5 brilliant dissertation topics in education

In order to write a truly brilliant dissertation in education, it is necessary to seek to combine the following:

• A cutting edge topic – Search for topics that have only been spoken of in the past few years.
• A transcendent topic – Evaluate the trending topics for potential staying power.
• Last but not least, creative insight.

Examples of topics that are both cutting edge and have the potential to continue to be of paramount importance over the long haul are:

1. Assessment

In the early days of education, there was no system of grading. The only thing that mattered was who your teacher was and the reputation of that teacher. In the late nineteenth century, there were many British people seeking to become doctors and in order to distinguish the highly qualified from the less qualified a system of testing and grading began. The use of assessment as a sorting tool began to be used in the education of children and continues to be the primary use of assessment. There is however a revolution underfoot to transition away from assessment as “grading” and into assessment as a tool to inform instruction. This latter type of assessment is known as formative assessment and is currently a wide-open field for research.

 
2. Data Driven Leadership/ What Works in Schools

Following a similar theme, school leadership is in the very early stages of transforming from an almost entirely tradition based practice and into a truly professional practice that constantly assesses what works in order to improve upon best practices and to eliminate practices that do not, even if those dysfunctional practices have been “the way we do things around here” for decades.

 
3. Brain Based Learning

In the past decade alone, there have been countless breakthroughs in technology that allow researchers to get more information about the workings of the human brain than ever before; nevertheless, there is only a small handful of research projects that combine the efforts of educational researchers with medical researchers. The brain is not going to get any less important in education in the future, so you can be certain that if you choose to do research into the functioning of the brain and how education can be modified to augment its effectiveness, you will surely have brilliant topic for your dissertation. 

 
4. Inclusion and Special Education

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences opened the door into thinking about the possibility that there may not be as many children with “learning disabilities” as was once thought. Research stemming from that new thought has discovered that individual children all have moments of brilliance at different times, and all have moments of struggle. As a result, there is a great deal of talk about “inclusion” and differentiation; however, as yet, no one has found a simple method for combining all of these breakthroughs and practices into something truly useful. 

 
5. Multicultural Education

The United States, Great Britain, Australia and Canada are all nations with substantial immigrant populations. Over the past few decades, a belief that the cultural variety brought by the immigrants may be a strength for the culture of the nation they now call home. There is a great deal of opportunity to explore research into ways that multicultural education, using student’s cultural strengths, can strengthen the educational experience of all students.