Semester
4, Class 6 (1999-2001)
Course
leaders: A Haroon
Akram-Lodhi
Youdi
Schipper
1.0
Introduction
The
culmination of the MDE teaching programme is the writing of a research thesis
that is designed to push students in the development of their independent
analytical capabilities. The
thesis, which is sometimes also called a dissertation, is an original piece of
academic research on a topic that the student has identified.
In order to complete a thesis, the student must be able to: i) present an argued statement of a researchable problem; ii)
present an argued statement of a methodology that is appropriate to the
investigation of a researchable problem; iii) present a systematic analysis of
the researchable problem utilizing the methodology that has been presented,
and in so doing construct an argument; and iv) present a conclusion that
summarizes the result. All theses
must demonstrate an understanding and application of economic theory to issues
of policy.
Before
being allowed to begin work on their thesis, students must develop a complete
thesis research design (TRD). The
TRD, which is also called a research proposal, briefly summarizes:
i) an argued statement of a researchable problem; and ii) presents an
argued statement of a methodology that is appropriate to the investigation of
a researchable problem. In so
doing, the TRD demonstrates both the importance
and the feasibility of the research.
In order to make such a demonstration, the TRD contains all the choices
that the researcher has made in preparing to undertake a particular piece of
thesis research. It therefore
defines: the scope and limits of
the research; the main concepts that are being used in the research; the
theories that guide the selection of concepts; the research questions and
hypotheses that are being put forward by the researcher in light of the
theories that guide the research; the basis upon which key concepts will be
translated into empirically measurable variables capable of answering the
research questions; the data requirements necessary to assess the empirical
variables; and the analytical instruments and methods that will be used to
explore the data.
The
Thesis Design Seminar is designed to guide and assist the student through the
development of their TRD, and in so doing facilitate the beginning of work on
their thesis.
2.0
Learning objective
This
course will result in the completion of a TRD that has been approved by the
Project Scientific Committee and which will, as a consequence, permit the
student to proceed to work on their thesis.
3.0
Teaching methods
Teaching
will consist of three components:
1.
an informal review by the course leaders of a proposed research
question;
2.
an informal review by the course leaders of the background to a
justification of the research question;
3.
an informal set of seminars directed by individual students that will
discuss and refine a draft TRD into a finished form that can be approved by
the Project Scientific Committee.
4.0
Student workload
This
course carries a weight of 30 MA Calendar hours.
However, the average student seeking to achieve an average performance
should be prepared to devote a minimum of 105 working hours to it.
The breakdown of this minimum student workload is as follows:
TRD
seminar presentation:
1 hour
TRD
seminar discussant presentation:
2 hours
TRD
writing and preparation:
40 hours
TRDseminar
discussant preparation:
2 hours
Reading:
60 hours
Total:
105 hours
5.0
Assessment method
The
course is assessed on the basis of the written TRD.
The written TRD will be submitted to the Project Office before the TRD
seminars. In light of the written
TRD and the TRD seminar, the student will either be passed or will be failed
by the Project Scientific Committee. Students
must pass before they will be allowed to begin work on their thesis.
Students who fail will receive the opportunity to revise and resubmit a
written TRD within one month.
6.0
Teaching programme
6.1 28
November 2000:
A research question
Learning objective:
to formulate a researchable question
Procedure:
1.
In the period leading up to 28 November 2000 students must begin to
develop basic ideas about a possible theis topic.
Write down possible topics.
2.
As your ideas develop, it is necessary to formulate a problem,
from which should emerge key research
questions. Write
down possible research questions that are consistent with the topics.
3.
On 28 November at 14.00 students must submit two copies of a typed one-sentence
question that identifies the problem that they propose to investigate in their
thesis. The question must be
submitted directly to the course leaders, who will immediately review it for
them in their presence. The
course leaders will either:
q
Accept the research question;
q
Require that the student revise and resubmit the research
question.
Submissions
of more than one sentence will not be
accepted.
6.2 11
December 2000:
Developing a justification
Learning objective:
to formulate the background to a justification of the research question
Procedure:
1.
In order to participate in this activity, students must have presented
a research question that has been accepted by the course leaders.
2.
On 11 December at 14.00 students must submit two copies of a single
typed sheet containing:
q
The accepted research question;
q
In three words, the topic
within economics within which the question is located;
q
The key words in the
question that would form the basis of a literature study;
q
5 properly cited readings
that could form the basis of a more detailed literature study
q
In one sentence, why
the question is important for Vietnam.
The
submission must be submitted directly to the course leaders, who will
immediately review it for them in their presence.
The course leaders will either:
q
Accept the submission, and allow the student to begin work on
the TRD;
q
Require that the student revise the submission.
Submissions
that are not in accordance with this format will not be accepted.
6.3
8 January 2001:
Thesis research design seminars
Learning objective:
to critically evaluate research proposals
Procedure:
Students
who have successfully completed teaching programme item 6.1 and 6.2 will be
allowed to proceed to teaching programme item 6.3, in which their individual
TRDs will be presented to Class 6 during the week commencing 8 January 2001.
Four
finished copies of the TRD must be
submitted to the Project Office before the seminar, so that copies can be
distributed to discussants and staff. The
schedule for submission of completed TRDs is as follows:
Date of presentation
Date of submission
8
January
5 January
9
January
5 January
10
January
8 January
11
January
9 January
12
January
10 January
TRDs
must be received by the Project Office no
later than 09.00 on the date of submission.
There will be no exceptions to these dates.
The
schedule of individual TRD seminar presentations is as follows:
Monday, 8 January 2001
08.00 PT Binh
Discussants: VTB Huong,
Phuong
09.00 DT Binh
Discussants: NTT Huong,
Son
10.00 Chinh
Discussants: Khuong, Tai
Lunch
13.30 Dong
Discussants: Ky, Thang
14.30 Duc
Discussants: Lan, Thanh
15.30
Ha
Discussants: Le, Thuy
Tuesday, 9 January 2001
08.00 NQ Hai
Discussants: Linh, Trong
09.00 LN Hai
Discussants: Loan, Trung
10.00 Hong
Discussants: Luu, Tuan
Lunch
13.30 VTB Huong
Discussants: Nguyen, Vy
14.30 NTT Huong
Discussants: PT Binh, Son
15.30 Khuong
Discussants: DT Binh, Tai
Wednesday, 10 January 2001
08.00 Ky
Discussants: Chinh, Thang
09.00 Lan
Discussants: Dong, Thanh
10.00
Le
Discussants: Duc, Thuy
Lunch
13.30 Linh
Discussants: Ha, Trong
14.30 Loan
Discussants: NQ Hai, Trung
15.30
Luu
Discussants: LN Hai, Tuan
Thursday, 11 January 2001
08.00 Nguyen
Discussants: Hong, Vy
09.00 Phuong
Discussants: PT Binh, Le
10.00 Son
Discussants: DT Binh, Lan
Lunch
13.30 Tai
Discussants: Chinh, Ky
14.30 Thang
Discussants: Dong, Khuong
15.30 Thanh
Discussants: Duc, NTT
Huong
Friday, 12 January 2001
08.00 Thuy
Discussants: Ha, VTB Huong
09.00 Trong
Discussants: NQ Hai, Hong
10.00 Trung
Discussants: LN Hai, Linh
Lunch
13.30 Tuan
Discussants: Loan, Phuong
14.30 Vy
Discussants: Luu, Nguyen
In
order to facilitate the thesis design seminars, the timetable is, as indicated
above, allocated into 1 hour ‘slots’.
Each 1 hour slot will have the following arrangments:
1.
20 minutes:
Presentation of TRD by student
2.
5 minutes:
Comments of first discussant
3.
5 minutes:
Comments of second discussant
4.
5 minutes:
Response of presenting student to discussant’s comments
5.
10 minutes:
General questions
6.
10 minutes:
Staff comments
7.
5 minutes:
Break
Students
will not be allowed to exceed their presentation times.
Those that do so will be stopped by the course leaders, and will not be
allowed to continue.
Students
will be informed of the outcome of their Thesis Research Design Seminar before
17 January 2001. Students who
fail to submit an acceptable TRD will
not be permitted to begin work on their thesis.
Rather, they will be asked to revise their TRD and resubmit it
following Tet.
Format of the TRD
During
the Research Methodology for Development Course held during Semester 2,
students were given a document entitled ‘Preparing a research design for a
thesis’. This document contains the format the TRDs must follow. To
reiterate, a TRD must consist of:
1.
A working title
A
working title should be concise,
clearly describing the subject matter of the proposed thesis.
Therefore, avoid obscure and confusing titles.
It
is important to note that the choice of a working title does not commit a
researcher to the use of the title in the final thesis.
As the research process is iterative,
it is to be expected that over the course of the research the subject of the
thesis may change, and as a consequence the working title which is initially
proposed may no longer be appropriate for the completed thesis.
2.
A problem statement
This
section should explain what the
research problem or issue is that is going to be investigated, and why the proposed research is important or interesting.
In order to do so, the problem statement should detail the aims,
rationale and significance of the research, in either the theoretical or the
policy-making field. The problem
statement should also clearly define the conceptual, temporal and geographical
limits to the research that is being
proposed.
3.
A justification of the research
This
section should contain the general theoretical and empirical information
necessary to understand the background to the research problem. In order to provide such information, it is necessary to
include in this section a brief literature
study. The literature study
should demonstrate the researcher’s knowledge of how the problem or issue
has been addressed in the theoretical and empirical literature surrounding the
research topic, and in so doing highlight the gaps
that exist in the literature and thus in existing knowledge. The literature study should therefore concisely discuss important theories, concepts, models and
hypotheses that have guided the analytical approaches of previous research,
while at the same time indicating the limitations of previous research.
By the end of the literature study, the reader should not only be
familiar with the key theoretical ideas underpinning the proposed research;
the reader should also be familiar with the key concepts that will guide the
proposed research, and why the
author believes that these concepts are important.
In
writing a literature study, be selective.
Choose those authors who have made a significant contribution to the
theoretical or empirical literature. Do
not rely on the work of a single author, unless that author offers a clearly
dominant perspective on the research problem.
Do not include extended summaries of the work of other researchers
unless those researchers offer a unique perspective on the existing literature
and on the research problem. Do
not use long, direct quotes but rather carefully and accurately summarize in
your own words important points that have been made by others.
At the same time, be critical. Evaluate
the theories, concepts and evidence that are being presented by assessing the
strengths and weaknesses of each, and explaining to the reader what judgement
you have reached about a particular theory, concept or evidence, and why.
Be
sure to extensively reference the work of others, and in referencing the work
of others do not rely solely on those authors whom you have decided to
summarize, because the work of many authors builds upon the work of others
whom you will choose not to summarize.
4.
Research questions
Having
stated and justified the problem in
general terms, this section should develop the research questions that emerge
and that will be used to guide the research process.
The research questions should be stated as precisely and concisely as
possible. The research questions
should be formulated in such a way that the expected relationships between
concepts, variables, phenomena or events are clear. This will assist in their operationalization.
If the research questions remain very wide-ranging,
break them down into sub-questions that further help define the relationships
that are being investigated in the research.
5.
Research hypotheses
This
section directly follows on from the statement of the research questions.
The series of explicit postulated possible relationships between two or more concepts or
variables that underpin the research questions and which will thus be used to
guide the research should be elaborated by specifying the direction and pattern of
the relationship between them. Hypotheses
should be specific and measurable.
6.
An analytical framework
Having
explicitly postulated possible relationships between concepts or variables in
the previous section, this section should clearly outline the theory,
perspective or model upon which the researcher is basing their postulated
possible relationships, and which thus determine the parameters of the
research process. The researcher
can adopt the analytical framework developed by another researcher, or can
develop a unique and singular approach. In
either instance, the analytical framework offers your
theoretical position by denoting both the key concepts that will be used in
the research and the postulated relationships between the concepts that will
be investigated. In economics,
most analytical frameworks take the form of models.
However, it is not necessary to restrict yourself to a model when
developing your analytical framework. The
analytical framework must also explain how concepts can be translated into
empirically measurable variables, paying particular attention to the ways in
which variables and concepts differ.
The
propositions contained within the analytical framework form the core of the
research design, determining the scope and depth of the research, the specific
relationships between concepts that are being observed and, most importantly,
the specific relationships between empirical variables that will be
investigated in order to answer the research questions.
The analytical framework thus establishes research priorities that are
consistent with both your problem statement and your justification.
As it establishes research priorities, in this section be sure to
define all the terms that will be used to both indicate the important concepts
used in the research and the empirical correlates of those concepts.
Where appropriate, indicate the affinities to and divergences from the
positions of others, as outlined in the literature review contained in section
3.
7.
Research methods
This
section should clearly indicate how
you will obtain and analyze the information that is required to answer your
research questions and test your research hypotheses.
It must therefore indicate:
-
the
kinds of data that will be required;
-
how
theoretical concepts that have been translated into empirically defined
variables can be identified and measured;
-
the
sampling frame;
-
the
methods that will be used to extract information from the sampling frame;
-
the
methods that will be used to analyze the information so that the research
questions can be answered.
Thus,
contained within this section there should not only be an indication of the
specific data collection measures that will be employed but also an indication
of how such data sources allow you to answer your research questions.
8.
Work plan
This
section should contain a precise and reasonable
schedule for the period during which the research will be conducted.
The timetable must conform to the specific objectives of the research,
and ample time should be allowed for each research activity.
9.
Proposed chapter outline
This
should include a provisional working title for each chapter, the sub-sections
that will be included within each chapter if they are known, and the estimated
number of pages in each chapter and in each sub-section.
10.
References
This
should properly cite all works used
in the preparation of the RD. Use
the citation format that has already been distributed during the Research
Methodology for Development course.
The
maximum length of the TRD is 5000 words, including all references.
Students must include a word count on the front cover of the TRD; if
the length exceeds the maximum, it will be returned to the student for
revision.
back
Vietnam
Seminar Series
back
Class
VI (1999-2001)
Coordinators: A Haroon
Akram-Lodhi
Youdi
Schipper
Period:
2 October to 4 October 2000
Objectives
of the Vietnam Seminar Series
In
the Masters in Development Economics (MDE) programme, students are exposed to
a wide variety of economic theories and policies.
However, it is usually the case that the applicability of these
theories and policies to Vietnam is constrained, for two reasons.
The first reason is that Vietnam is an economy in transition from
central planning to the market, and it remains the case that our understanding
of the economics of the process of transition is at best limited.
The second reason is that in many areas our understanding of the
operation of the Vietnamese economy is at best limited.
The economic analysis of Vietnam thus currently faces theoretical and
empirical limits.
The
Vietnam Seminar Series (VSS) is designed to directly confront
and address these limits to our
knowledge. The VSS has five broad
objectives:
1.
to synthesize the insights that have been acquired during the course of
the MDE, in relation to economic theories, strategies and policies;
2.
to review and systematize the major instruments of policy and project
analysis, which have been developed during the various components of the MDE;
3.
to test the competence of students to use theoretical insights and
instruments of policy analysis to investigate what is theoretically and
empirically known about a specific
policy issue in Vietnam;
4.
to evaluate the ability of students to determine what is theoretically
and empirically not known about a
specific policy issue in Vietnam;
5.
to assess the capacity of students to develop an appropriate
methodological framework which would, were it to be adopted, facilitate the
acquisition of increased knowledge concerning that which is theoretically and
empirically not known in relation to a specific policy issue in Vietnam.
The
VSS takes for granted the fact that students have read and written widely on
issues of theory and policy in Vietnam. Using
this knowledge, students have, in the course of their studies, had to provide answers.
Yet, given the two constraints noted above, answers in the Vietnamese
context can be quite difficult to obtain.
In this light, a first task is to learn to ask
the right questions. With
limits to knowledge concerning Vietnam, when investigating policy issues
asking the right questions is usually much more important than providing an a
priori answer. After all, the
right answer is usually a result of the right question.
However, the VSS is designed to get students to not only ask the right
questions, but to think about how they might go about answering the questions
they have asked. The VSS is not
designed to have students answer the questions they ask.
As such, the VSS lays the foundation for the further investigation of
policy issues in Vietnam, investigations that may be taken up in further
research.
Format of the VSS
Students
will divide themselves up into teams of 4 or 5 students.
Members of the team must all be
taking the same specialization option.
The members of the team will then select the specific policy issue they
wish to investigate:
