Jacqueline,
PhD stands for Doctor of Philosophy which is an advanced (usually consider the terminal degree) degree. Generally speaking universities will require a candidate (student) for the PhD degree to conduct research and write up their research project using a very specific format. This is the dissertation. It will usually have five parts: Introduction - lays out the thesis of the study,
Chapter 1 - reviews the relevant literature surrounding the topic, previous studies and and their findings,
Chapter 2 - explains the methodology that will be used to conduct the research study citing any relevant methodological issues and how they will be addressed,
Chapter 3 - explains the results of the research study. In this chapter normally you will find specific tables and charts showing the results and a narrative explaining the results that were found. The aim would be to find "significant results," in other words, results that prove the thesis/hypothesis or disprove it depending on your original aim. Significance is determined via statistical tests applied to the data. The thesis may end up not being proven or disproven and in this case you would report null results. Null results can sometimes be significant in the overall scheme of things so that is not necessarily a bad result.
Chapter 4 - Disccussion/Conclusions/Limits of the Study/Recommendations for future research. This chapter is where you are able to interpret the results, discuss how your results may or may not apply more broadly to populations that were the subject of the study and discuss what further questions need investigation based on what you found.
This, in general, is what a PhD dissertation involves.
Why do you ask?
Bill
