======= Date Modified 04 Jun 2011 18:30:18 =======
Hi everyone..

I am basically asking a question that has already been asked by the user XJR in this post: http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=3633, but I was wondering if I could get more feedbacks this time. Sorry for asking this again :p

My question is: Would it be acceptable for someone to do a PHD research on the same topic as they did for their MA dissertation?

I came across a thread about the same issue on a different forum and read somewhere among the answers that your PHD research has to be at least 'intrinsically' different from your MA dissertation. For example, you may write on the same topic, but you have to give it a little tweak to make it different from your previous work like asking new questions, using different methods, coming up with different hypotheses etc. Would your prospective university (assuming it is not the same place where you did your MA) accept a PHD proposal that revolves around the same research question and employs the same methods of study, but that of which includes a broader theoretical framework?

Is everyone confused with the question? Coz I think I am :-(

Sorry!!

Hi Awang,

I think you can explore the same subject but the research questions would need to be different. I plan to be doing an extension of my Master's thesis for my doctorate and have already discussed this in a lengthy meeting with my proposed supervisor. However. the topic is clearly an extension of the findings of my Masters thesis. It is in the same area but I am further down the track, having made some findings in my master's that have led me to ask more pointed questions, to expand on the initial problem (broaden it out to a bigger group) and to collect a larger sample of participants and data that includes empirical as well as qualitative.

I would not have been able to design this topic without having completed my Masters and having got to this point. However, the questions really are different ones- questions that could only be set after having explored the initial set of research questions and made some findings from these.
I don't believe I could simply do the same questions and say I wanted to do some more research because it wasn't enough and use a few more theoretical perspectives. However, on the other hand, people do apply to have their Masters topic upgraded to a PhD thesis simply because they discover it is much bigger than they thought. So maybe this would be a way that you could do it. In which case you probably would rescind your Masters-which would turn into the PhD. This is my understanding of how things seem to work in the universities I have either studied at or checked out in Australia.

Does that make sense?

======= Date Modified 05 Jun 2011 19:47:35 =======
Awing,

The short answer in my experience would be yes you can take a masters dissertation topic into your PhD. This is what I have done.

However a PhD is very different, it is not just a bigger more in depth investigation than a masters. The process of applying for a PhD and then the early years work will help shape your questions and like many on this forum I have found that what I am working on now is not what I anticipated when I started 18 months ago.

There are big advantages in taking the masters work forwards, not least a familiarity with the literature.

Good luck with your applications.

Dafydd

My PhD is on the same topic as my master.
Im my master's dissertation I did a -mainly- quantitative study where I found some things that could be further explained.
So, basicaly, my PhD research is a qualitative study expanding my dissertation...