The following blog is for Master’s or doctoral level students writing research dissertations in the psychological therapies fields. The pointers are only recommendations—different trainers, supervisors, and examiners may see things very differently.
The aim of a discussion section is to discuss what your findings mean, in the context of the wider field.
As with all other parts of your dissertation, make sure that your Discussion is actually discussing the question(s) that you set out to ask.
It’s really important that your Discussion doesn’t just re-state your findings (aside from a brief summary at the start). It’s often tempting to reiterate results (just in case the reader didn’t get them the first time!), but now’s the time to move on from your findings, per se. Structuring your Discussion in a different way from your Results can be a good way of trying to ensure this. So, for instance, if you’ve presented your Results by theme, you might want to structure your Discussion by stakeholder group or by research questions.
Generally, you shouldn’t be presenting raw data in your Discussion: for instance, quotes or statistical analyses. That goes in your Results.
Similarly, try to avoid referencing lots of new literature in your Discussion. If it’s so relevant, it should be there in your Literature Review.
Make sure that your Discussion does, indeed, discuss your findings. It shouldn’t just be the second half of your Literature Review: something which bypasses your own research. Emphasise the unique contribution that your findings make, and focus on what they contribute to knowledge. Be confident and don’t underplay the importance of your own findings.
At the same time, don’t over-state the implications of your findings (particularly with regard to practice). Be realistic about what they mean/indicate, in the context of the limitations of your study, as well as its strengths.
This is your chance to be creative, exploratory, and to investigate specific areas in more detail, but try to ensure that it’s always grounded in the data: what you found or what others have found previously. So not just wild speculation.
What’s unexpected in your results? What’s surprising? What’s counter-intuitive? What’s anomalous? Your Discussion is a great opportunity to bring these out to the fore more fully and explore them in depth.
Typical sections of a discussion section (often in approximately this order)
Brief summary of your findings (but keep it brief—just a concise but comprehensive paragraph or two).
What your findings mean, in the context of the previous literature. So, for instance, how they compare with/contrast/confirm/challenge previous evidence and theory. This is also an opportunity for you to untangle, and to try and explain, complex/ambiguous/unexpected findings in more depth.
This would normally be the bulk of your Discussion. It may be appropriate to structure this section by your research questions, or by the themes in your results. If you do the latter, though, as above, be careful that you’re not just reiterating your findings.
Remember that you don’t need to give equal weight/space to all your findings. If some are much more interesting/important than others, it’s fine to focus your Discussion more on those; though all key findings should be touched on at some point in the Discussion.
Limitations. This should be a good few paragraphs. Try to say how the limitations might have affected the results (e.g., ‘a volunteer sample means that they may have been more positive than is representative’) rather than just what the flaws in the study were, per se.
Be critical of what you did; but from a place of reflective, appreciative awareness, rather than self-flagellation. The point here is not to beat yourself up, but to show that you can learn, intelligently; just as you did something, intelligently.
Implications for clinical practice. Also, if relevant, implications for policy, training, supervision, etc.
Try to keep this really concrete: what would someone do differently, based on what you found. So, for instance, not just, ‘These findings may inform practitioners that….’ But, ‘Based on these findings, practitioners should….’
Specific implications for your specific discipline: e.g., counselling psychology/counselling/psychotherapy.
Suggestions for further research.
Reflexivity: what have you learnt from the study, both in content and in practice.
Conclusion: this can be a brief statement bringing all your thesis together.
Appendices
Following your references, you are likely to want to append various documents to your thesis. These can include:
Participant-facing forms: e.g., information sheets, consent forms, adverts.
Full interview schedule.
Additional quantitative analyses and tables.
A transcript of one interview (but bear in mind confidentiality—this may not be appropriate). This could also show your coding of that interview.
All text coded under one particular theme/subtheme, for the reader to get a sense of how you grouped data together (again, bear in mind confidentiality).
(Image by Muhammad Rafizeldi, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)