UNDERSTANDING THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS IN RESEARCH DESIGN

Ph.D. is not all about academic brilliance and smooth talk during presentation, but more importantly about attitude, intuition and concerted diligence in working through a clearly defined process while seeking solution to an existing problem or in explaining a perplexing phenomenon in order to expand human knowledge. A thesis has several parts (Chapters), each of which requires a uniquely different skill sets for working it out correctly. Some students and inexperienced scholars fail to acknowledge the fact that ability to read and write are although, necessary in thesis writing, but that much more serious efforts need to be made at learning the skills required for effective handling of the various chapters in thesis writing. Failure to realize the above fact, has prevented most students from striving to acquire the needed skills for each chapter of their theses. Consequently, some students get stuck in thesis writing at different stages as a result of lack of skills and knowledge which create confusion for the student. I have observed in many postgraduate students’ project defense sessions and in particular in several Ph.D. thesis colloquia and presentations how Theoretical and Conceptual Framework became the bane of an otherwise good research works. In the University of Lagos where I made my observations, examiners do not take the issue of poor handling of theoretical and conceptual frameworks sections lying low in a Ph.D. thesis. Furthermore, in few years that I have taught advanced research methodology and thesis writing skills in several postgraduate programmes in Estate Management Department in the University of Lagos, I have noticed the poor understanding by most students of the concepts of theoretical and conceptual frameworks. It is important to note that the postgraduate students in some of the programmes come from diverse disciplines and institutional backgrounds. Thus, making the issue of poor students’ knowledge of theoretical and conceptual frameworks to look like a general problem among Nigerian graduates. This book was written to provide all postgraduate students, especially those on Ph.D. programmes and other institutional researchers with proper understanding of these two vital concepts which usually underpin good postgraduate thesis especially at the doctoral level. The readers are strongly encouraged to read through without skipping sections because information in this book was designed to flow sequentially as it ought to be in practice. Discussions in each preceding section was intentionally made to flow into the next section in a seamless manner. However, after a general reading of this book, readers can also apply particular sections that provide empirical guidelines on how to deal with certain specific issues e.g., research paradigm design, selecting of relevant and anchoring theories, fitting the study into the anchoring theory, designing of conceptual framework and operationalisation of the conceptual framework of the study as workbook to be followed in a step-by-step manner.