PB Thesis Format 2023 Main Body
PB Thesis Format 2023 Main Body
PB Thesis Format 2023 Main Body
THE PROBLEM
Introduction
Briefly introduce your research problem in not more than two pages. This usually
starts with the global or general perspectives down to local or particular perspectives.
using your own words and too much citation of references should be avoided.
At the last paragraph of this introduction, clearly and briefly state your specific
research problem.
At the last paragraph of the background, clearly state the rationale or main
reason/s why there is a need for the conduct of your study. This is different from your
This study aimed to (state the general objective of the research) … . Specifically,
this sought answers for the following questions (state the specific research questions):
(The order of the hypotheses should be in the same order as the corresponding research
In this section, you need to include the discussion on the following: what is the
study all about, what are the objectives of the study and what are the variables used; why
is there a need to conduct the study; who were your respondents; when and where was the
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study conducted; how did you conduct the study; and what are the perceived limitations
or weaknesses of the study (the unavoidable cases or circumstances that made the study
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Conceptual Literature
conceptual literature related to your present study in topical approach and in an order
starting with the general topic then the specific topics, particularly the variables used (test
variables) in the same order as in the statement of the problem. Provide at least five
literature reviews for each topic and use more recent literature (i.e., not older than 10
years). Old literature or references may still be allowed for conceptual literature
recent literature is available. Conceptual literature include books, other reliable general
references, government laws and issuances, and articles published in research journals
(provided that in case of articles only concepts and theories should be included in the
review of conceptual literature and the empirical findings or results of study are to be
included in the review of research literature). For conceptual literature review, it is not
General Topic
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to your general topic. Do
not just copy the literature. You need to rephrase or paraphrase the literature you read but
still properly cite the reference using APA Style 6th edition.
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to your first variable.
Variable Two
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to your second variable.
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to your last variable.
Topic Related to the Output of the Study (if applicable/necessary and if cannot be
integrated in the previous topics/variables)
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to the output of your
study.
Present here the review of concepts and theories related to your respondent or
subject of the study. Be reminded as well that this part is not regarding your profile
variables. Discussion of concepts or theories related to any of your profile variables has
to be integrated in any appropriate topic here in the conceptual literature while similar or
related findings regarding your profile variables has to be included in research literature.
If there are two or more general topics with corresponding sets of variables, order
of presentation depends upon the degree of importance (from most important to least
correspond to the order of research questions presented in the Statement of the Problem
(SOP). In most cases, dependent variables have to be presented first (both in the SOP and
paragraph approach (except in few cases where more than one paragraph per study may
be allowed, provided that citation is clearly stated per paragraph). The presentation
should be from the most-related down to the least-related study. Research literature
include theses, dissertations, case studies, feasibility studies, capstone projects and the
like from local and foreign higher education institutions, and research articles published
articles, the methodology and empirical findings or results of study, and not merely the
dissertations and the like) that are older than 10 years. Published articles in refereed
journals older than 10 years are still acceptable depending upon its importance or
significance to the present study but student-researchers are highly encouraged to look for
Each review of related research shall include the following (whenever available in
the research reviewed and useful for the present study): main topic and objectives of the
study with the variables used, research design and data gathering instrument used,
sampling design and respondents of the study, and salient findings or results of the study.
The title of thesis or research article should not be mentioned as is but the topic of the
research reviewed has to be clearly stated. For example, instead of stating: The study of
Students of Batangas State University” …; you may write: Castillo (2014) assessed the
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University … (or any similar sentence not mentioning the title as is).
Theoretical Framework
Present here the theoretical basis/bases of your study; cite the reference/s using
APA Style 6th edition author(surname/s)-year format. Old theories or references (i.e., 10
years or more ago) are allowed for use as theoretical bases. If the theoretical basis has a
figure or diagram concerning the theory or variables you adopted, present this without
modifying or changing and cite the reference of the figure (to be indicated in author-year
format enclosed in parentheses at the end of the figure title). Otherwise, do not present
any figure or do not make your own figure for this section.
This should also contain a brief discussion of each variable (test variable) you will
be using base only on the theory you adopted. (The detailed discussion of the said
variables, including concepts from other theories, should be in Chapter II, specifically,
Conceptual Framework
This section contains your own framework or design for your own study. You
need to present your conceptual paradigm and discuss the contents of such figure/model.
The figure and discussion should contain the variables (profile and test variables) you
included in the statement of the problem and your own assumptions regarding the
Definition of Terms
Introductory statement … .
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First Term. (bold letters, capitalize first letter of major words in the term, with
period after the term) State the conceptual definition, one sentence only, then at the end
of sentence, before the period, indicate the reference (book, journal article and other
reliable source; do not use thesis, dictionary and unreliable web article as reference), in
APA style author-year format (Author, year). State a one-sentence operational definition,
Note: The terms should be arranged alphabetically. Only important terms should be
defined here, usually, but not limited to, the terms included in the title and in the main
research question or statement of the problem.
Chapter III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Discuss here the present environment or existing setting or scenario during the
period when the actual study was done, especially the data gathering phase, that may had
affected the conduct of the study or its results. Be reminded that this is different from the
Research Design
State here the research design used and provide a brief discussion regarding such
design. You may include a definition or description of the research design from a reliable
reference, usually a book on research methods (do not use previous thesis as reference for
This section usually consists of only two or three paragraphs. On the last part,
state a justification for the use of such design or why the design is the most appropriate
Mention who are the respondents, describe their characteristics and explain why
they are the suitable respondents for your study. Include the number of respondents and
explain how you arrived at such number or how you determined the sample size.
State the sampling design used and discuss how this was actually utilized or
conducted (there is no need to define and explain the sampling design as found in books).
If all members of the population are your respondents (or target respondents), clearly
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state and explain why it was necessary to conduct a census on the whole population
instead of sampling.
State the data gathering instrument used. If the data gathering instrument is a
survey questionnaire made or constructed by you as researcher, you need to present here
the following: how the questionnaire was constructed, the content of the questionnaire,
who validated it and how it was validated, the conduct of dry run – when, where and who
were the respondents for the dry run, the reliability analysis and its result, how it should
be administered including the ethical considerations on its administration, and the scoring
The scoring and interpretation used for the questionnaire is presented in Table 1.
“the questionnaire cannot construct itself”! Instead, you may use “researcher-made
If the questionnaire to be used is standardized, explain how you had acquired the
questionnaire including whether it is in the public domain or you have the permission to
use the questionnaire from the copyright owner (author, publisher or both). You also need
to discuss the content of the questionnaire, its reliability, how to administer the
questionnaire, and the scoring and interpretation used by the author of the questionnaire.
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Discuss here the actual data gathering procedure, for example, how you had
distributed, administered and retrieved your data gathering instrument (if using a survey
questionnaire). You may start the discussion here with asking permission from concerned
authorities regarding the actual conduct of data gathering through letters or personal visits
to concerned offices. Include details such as period (days or months) covered in the data
gathering, where and how this was conducted, who were involved, time spent by a
Do not include here your library works; this is not the data gathering that is
mentioned here. The data that need to be discussed how these were gathered are those
data that were subjected for statistical analysis. Do not also repeat the contents of Data
Gathering Instrument.
This section contains the statistical tools used corresponding to the research
questions in the statement of the problem. There is no need to define or explain the
statistical tools. There is also no need to state the formula, especially if using statistical
software. Just state the statistical tool and its particular use in your present study.
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed in the statistical
analysis of data. The following statistical tools were used in the study: (Sample only: See
Frequency and Percentage. This was used to determine the profile … in terms
of … .
relationship between … .
A Very Important Note: Different research designs may require contents of Chapter III
Ethical Considerations
One paragraph
Note:
Note: The subtitles here should correspond to your statement of the problem
(SOP) but should be short and not exactly the same as in the SOP. A brief introductory
For each table of data, the following should be the order of presentation or
organization: (1) introduce the table and its content, (2) present the table, (3) analyze or
discuss the main contents of the table and give your own interpretation, and (4) explain
findings in the light of relevant theories and concepts and relate with findings of previous
As seen in Table 2, … (present the major contents of the table, analyze and
interpret in your own words, and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in
relation to your findings). Literature that may be mentioned here should have been
Category 3
and so on …
Total 100
It can be deduced from Table 3 that … (present the major contents of the table,
analyze and interpret in your own words, and discuss relevant conceptual or research
2. Subtitle Two (e.g. Assessment on … short title from Statement of the Problem No. 2,
single space if subtitle will consume two lines)
As shown in Table 4, … (present the major contents of the table, analyze and
interpret in your own words, and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in
support, usually starts with the composite mean, and then some items or statements with
As shown in Table 5, … (present the major contents of the table, analyze and
interpret in your own words, and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in
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It was clearly shown in Table 6 that there is significant difference on ___ in terms
of ____ when grouped according to ___ as indicated by p-value of ___, which is less than
.05 level of significance. State also which group/category has higher assessment/mean
than the other. (Then, analyze and interpret in your own words and discuss relevant
conceptual or research literature in relation to your findings. You have to do this for each
However, with a p-value of ___ which is greater than .05, there is no significant
difference on ___ in terms of ___ when grouped according to ___. (Then, analyze and
interpret in your own words and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in
Note that p-values should be written without “0” before the decimal, e.g. .007
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instead of 0.007. Do not also write p-value as .000, instead write it as <.001.
If you have used Mann-Whitney U-test instead of Independent Samples t-test, the
when grouped according to ____ as indicated by p-value of ___, which is less than .05
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level of significance. You also need to state which groups have higher assessments than
other groups. (Then, analyze and interpret in your own words and discuss relevant
conceptual or research literature in relation to your findings. You have to do this for each
However, with a p-value of ___ which is greater than .05, there is no significant
difference on ___ in terms of ___ when grouped according to ___. (Then, analyze and
interpret in your own words and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in
relation to your findings. You may combine the discussion for all variables with no
significant difference).
Further Notes:
“Cut” table (i.e. a single table in two pages) should be avoided. You may cut
discussions but not the table, except when the table does not fit in one page, and in such
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a case, Table Number with the word “Continued” enclosed in parenthesis and column
If the contents of the table are not results of your study and from another source,
If you use abbreviation in the table, indicate the meaning of such abbreviation
If testing significant differences is not applicable to your study and instead there
is just a need to compare the mean responses of different groups of respondents, then
your own words and discuss relevant conceptual or research literature in relation to your
findings).
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If the study also involves test of relationship or correlation test, the following is a
sample presentation:
indicated, aside from the relationship between the two variables, then the table may be
presented as:
which is less than .05 level of significance (or greater than .05 level of significance – if
____ shows that the relationship is positive (or negative), which means that …. (Then,
analyze and interpret in your own words and discuss relevant conceptual or research
and variable 2, with significant relationships first before those with no significant
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relationships. (Then, analyze and interpret in your own words and discuss relevant
conceptual or research literature in relation to your findings. You have to do this for each
sub-variable).
If Spearman correlation was used instead of Pearson correlation, the sample table
is as follows:
Similar tables may be constructed if test of relationships involves more than two
Variable 1
Variable 2
If the study also needs to test the effect, impact, influence and the like, the
Table 17 shows the results of bivariate regression analysis on the effect of ____
on ____.
Or if you have more than one independent variable or you want to consider the
Table 18 shows the results of multiple regression analysis on the effect of ____ on
____.
Present the results by giving the statistical interpretation of the values. Then
analyze and interpret in your own words and discuss relevant conceptual or research
Table 19 (Continued)
Summary
This section usually consists of two paragraphs in not more than two pages. In the
first paragraph, briefly restate the general and specific objectives of the study or the
include the resign design, the data gathering instrument and its validation and reliability
test result, the respondents of the study and sampling design, a brief account on how the
data were gathered including the research environment (if applicable) that may have
affected the data gathering or its results, and the statistical tools used.
1.
2.
3.
findings. Conclusions are inferences and generalizations that should be drawn directly
from the findings and recapitulate the answers to the research questions or objectives.
These should be logical, valid and precise and no indirect conclusion should be made.
Conclusions are also listed by number, each of which usually consists of only one
Specifically, for conclusion on profile: state the characteristics of the majority (if
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more than 50%) or most (if the highest but less than 50%) of the respondents. For
conclusion on mean assessment: state the interpretation of the composite mean of each
different and of similar responses. For conclusion on output: state the importance or
Recommendations
1.
2.
3.
solve or help solve the problems discovered in the study, to enhance or improve a
procedure or system, to continue or sustain a good practice or system, and the like.
However, no recommendation that is not directly related to the study should be made.
impossible.
Recommendations are suggestions and not requirements; thus, words that are
compelling or obliging should not be used. These are also listed by number and each is
stated in only one sentence. A recommendation for further or future related study should
Surname1, F. M., Surname2, F. M., Surname3, F. M., Surname4, F. M., Surname5, F. M.,
Surname6, F. M., & Surname7, F. M. (year). Title of Book in Italic. Place(city
only) of Publication: Name of Publisher.
Surname1, F. M., Surname2, F. M., Surname3, F. M., Surname4, F. M., Surname5, F. M.,
Surname6, F. M., … SurnameLastAuthor, F. M. (year). Title of Book in Italic.
Place(city only) of Publication: Name of Publisher.
Name of Organization as Author. (year). Title of Web Article. Retrieved from URL
Name of Agency. (year). Memorandum Order or Issuance No. ___, Title of Order or
Issuance.
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Title of Article. (year, month day). Name of Newspaper or Magazine. Retrieved from
URL
The references should be alphabetized separately for each section. Authors may not only
be particular persons but may also be organizations.
Please see APA Style 6th edition for detailed instructions on listing the references and
some samples.
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APPENDICES
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BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH
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