NURS9901 begins the PhD-track research sequence in earnest — refining a research interest into a specific, answerable, and genuinely original research question capable of anchoring a full dissertation.
Refining a research question for original contribution
NURS9901 requires students to move from a broad area of research interest toward a specific, well-defined research question capable of making a genuine original contribution to nursing science — grounded in a documented gap in the existing literature, not simply an interesting topic the student wants to explore.
Early dissertation proposal groundwork
The course begins laying groundwork for the formal dissertation proposal — identifying a likely theoretical framework, beginning a preliminary literature review, and starting to consider which research design (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods) is best suited to answering the refined research question. This preliminary work sets up the more detailed proposal development that follows in subsequent doctoral project courses.
Key topics in NURS9901
- Refining a broad research interest into a specific, answerable research question
- Grounding the research question in a documented literature gap
- Preliminary theoretical framework identification
- Beginning the dissertation-level literature review
- Initial consideration of research design fit (quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods)
- Preparing groundwork for the formal dissertation proposal
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Worked example: refining a broad interest into a specific research question
- Broad interest: "I'm interested in nurse burnout"
- Problem: Too broad to anchor a dissertation — burnout has been studied extensively from many angles
- Literature gap identified: Limited research specifically examines burnout among nurses who transitioned to telehealth-only roles during the pandemic era and remained in telehealth long-term
- Refined research question: "How do long-term telehealth-only nurses experience and describe burnout compared to nurses in traditional bedside roles?"
- Why it works: Specific, grounded in a genuine gap, and answerable within a single dissertation's scope
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Frequently asked questions
A dissertation requires a specific, bounded research question that can genuinely be answered within a single study's scope and timeframe — a broad topic like nurse burnout has already been studied from countless angles (causes, interventions, measurement approaches, specific populations), meaning simply studying "burnout" again without a specific, novel angle risks either duplicating well-established findings or attempting a study so broad it can't be executed rigorously within a dissertation's realistic scope. NURS9901 requires students to narrow a broad interest down to a specific research question grounded in an actual, documented gap in the existing literature — a narrower, well-justified question (like examining burnout in a specific, understudied nursing population or context) is both more feasible to execute well and more likely to genuinely add new knowledge, which is the core requirement for a legitimate dissertation contribution.
Beginning to consider whether a research question is best suited to quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods research early in the process — even before the question is fully finalized — helps students recognize when their question and their intended method aren't well matched, which is far easier and cheaper to fix at this early stage than after a full dissertation proposal has been written around a mismatched design. NURS9901 introduces this consideration early because a research question focused on measuring the prevalence or predictors of a phenomenon points toward quantitative methods, while a question focused on understanding lived experience or meaning-making points toward qualitative methods — and a student who develops a beautifully specific research question without considering this fit risks discovering much later, during formal proposal development, that their chosen question and intended methodology don't actually align, requiring a return to this earlier refinement stage.