Refining the Theoretical Foundation for Research

Running head: DIFFICULTIES TO DEVELOPING THEORETICAL FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH 1

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DIFFICULTIES TO DEVELOPING THEORETICAL FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH

Difficulties to Developing Theoretical Foundation for Research

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Difficulties to Developing Theoretical Foundation for Research

When developing my theoretical foundation for research, it was not easy to understand, select, and integrate a framework to establish the blueprint for my research process. Despite this theoretical foundation being the most crucial aspect of the research process, I did not have a clear understanding of how to come up with theory-driven thinking when conceptualizing the available literature review (Luse et al., 2012). Also, I did not know how to follow the right steps for selecting and integrating various theories to make a structure that can assist in thread theory throughout studying the aspects of my phenomenon of interest. I became scared that some areas of my theoretical foundation may not work together.

Furthermore, I was disturbed by developing a theoretical foundation that cannot guarantee a clear study structure and vision. Developing a theoretical foundation was characterized by a loss for how to attain working with the theoretical framework. I could not tell whether my theoretical foundation missed crucial aspects such as the phenomenon of interest and building blocks of the studied phenomenon. The lack of these critical aspects implied that I did not have a primary idea regarding the concepts I would apply to determine the ideas of my research.

Lastly, I realized that in developing my theoretical foundation for my research, I needed a concept map to help in including "cross-links." Initially, my theoretical foundation did not have a cross-link for seeing how domains of knowledge represented on the concept map relate to each other (Iqbal, 2007). Without all the above-discussed concepts, I struggled with developing my theoretical foundation for my research. At some point, I could not tell my research development course due to the unclarity and unsupported theoretical foundation.

References

Iqbal, J. (2007) Learning from a doctoral research project: Structure and content of a research proposal. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 5(1),11–20.

Luse, A., Mennecke, B., & Townsend, A. (2012). Selecting a research topic: A framework for doctoral students. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 7, 143-152.