Cover -- Dissertation Research and Writing for Construction Students -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Rationale for conducting a dissertation -- The meaning of research -- Purpose of the book -- The plan of the book -- Part One: Preparing the Ground and Reviewing the Literature -- Chapter 2 Selecting a topic and writing the dissertation proposal -- Choosing the topic -- The dissertation proposal -- Summary -- References and additional reading -- Chapter 3 Reviewing the literature -- Rationale for undertaking a literature review -- Knowing the sources of information -- Understanding how the library works -- Note-taking -- Organising the literature review -- Critical appraisal of literature review -- Summary -- References and additional reading -- Part Two: Research Design and Methodology -- Chapter 4 Approaches to data collection -- Research strategy -- Approaches to data collection -- Secondary data collection -- Summary -- References -- Chapter 5 Techniques for data collection -- Postal questionnaire -- Personal interview -- Sampling -- Summary -- References and additional reading -- Chapter 6 Questionnaire construction -- How to construct a questionnaire -- Types of questions -- A pilot study -- Covering letter -- Summary -- References -- Part Three: Analysis and Presentation of the Results -- Chapter 7 Measurements and probability -- Level of measurement -- Probability statement -- Summary -- Additional reading -- Chapter 8 Analysis of the results -- Exploratory data analysis (open-ended questions) -- Coding open-ended questions -- Recording the information -- The descriptive statistics method -- The inferential statistics method (also known as bivariate statistical analysis) -- Summary -- References and additional reading -- Chapter 9 Structuring and writing the dissertation -- Typical dissertation structure -- Writing the abstract -- Writing the introduction chapter -- Writing the literature chapters -- Writing the chapter on questionnaire design and methodology -- Writing the chapter on analysis of the results -- Writing the conclusion chapter -- Writing the references/bibliography -- Summary -- References and additional reading -- Chapter 10 Dissertation supervision and assessment -- Getting started -- The role of the supervisor -- What is not the role of the supervisor? -- Planning your dissertation -- Dissertation supervision log -- Dissertation assessment: Qualities in assessing at MSc level -- Summary -- Reference -- Appendix 1 Examples of dissertation proposals -- Appendix 2 Construction management and economics list of journals -- Appendix 3 London South Bank University: Example of a questionnaire -- Appendix 4 Statistical tables -- Appendix 5 Construction industry employee injury statistics -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Last Page