Writing results and discussion chapters for quantitative research
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These slides were prepared for a presentation to doctoral students at Massey University, New Zealand
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Writing results and discussion chapters for quantitative research
- 1. Results and Discussion Chapters for Quantitative Research National Centre for Teaching & Learning See these slides online at: tinyurl.com/quantchapters2018 See our video on thesis writing in general at: tinyurl.com/thesiswritingvideo
- 2. Contents Tables and figures Acknowledgements Resources Results style Discussion structure Discussion style Introductions
- 4. Discuss in pairs or small groups for 15 minutes What writing have you done over the last month? What kind of quantitative data / analysis will you have in your thesis? How will you present this data / analysis? What challenges do you face in commenting on your data? What advice and / or resources have you found helpful in writing about your data / analysis?
- 6. This presentation refers to four Massey doctoral theses: Rosemary Gibson (2014) Understanding and Managing Dementia- Related Sleep Problems: Community-Based Research with Older New Zealanders. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/6688 Lisanne Fermin (2017) Pre-implantation maternal uterine effects on embryo growth and development: An investigation using models of maternal constraint in sheep. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/4793 Hwee Ming Teo (2016) Development of novel nanoemulsions as delivery systems. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/9903 Nirosha Priyadarshani (2017) Wavelet-based birdsong recognition for conservation. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/12127 tinyurl.com/masseydeanslist
- 7. phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk We also refer to this useful online resource:
- 9. It is important that only data which helps to answer the research question(s) is presented White, 2011, p. 273
- 10. Figures are typically used to illustrate objects, scenarios, theoretical models etc or to report measurements (as in the example below) Gibson, 2015, p. 304
- 11. Gibson, 2015, p. 303 - 304 Either before or after the figure, there is typically a brief explanation, highlighting (and / or explaining) the most relevant finding.
- 12. Tables are used to provide a detailed summary of results Gibson, 2015, p. 303
- 13. These are typically followed by a paragraph which highlights the points of interest and provides some explanations Gibson, 2015, p. 303 At Time 2 Andrew still rated his sleep as “fairly good”. His PSQI and SDI scores remained within the normal range, however decreased in severity since Time 1. This was due to him having some trouble getting to sleep … . There was some improvement in the frequency of his memory-related symptoms at Time 2 …
- 14. It is important that the text comments on, rather than repeats information presented visually There was no significant difference in the SnNR between day and night for passerine birds except one call example of saddleback (sad1; Table 3.5). At night, SnNR was higher compared to the day for most of the other bird sounds (Fig. 3.4). It is evident from these results that the sound transmission of nocturnal birds was significantly better during the night compared to the day. Bittern and kakapo booms consistently followed the opposite pattern (their SnNR was significantly higher during the day). Priyadarshani, 2017, p. 65
- 15. Theses based on quantitative data typically include numerous tables and figures like the ones shown above in the results section(s) You’ll need to learn how to format these (e.g. using MS Word etc), so that you can automatically generate lists of tables and figures
- 16. Teo, 2016, p. x Teo, 2016, p. xvi Examples of lists of figures and tables
- 17. Teo, 2016, p. xviii Teo, 2016, p. xix It is also common to include lists of technical terms, symbols, abbreviations, etc – so this is something to build up as you go along.
- 18. Results style
- 19. Although the emulsions were physically stable during storage, it was observed that the colour of all the emulsions faded slightly over time and became lighter especially at higher temperature of 40oC (Figure 8.4). Initially, the emulsions were orange in colour as lutein is a colour pigment with an intense yellow-orange (depending on the concentration) but the colour intensity of emulsions became lighter due to chemical degradation of lutein. Indeed, the L value of emulsions increased while the colour parameters were found to decrease during storage at higher temperatures (Table 8.3). The L value measures lightness and an increase in L value indicates colour fading of emulsions during storage (Qian, Decker, Xiao & McClements, 2012). A decrease in positive a value indicates a decrease in the redness of the emulsions while a decrease in positive b value indicates a decrease in the yellowness (Qian et al., 2012). Therefore, the colour measurements indicate some loss or change of colour in the emulsions during storage, also indicating the degradation of lutein. Tenses Summary of results (past) Theory / Facts (present) Interpretation (present) Teo, 2016, p. 198
- 20. Table 5.3 summarises the performance of each detector on natural noisy field recordings using the threshold given in the previous section. This table reflects a single point of each ROC curve in Fig. 5.7 which matches the selected threshold. The wavelet filtering algorithm achieved more than 95% recall in detecting close-range calls (‘very loud’ and ‘loud’). Even when the calls were very faded the recall was just below 70%. The detector was successful in detecting 30% of extremely faded calls. In the case of bittern and k¯ak¯ap¯o booming calls we had to revisit the human ground truth labels after using our algorithm: a few extra calls were found by our algorithm, and after retrospective consideration, included to the annotation. Priyadarshani, 2017, p. 141 Summary of results (past) Describing tables or figures (present)
- 21. We evaluate / evaluated our method with the common energy based thresholding (Jinnai et al., 2012) and median clipping (Lasseck, 2013, 2015b). Table 5.5 summarises / summarised our findings on the same dataset as presented in the previous section (Table 5.3 and Table 5.4). We count / counted the number of seconds of target sounds detected instead of number of bird calls. As we mention / mentioned before, this is not a perfect comparison, because the reference methods are detecting any sound, while the wavelet filter only detects / detected target bird sounds. The overall recall of the proposed segmentation by wavelet filtering method (78%) is / was better than time domain energy thresholding (47%) and spectrogram-based median clipping (30%). Another method that could be used would be spectrogram cross- correlation (Cortopassi and Bradbury, 2000). However, this requires / required the manual selection of a large number of individual calls to act as templates, and degrades / degraded quickly with noise, and we therefore choose / chose not to use it here. Priyadarshani, 2017, p. 141 Practice Which was the original tense?
- 22. We evaluated our method with the common energy based thresholding (Jinnai et al., 2012) and median clipping (Lasseck, 2013, 2015b). Table 5.5 summarises our findings on the same dataset as presented in the previous section (Table 5.3 and Table 5.4). We counted the number of seconds of target sounds detected instead of number of bird calls. As we mentioned before, this is not a perfect comparison, because the reference methods are detecting any sound, while the wavelet filter only detects target bird sounds. The overall recall of the proposed segmentation by wavelet filtering method (78%) was better than time domain energy thresholding (47%) and spectrogram-based median clipping (30%). Another method that could be used would be spectrogram cross-correlation (Cortopassi and Bradbury, 2000). However, this requires the manual selection of a large number of individual calls to act as templates, and degrades quickly with noise, and we therefore chose not to use it here. Priyadarshani, 2017, p. 141 Feedback
- 23. Interestingly, lutein degradation was the highest in ….. This was not expected because nanoemulsions are thought to have …. At the same oil concentration of 0.5% (w/w), the nanoemulsions contained …. whereas the conventional emulsions contained … (Table 8.1). It was therefore hypothesised that the small droplets in nanoemulsions were surrounded by ….. One possible explanation is …... As a result, nanoemulsions containing smaller droplets showed ….. It is worthwhile noticing that the degradation of lutein in nanoemulsions was improved when. This can be attributed to …. (supporting citation). Commenting on results Teo, 2016, p. 203 Pointing out Explaining
- 24. 1 _______, the transmission height had a significant effect on some vocalisations of the ground-dwelling species considered (Fig. 3.7). The sound transmission was better at 3m height for two kiwi females and weka. 2 _______, one sound of the four male kiwi sounds also turned out to be better at 3m height, but the difference was less than with the female call (3 _______Table A.4 for significance). 4 _______, the kakapo chinging sound transmitted better close to the ground (Table A.4), 5 _______ in the open field (Fig. 3.8) and morepork sounds were better heard when broadcast higher. Spectrogram inspection of re-captured morepork sounds also 6 _______ that their attenuation was higher when the sound was transmitted close to the ground both in the open site and the forest (Fig. 3.9). INTERESTINGLY PARTICULARLY MORE IN LINE WITH EXPECTATIONS SEE CONFIRMED Practice IN ADDITION Fill the gaps with words and phrases 1. Interestingly 2. In addition 3. See 4. More in line with expectations 5. particularly 6. confirmed
- 26. Discussion style
- 27. Previous research has demonstrated that ….. Briefly, chapter 3 investigated … Chapters 4 and 5 compared. Chapter 6 examined … The aim of this thesis was to build on these previous findings and further examine … Specific objectives were to examine … in order to determine … Introduction to discussion chapter The following sections will focus on the general outcomes, results, conclusions and implications of the experiments of this thesis. Identified limitations and weaknesses of the research will also be discussed, followed by recommendations for future research. Finally, the main conclusions of this research will be summarised. Rationale Purpose Recap Preview Fermin, 2017, pp. 273-274
- 28. Previous research (citation) .. indicates … The results of Study 2 are similar. However, …. . Furthermore, …. Despite the fact that … (citation), older participants in Studies 1 and 2 were less likely to report … This pattern has been noted in previous studies .. The findings presented in Study 3 and elsewhere (citation) help to further explain this pattern. Unlike the previous studies of younger New Zealanders (citation), Study 1 found … This may be due to … Sleep health might be better predicted by …. Future research incorporating … would help to clarify these findings. Body of the discussion chapter Gibson, 2015, p. 323 - 324 Comparisons between findings and previous research / theory Tentative explanations
- 29. The sample of carers in Study 4 had 1 _______ good sleep compared to some other groups of dementia carers … 2 _______, carers in (citation) had an average sleep efficiency of 88%, 3 _______ those in Study 4 had an average of 88%. 4 _______, on the PSQI, 66% of Study 4 carers reported symptoms of sleep disturbance at Time 1. 5 _______ PSQI findings from previous studies with dementia carers (citations) and 6 _______ greater sleep disturbances than among non-carers. 7 _______ between subjective and objective sleep data have also been found in other samples of older carers (citations) and 8 _______ the psychosocial impact of caring on the symptoms of insomnia. THIS IS COMPARABLE TO INDICATES DESPITE THIS WHEREAS FOR EXAMPLE ARE LIKELY TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH RELATIVELY DISCREPANCIES Gibson, 2015, p. 330 - 331 Practice Fill the gaps with words and phrases 1. relatively 2. For example 3. whereas 4. Despite this, 5. This is comparable to 6. indicates 7. Discrepancies 8. are likely to be associated with
- 31. Resources
- 32. Advice, resources, and information about events are available on Stream
- 33. ACADEMIC Q & A (see under Academic Support on Stream)
- 34. VIDEOS tinyurl.com/nctlvideos Also see tinyurl.com/nctlworkshops
- 35. Library services: tinyurl.com/masseylibraryservices Attend a library workshop: tinyurl.com/masseylibraryworkshops Contact a subject librarian: tinyurl.com/masseylibrarian APA referencing guide: tinyurl.com/masseyapainteractive Endnote guide & download: tinyurl.com/masseyendnote Health & Counselling: tinyurl.com/masseywellness Counselling self-help resources: tinyurl.com/masseycounsellingselfhelp OTHER USEFUL MASSEY LINKS
- 36. Academic English phrasebank: phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk The thesis whisperer: thesiswhisperer.com Doctoral writing SIG: doctoralwriting.wordpress.com White, B. (2011). Mapping your thesis: The comprehensive manual of theory and techniques for masters and doctoral students. Camberwell, Australia: ACER Dunleavy, P. (2003). Authoring a PhD. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave MacMillan. OTHER USEFUL NON-MASSEY SOURCES
- 37. THANKS FOR COMING ALONG! See these slides online at: tinyurl.com/quantchapters2018 Next workshop here: Weds October 10th 12 pm – 1.30 pm