2 Components of the thesis report
All theses include a practical, research-oriented part and a written report. This page describes the structure of the written thesis report. You can find more detailed reporting instructions in the Jamk Reporting Guide. The subpages describe various ways to implement the practical part of the research. Discuss the implementation methods further with your supervisor!
The components of the thesis are structured differently according to the thesis model
- Research and development work refers to systematic activities aimed at increasing new knowledge and using this knowledge to find applications based on researched information.
- Applied research refers to research that uses well-researched knowledge to build a practical application.
- Development work refers to the use of new information that is generated by research and/or practical experience to achieve new products, services, production processes or methods or to improve existing ones.
- Innovation activities refer to all the activities that aim to produce new or improved products or processes, i.e. innovations and new entrepreneurship. Innovations include technical, social and cultural innovations, business innovations, design innovations, product or service innovations or any combinations of the above.
Basic structure and contents of the thesis report
Below is a description of the basic structure of the thesis report and the key contents, adapted from Kananen (2017, 29). Each section presents the core questions related to the chapter, to which the chapter aims to answer. The order of chapters 2, 3 and 4 can also be different.
(Kananen, J. 2017. Kehittämistutkimus interventiotutkimuksen muotona – opas opinnäytetyön ja pro gradun kirjoittajalle. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän ammattikorkeakoulu.)
- The problem of the development work or research problem, research questions, or the objectives of the work. Find answers to the question: Why?
- In the introduction, address the thesis topic at a general level. Explain the background and necessity of your development work.
- You start working at the planning stage.
- Find answers to the question: What?
- In this chapter, discuss the problem, boundaries, research questions derived from the problem, and/or the goal of the development work.
- You are working on this at the planning stage.
- Find answers to questions: How? Where?
- In this chapter, describe the object of the development work or research, select and justify the research approach or method of development work, and the data collection method used to collect the necessary information and try to solve the problem you have presented. Describe and justify the analysis methods you use to process the data or research data you have collected. At this point, also examine the reliability of the development work or research, such as the data management plan. The object of development work or research is where the work is carried out. In the plan, you describe and justify what you are going to do, and in the report what you did.
- You are working on this at the planning stage.
- Find answers to the question: What is known?
- The knowledge base describes the information and concepts relevant to the problem through literature, previous studies, etc. Use key databases in your field to search for information.
- You start working on this in the planning phase and finish the thesis in the implementation phase.
- Find answers to the question: What was achieved?
- You analyze the data you have collected. You write in the thesis report how you have analysed the material you have collected. In the results, you describe what results you achieved in your work after completing the analysis.
- You are working on this in the implementation phase.
- Find answers to the question: What does it mean?
- In the conclusions, you reflect and interpret the results, i.e. what your results actually mean?
- You are working on this in the implementation phase.
- Search for answers to the question: What next?
- In this section, you will discuss the relationship of your original goals, the results obtained and the knowledge base.
- Present development proposals or possible proposals for further research,
- Evaluate the validity, reliability and ethicality of the work.
- You are working on this in the implementation phase.
Explore previously completed theses at Jamk!
Theseus provide online access to the theses and publications of Finnish universities of applied sciences. You cannot create an identical work, but you can create a thesis on the same topic by changing the perspective, client, research problem, etc.
Documents
Progress of the Bachelor’s Thesis Project in Wihi (PDF)
Progress of the Master’s Thesis Project in Wihi (PDF)