Writing Chapter I

How to Write the Rationale

Rationale
- a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of
action or a particular belief
• Give the reader adequate background of the
problem under investigation.
• Clear idea about the existence, seriousness and
prevalence of the problem, the difficulties it
causes and the reasons why it is worth
investigating.
Writing A Rationale
• The researcher should substantiate his
contentions with supporting quotations and
statistics and arrange them in logical order.
• The tone of the presentation or arguments
should be assertive and persuasive.
• Should focus on the Significance/Importance
of the Study
Writing A Rationale
• The rationale should contain your thesis
statement or the topic of your research as well
as the purpose of your study. You may include
here the reason why you chose that particular
topic or simply the significance of your research
paper's topic.
• You may also state what type of approach it is
that you'll be using in your paper for the entire
discussion of your topic. Generally, your
Introduction should orient your readers to the
major points the rest of the paper will be
covering, and how.
Writing A Rationale
• The rationale sets the tone of the paper by
providing relevant background information and
clearly identifying the problem you plan to
address.
• Think of your Introduction as the beginning of a
funnel: Start wide to put your research into a
broad context that someone outside of the field
would understand, and then narrow the scope
until you reach the specific question that you are
trying to answer.
• Clearly state the wider implications of your work
for the field of study, or, if relevant, any societal
impacts it may have, and provide enough
background information that the reader can
understand your topic.
• Perform a thorough sweep of the literature;
however, do not parrot everything you find.
Background information should only include
material that is directly relevant to your research
and fits into your story; it does not need to
contain an entire history of the field of interest.
• Remember to include in‐text citations in the format of
(Author, year published) for each paper that you cite and
avoid using the author's name as the subject of the
sentence.
• Upon narrowing the background information presented
to arrive at the specific focus of your research, clearly
state the problem that your paper addresses.
• The problem is also known as the knowledge gap, or a
specific area of the literature that contains an unknown
question or problem. The knowledge gap tends to be a
small piece of a much larger field of study. Explicitly state
how your work will contribute to filling that knowledge
gap.
Tips in Writing Rationale
• Research paper introduction is essential part of
your writing and it must be created according to
certain rules. It is true that when you write any
kind of text you can push yourself too hard and
cross borders of norms. Because academic styles
of writing are referred to creative writing as well.
You look for information, then analyze it, come
up with thoughts, ideas, and reflect it in a
coherent text. 
Tips Writing a Rationale
• Size matters. Before a tutor starts reading the article, he
reviews it visually. If the size of introduction is too large, it will
make a bad impression on your paper. Just remember, all you
have to present in the introduction is: definition of the topic
idea and its urgency, explanation of the aim of the research,
facts to hook the reader and thesis statement.
• Be logical. Your introduction will be really strong if it contains
key ideas only in few sentences. To reach such result it is
important to satisfy logical connection of the thoughts. Your
goal is to make reader understand in the end of the
introduction what exactly you attempted to achieve in
research paper and why this problem worth profound
research.
Tips Writing a Rationale
• Make it the last part. Many successful students firstly work on
the whole outline, write the body of the paper and only then
form the introduction. That’s because a person becomes more
sure in what direction his research goes only after at least
shallow search and analysis of sources.
• Review previous studies of your topic. Every person can study
the same topic in a different way. Before you start your own
research, you must become aware of the discoveries other
scholars made on this issue. Any result will be a reliable
background for the future work. Note that it is better to
indicate recent developments in the primary research rather
than a lengthy report.
Significance of the Study
Significance of your study
• Why is your study important?
• To whom it is important
• What benefits will occur if your
study is done?
Significance of the Study

• Where the researcher discusses the value of

his study in as persuasive as possible in
order to get the approval of the screening
and approving committee and the financial
support of the perspective funding
institution.
• The researcher should state all the possible
significant contributions of his study.
Significance of the Study
• The following are the list of areas to where the
contributions may be made:
1.Contribution to accumulation of knowledge, or to
filling up a knowledge gap; contribution to
building, validating or refining prevailing theories
2.Contribution to meeting a pressing need of a
specific group like solving problems or improving
certain conditions
3.Contribution to refining concepts, improving
research instrumentation and methodologies
4.Contribution to meeting the concerns or priorities
of funding institutions.
Significance of the Study

• The significance of the study can be presented

on the basis of the targeted beneficiaries or
users of the result of the study.
• Recommendation: enumerate in the opening
paragraph the persons and institutions which are
target beneficiaries.
• In the succeeding discussions identify each
beneficiary and correspondingly explain in as
detailed as possible how each will be benefited
by the result of the study.
Formulating the
Objectives
Objectives of the Study
• Objective - effect that is desired or expected to
be achieved by an activity, project or program
(Blumefeld, 1985)
• Research Objectives - statements of purpose for
which the investigation is to be conducted
• Can be one statement, or may require several
statements.
Objectives of the Study
• 3rd stage in the research process
• How is Research objectives differ from Statement
of the Problem
• Traditionally, theses and dissertation used
statement of the problem rather than Objective
or Purpose of the Study.
• Research problem is the initiating reason for the
research and that objectives are the intent or
goals which the researcher will attain through his
study (Background of the Study)
• Research objectives should be stated
clearly so that no interpretation other than
that of the researcher can be inferred
from it.
• To test the clarity of the statement of the
objectives, it is suggested that the
researcher reads to two or more persons
the objectives and ask them about their
understanding to them.
• The statement of research objectives may be
declarative or question form. The choice depends
mainly on the chosen style of the researcher. The
following examples illustrate this:
• Declarative form: To find out the level of
administrative competence of school administrators
in the Province of Iloilo
• Question form: What is the level of administrative
competence of school administrators in the Province
of Iloilo.
Classification of Objectives
• General Objective: broad statement of purpose
- rephrase of the research title

Research Title: Student’s Attitudes Toward their Studies

in Relation to their Academic Achievement

General Objective: the general aim of this study is to

find out the relationship between the attitudes of
students toward their studies and their academic
achievement
Specific Objectives
• Statement of purpose which uses
well-defined and measurable
concepts
• Formulation should be based on
logically flow from the general
objective
Sample Objective
Assessment of restaurant facilities in Bulacan as perceived
by Mobility Impaired Customers (Magtoto & Novera, 2014).
• General Objective: This study aims to assess restaurant facilities as
perceived by mobility impaired customers.
• Specific Objectives:
Specifically, this study aims to:
1. describe the profile of the respondents with regards to their
age and gender
2. Identify the facilities offered to mobility impaired customers
3. Determine the satisfaction level of the mobility impaired
customers to the facilities offered by selected restaurants.
Good Research Objective
• Stated in simple language
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Result-oriented
• Time-bound
Scope and Limitation
Scope
• Scope defines the coverage or boundary of the
study in terms of the
1. area or locality
2. population or sample
3. duration or period
4. subjects, issues or concerns which are
explicitly stated in specific objectives of the study
Limitation
• Statements which alert the reader of the
research report to certain conditions which are
beyond the control of the researcher.
• Limiting conditions or constraints have direct
bearing on the result of the study because they
may place restrictions on the conclusions of the
study and their application on situations.
Sample Limitation
• This study covered 200 mothers from rural and urban areas
of Iloilo with living children 2 to 6 months old during the
survey period. A hundred of them came from a rural area
and the remainder from an urban area. The sample size
was predetermined because of the absence of lists of
mothers in both study areas which could have been used
for the computation of the sample size and as sampling
frame for the selection of samples. Only infant feeding
practice used with the youngest living child was studied.
The geographic area purposively identified to have met the
definitions of rural and urban areas were the Municpality of
Leganes (rural) and the district of Jaro in Iloilo City (urban).
The study lasted for six motnths.
Sample Limitation
This study is based on a cross-sectional data for the time period
of 2010/2011 aimed at assessing major constraints of ground water
use for irrigation crop production in six kebeles of Fogera Woreda,
i.e. Nabega, Kideste Hana, Wagetera, Shena, Shaga and Kokit.

The major limitations of the study relates to the unavailability

of secondary data needed to supplement the primary data.
Secondary data on detailed soil type for each kebele, specific type
of training they took on irrigation, yield of previous production
seasons, soil type of the area, amount of water they apply to the
crop and others were needed. In response to this limitation, we
used triangulation data collection method, while we were collecting
the data. Due to resource and time limitations, the study had to
focus on only a few most important questions.
Sample Limitation
The main focus of this project was the design of an
efficient Energy Recovery System of Seawater Reverse
Osmosis Plant.  The system will be using pressure
technology by application of pressure exchanger as an
energy recovery device.  Pressure exchanger transfer
pressure from a high pressure stream to slow pressure
stream in a ceramic motor. The proposed system is
limited only in reducing high power consumption of
the high pressure pump. The project can be used in all
existing Seawater Reverse Osmosis Plant in the
Philippines.  Some calculations, assumptions, and
selections were made as a consideration of a proper
and realistic design.
Definition of Terms
Definition of Terms
• Help readers of a proposal or report in
understanding the research objectives, methods
and findings because the key concepts are
defined not only conceptually but most
importantly, operationally, that is according to
how they were used in the study.
Types and Functions
Conceptual and Operational
• Conceptual definition is the universal meaning that is
attributed to a word or group of words and which is
understood by many people.
- It is abstract and most general in nature.
- the usual source of conceptual definitions is the
dictionary.
• Operational definition is the meaning of the concept or
terms as used in a particular study. It is states in concrete
term in that it allows measurement.

• Note:Usual practice when having both types of definition

is to state first the conceptual followed by the operational.
Examples
• Attitude refers to mental disposition, feeling or
emotion toward a state or fact. In this study, this
term means the student’s feeling and disposition
toward school authorities as indicated by their
responses to attitudinal questions in the
questionnaire.
• Conceptually, “income” refers to a gain or recurrent
benefit usually measured in money that derives
from capital or labor. Operationally, this term refers
to the monthly income of the household derived
from the economic activities of all its members.