Context and Setting

Question:
So , chapter two, start with the theoretical foundation, for example self directed learning, what is the theory, how it came about and what research has been done using this theory? ok...so, the CONTEXT of the study (cancer, survivorship issues, spirituality, culture, blah-blah) , all these are not theoretical foundation of the study, but the context..and setting...where do you write this in your dissertation?

Azamri's response:

"understanding context is essential to holistic perspective" (Patton, 2002, p. 262). In the very early part of Chapter 1, you should introduce your context. In fact, some PhD students, including myself prefer "The Problem And Its Context" as the title for this chapter, instead of the much used "Introduction". Another important reminder is that, your thesis will be examined most probably by those from overseas, so make sure you intro your setting much to the need of overseas audience. For example, they do not know what SPM is, so you have to introduce what's it all about and its equivalence in UK or US system. Also in reporting your findings, you also need to elaborate on concepts that examiners are not familiar with. In my case, the concepts such as 'ulam pegaga', 'umrah', 'air zam zam', 'redha', etc are among things that i elaborated. Regarding setting, Holliday (2002) alerts us the importance of two important features: boundedness and richness of data, "THe research setting provides richness and boundaries. It provides an environment within which to interconnect data" (p. 45).

azamri