Write Your Dissertation Like a Jedi: Think Story

Write Your Dissertation Like a Jedi: Think Story

Writing a dissertation can be a daunting project.  It helps if you think of it as a story in an academic voice.  Stories are powerful and uniquely human as I wrote in The Psychology of Story.  A story also has a clear logic–one we all know since we have literally grown up on stories.  The hardest part of a dissertation is communicating it clearly, including what you need to tell your story and leaving out the bits you don’t.

This example breaks down a dissertation using bits of Star Wars to illustrate the purpose and content of each section–and make it a little friendlier.

What Goes in a Dissertation? A little Star Wars, the Hero’s Journey and the Three-Act Structure

Act 1.  Introduction (The Exposition) 1

Act 2. Literature Review (Rising Action) 1

Act 3. Methodology (The Conflict) 2

Act IV Results (The Resolution): 3

Chapter V: Discussion & Conclusion (The Hero Returns, Transformation and Gifts) 3

Star Wars: The Effect of Training and Mindset on Jedi Ability

You’re ready to start your dissertation. You are interested in exploring the question: What is the effect of training and individual differences such as efficacy and mindset on Jedi ability to destroy the Death Star?

The Traditional Three- Act Structure

 

Traditional Dissertation Structure on a Narrative Arc

Act 1.  Introduction (The Exposition)

The introduction is where you describe the current situation, the problem as you see it, the argument you are making with your study, specific theory and literature that support your argument, and the specific research question you propose to explore.  This is where Luke Skywalker is in the desert and we learn that his parents are dead, a bit about his character and setting and then watch the Stormtrooper destroy his home and kill his parents.  He feels hopeless and powerless.

This sets up the question: what does Luke need to do to address this problem?  And your solution, based on the theory of the Force and the Dark Side and evidence from studies that previous Jedi knights were able to fight against the Dark Side that he needs to learn to be a Jedi.  Therefore you propose a study in which you test whether or not spending time with Obi-Wan will result in Luke being able to save the world by destroying the Death Star.  Your hypothesis is that the amount of time spent with Obi-Wan’s training will predict Luke’s ability to kill the Death Star.

Act 2. Literature Review (Rising Action)

This is where you describe in detail the origins of the Force, evidence that it exists, the theories of the Dark Side, evidence that it exists, human motivation theories that explain how reluctant heroes become less reluctant and engage, and, depending on how you’re framing your argument, maybe you would talk about resilience and grit, self-efficacy, mentoring and social support, growth mindset, or cognitive development of fine motor skills through practice.

The literature review concludes with a synthesis of the theories that leads you back to your main RQ and hypothesis.  Force theory suggests that people can learn to manage it and that it is powerful enough to take on the Dark Side.  Theories of resilience and grit suggest that these are essential factors in not giving up and are both influenced by self-efficacy and social connection, particularly mentoring.  Theories of cognitive development suggest that fine motor skills necessary to expertly handle a lightsaber can be learned and improved through training.  Dark Side theory suggests that while insidious and powerful, it can be overcome by a combination of wielding the Force, persistence, grit (which implies self-efficacy), social support of others, and learned skill.  Therefore, you hypothesize that time spent training with Obi-wan will teach him how to harness the force, the necessary physical skills, and the mentoring and social support will impact his self-efficacy such that time spent with Obi-Wan will predict a higher likelihood of destroying the death star.

I always find it helpful to include a diagram of the model, but I’m a visual person.  It does allow you to illustrate your hypothetical relationships.  I find it helpful to go through a model and question the relationships relative to theory, research and to clarify whatever it was I was thinking.  This exercise has saved me a world of grief by making untenable ideas visible early.

Act 3. Methodology (The Conflict)

This is where you pit your variables against the Death Star.  Unlike traditional battle scenes, this scene is described in painful methodological detail.  At the end of your methods section, another research will be able to replicate your study sending other populations, like Ewoks, to train with Obi-Wan.

Study Design: In this section, you will explain how you chose the study design to answer your RQ and test your hypotheses.  You might reference another study looking at similar questions and how that informed your approach.

Population: You will describe your population: how you will access the multiverse to recruit an adequate number of Lukes, aged 18 and over, who have access to an Obi-wan and are willing to submit to the training.  How many do you need?  Include your power analysis (G*Power is a helpful tool, but there are also some rules of thumb.)  Is it only Lukes or are you accepting other members of the rebellion?  Is it only humans? Only those who are pilots? Do you have gender restrictions?  Do you recruit equal numbers of Lukes and Rays and compare?  You must explain the logic (based on either theory or literature) as to why you have targeted your chosen population.  Sometimes it’s obvious, such as when you want a cultural comparison such as those from Alderaan versus Tatooine, other times it is more complicated.  Be clear.

Measures:  The measures are how you operationalize your variables.  So in this case, you might write the variables as:

  • Time spent in training=self-report days in a cave
  • Force = measured by the Obi-Wan Force Management Scale
  • Resilience = measured by the Davidson Resilience Scale
  • Grit = measured by the Duckworth Grit Scale
  • Efficacy = Sherer’s self-efficacy scale
  • Lightsaber skill = measured by Princess Leia basic Light Saber Skills Inventory
  • Death of Death Star = % of Death Star Remaining OR if that was too difficult to measure, you might just go with the number of Stormtroopers who bite the dust.

You will provide all the necessary details for each measure you intend to use, including where’s it been used, if it’s been validated, stuff like the Cronbach alphas for constructs, and how the measures are calculated (e.g. mean or total?).  If you wrote your own questions, explain why and what you were after and if there is other evidence of similar questions being asked or what measure informed your thinking.  The full survey and any protocols or stimulus (like special training videos) must be described in detail and linked to your question.  (e.g. this training video was developed by Yoda to demonstrate the skill of Forcelighting as part of the fine motor skills training.)

The full survey and protocol are displayed in your appendices.  In the case of surveys, it’s a nice courtesy to the reader to discuss the measures in the order they appear and link the measures to the question numbers.

Procedure: You will describe the process of data collection in detail, from recruitment and screening, to how you deliver any intervention, stimulus, or protocols and measures.

Proposed Analysis: You might want to extend that to test which of those variables made the biggest contribution to destroying the death star.  How you ask the question and what you want to find out will tell you which side of the equation they should be on and if you want to do the analysis in steps (multiple regression of part one and part two or a stepwise regression) or in one big analysis of variance.

No matter what you decide to do, there will always be some descriptive statistics to lead off the analysis.

A table is often a nice way of organizing some of this information.  (e.g. list of IVs, how they are measured, how they fit a specific hypothesis, and the statistical test planned.)

Act IV Results (The Resolution):

This section is just the results.  No waxing on here about what the data mean, the importance of the Force, or why we need to defeat the Dark Side.  Only include the amount of explanation necessary to show what the data are.  Interpretation of the data, the speculation about what they mean about launching the next attack or training Luke belongs in the next section called “discussion.”

In this section, you will describe each step in objective detail. APA has all kinds of formatting rules for reporting data.  Get familiar. It’s a pain, no lie.  How many Lukes did you succeed in recruiting?  One group or two, before and after?  Any deviations from your intended plan?

Descriptive statistics: (e.g. Frequencies of age, gender, race, and the mean, SD, and Cronbach alpha for each variable.)  Some measures won’t have Cronbach measures, such as if you’re measuring the percent of media consumed on holograms vs. subspace transceiver.

Many statistical approaches in galaxies long ago and today begin with correlations as preliminary analysis to look for relationships that might influence other statistical measures.  (e.g. multicollinearity in regressions.)  Present this in a table AND in descriptive text with all the right symbols and abbreviations.

Then go through each of your hypotheses one by one, just like you were fighting the Sith.  If you created a diagram of the model, you could add the statistical significance of each relationship from your measures.

Report things like ANOVAs, Regressions, etc. in tables and also written out in text.  Use proper formatting for both.  Look it up.  It’s not even remotely intuitive.  APA has very clear expectations on how to report data results.  Whenever you have something good, include a chart that visually shows a relationship you want people to know about, such as a scatterplot, line, or bar chart.  It’s much easier to interpret a line or bar chart than to decode statistical tables.

Chapter V: Discussion & Conclusion (The Hero Returns, Transformation, and Gifts)

In this section, you get to recap your findings in regular English and talk about what they mean in the light of the theories and conceptual framework you proposed at the start of this.  Do not bring in new theories about droids and the psychological impact of lightsaber colors.  Summarize what you found, state what it means.

Conclusion: This is where you sum up the big picture. This is sometimes part of the discussion but start by thinking of it as its own chapter and go from there.

This is your chance to expand and talk about how your findings fit in the main problem and how they might be applied in the real world.  This needs to be defensible in light of what you found and the theory, not just what you think would be terrific for the next movie.

Suggestions for Future Research and Limitations: This section also includes your suggestions as to how others may investigate further based on what you have found (or not found, as the case may be.)  Sometimes not finding what you expect is as helpful as finding it.  Don’t view that as a failure.  Do not include all the questions that could have been asked.  This is an extension of your work, not the work you might have done.  You will also list any limitations of your study.  For example, you had trouble recruiting, the lightsabers had technical troubles, using Lukes as the subjects might not apply to other ages, races, and gender, or if the Empire builds a new and better Death Star or if Darth Vader comes back.  This would also be the place if you felt there were any validity issues from the methodology.