Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations
Discussion
This chapter includes three sections. The first section is a discussion of the research project, including the findings, interpretation of the results, and problems and/or limitations. This latter item is one of the most important parts of your chapter. You need to discuss how the limitations of your research may have affected your results. Remember, there are two types of limitations: those that are imposed by the researcher (usually the time period and the geographic location, though there may also be limitations involving your subjects; and those that are the result of your research method. Every research method has some inherent limitations; it is important to address those that may affect the validity and reliability of your findings. Limitations may also be associated with your sample. Be systematic in your discussion of limitations: take them one at a time. You should also discuss any problems that might have occurred during your research, especially those that might affect your findings.
In the Discussion section, you must also discuss how your result(s) reflect your two theoretical or conceptual frameworks presented in your Literature Review, Chapter 2.
You can also be a little creative in this section. It is appropriate to speculate why you think you got the results you did. You still need to use third person, but you can make your views known.
Do not repeat other parts of your research project in this section, except perhaps your research hypotheses or research question.
Conclusions
The second section is the Conclusions. What did we find out? What did we learn? Focus on your original objectives. Were there unintended consequences or surprises? What is the value of this research?
Recommendations
The final section, Recommendations, usually include three areas: 1) Is there a need for any changes to current practices? Should we be doing things differently? 2) Is there a need for any changes to current policies? Do we need new rules, new laws? 3) Is there a need for future research? This could be a replication of one or more studies, a different sample, different methodology, different variables.
