Thinking about dissertation in the Masters

The fourth semester in MPH programme at IIPHG involves
writing a dissertation. This is an opportunity to gain hands on experience of conceptualizing,
conducting, and communicating research. The students start thinking about it somewhere
from the mid of the third semester, and the idea culminates into a proposal at
the beginning of fourth semester.  This is
a guidance note on how to ‘think’ about dissertation, and may be useful to the
students in deciding topic, exploring methods, and identifying host
organization, etc in the light of their own constraints and considerations.

Timeline

As a first thing it is essential to understand
broad timeline of exploration, execution, and wrap-up of dissertation.  The dissertation thinking and doing can be
divided in broad three segments of before, during, and after the immersive work,
each comprising of around 75-100 days or 2.5 to 3.5 months.

The students must start thinking about
dissertation around 100 days i.e. three months or so before the beginning date.
For example, September is a good month to start exploring ideas for a dissertation
that would begin in January.  This ‘Before
dissertation’ phase is meant to explore ideas and possibilities, writing a few
concept notes, one or two good proposals and finalizing one to be submitted for
the ethical and technical review.  This
phase will also involve exploration of topics and methods, organizations and
locations that ultimately will come together by the time one is ready to
roll.  The remaining section of this note
will emphasize on these aspects. The next immersive / in the field phase will begin
as soon as the student leaves the institute for dissertation and continue till midway
through the 4—6 months of the dissertation. This phase will start with
consolidating the theorical proposal with local realities, and acclimatization
with the host organization (if any), space, place, and community.  It will then include preparation of data collection
or collation, actual dirtying one’s hands with data collection, and data entry.
 The last phase of Wrapping up (the second
half of the 4-6 months of dissertation) will coincide with the fag end of data
collection in which the student will start writing thesis simultaneously. It will
then involve immersive experiences of data analysis and writing of
chapters.  The chapters will then be
reviewed and finalized. The thesis will then be defended and submitted.  All in all, the thinking and doing
dissertation is a journey of 200-300 days. This is a lot of time to learn a lot
without panicking at any stages. With that in mind, lets understand few ways to
think about dissertation with the use of two types of knobs as described below.

Priority knobs

As a first step, students need to understand
their own purpose of dissertation, in addition to but away from an
institutional, administrative and curricular requirement to earn a degree. The considerations
of three aspects of a) Cause, b) Career, and c) Constraints can help students
to prioritize their dissertation possibilities in the light of where and how to
spend 4-6 months of dissertation.  The ‘Cause’
knob is related to a subject, illness, community, or something else that one is
emotionally attached to.  What are you
passionate about? Answers to this question will help you identify the cause
that you would like to spend 4-6 months for to dive deeper and understand more
nuances, while you contribute to the cause. Not every student is passionate
about a cause and that is ok too. The exploration for dissertation becomes easy
if you know your raison d'être, and focus your search within that limited
circle.  The ‘Career’ knob is connected
to your professional aspirations in terms of first job destination. What kind
of designation and organization you like to start your career with? Answer to
this question would be useful to identify potential host organization, to network
with and get connected to people associated with it.  Here, the student is not passionate about a
topic or community, but about a place and position therein.  These could be broad in terms of types of
organization (Government, NGO, Research Organization, Insurance company, etc.)
or as focused as name of it (Care Bihar, Tata Trust, NHM Karnataka – or Unicef
Assam although the UN organizations generally does not take interns).  The third priority knob is about limitations
under which the student may need to operate, prioritize, and decide. This could
be about location related (close to home, my own state, or anywhere except
Delhi, UP, Bihar, etc.), mobility related (desk work, no fieldwork, language
barriers, etc.), or money related (paid involvement only) constraints.  These three aspects do not play out in silos;
they interact with each other. Juggling and balancing these may help in first
level thinking about dissertation, before getting into next consideration of
interest/exploration knobs.

Interest/Exploration
knobs

These include four aspects of a) Thematic area
(Illnesses or determinants – Tuberculosis, maternal health, tobacco, etc. or health
system research like costing, HR, Insurance, etc.), b) Methods (survey,
qualitative, ethnography, desk review, etc.), and c) Location and d) Organization,
as described earlier.  As you can see, these
are also connected to priority knobs. While Cause would help you consider
thematic area or method, Career would help you prioritize thematic area, organization
and thus location, and Constraints would give you some idea about organization
and location, for example.   To reflect on these four aspects, one can ask
following meaningful questions to oneself.  Am I interested in any place, community, illness
or determinants of health, in particular? Do I have preferences about research
methods? Is there a dream organization or researcher I would like to work with?
Do I want to experiment and try something unexplored through my dissertation? Do
I prefer exploring certain location – North East India, for example? Do I want
to spend these 4-6 months with particular friend/s of mine and follow his/her
path? Answers to any of these questions would help explore and narrow down
search in other knobs further. For example, if a thematic area is preferred, one
would narrow the search for organizations working for a particular cause. The
student will be ready with a proposal and a host organization when there is clarity
of all four aspects. Not knowing any of these (or even the flexibility of I can
do anything, anywhere, with any organization) is a bad start. One must think and
identify some of these preferences to begin the exploration productively.  Also, it is preferred to explore more than one
options so as to have backup plans. Needless to say, you must keep talking to
your faculty guide for more clarity and help in these matters time to time.

Pieces
of Advice

While students
will have their own unique approach to their dissertation, above-mentioned
points can help one think the process through.  In addition, following are some overall
suggestions that may also be helpful.

• Your
  dissertation need not be your best and most passionate work. You have entire
  life to do that most exciting and most valuable work. Why do that special work
  as a naïve researcher? Why not wait for becoming an experienced and nuanced
  researcher for the most passionate exploration of life?
• While
  you may have strong urge to connect dissertation with your career and use this
  opportunity as a stepping stone for the first job, its relevance will end
  there. Your second job will come from the first one and career will be built
  over many such. Your dissertation will not make or break your career; you can
  take that load off from dissertation.
• Focus
  on the learning. Enjoy the process of conceptualizing and undertaking a
  research, and don’t give undue higher importance to the outputs called review, thesis
  and defense.
• Please
  understand that your dissertation is your learning opportunity to think and do
  research on your own, for yourself. It is not for the host organization who can
  facilitate your process.
• Lastly,
  please remember that the consistency is the key for a 200-300 days of the processes
  of dissertation thinking, doing and submission.  You need to be at it. There won’t be any eureka
  moments in deciding a topic, finding an organization, getting, data, analysis
  or writing. You would need to do it all – bit by bit, slowly and consistently.