms you used in Chapter 3 for variables, groups, and themes. A finding about "engagement" that was measured as "participation" in your method will draw a question.

Chapter 3 describes what you did, and Chapter 5 explains what it means.

If you want an outside assessment of whether your findings answer your research questions, a chapter review looks at the chapter's structure, evidence, and fit with the rest of the study and gives written recommendations for revision. The findings stay yours.