Research Proposal Project
Due: June 30th , 2024 (11:59 PM)
Your research proposal should be written in paragraph form, not in an outline, as you would any other paper. Your proposal should be about 9-12 pages long.
Please note: page requirements DO NOT include a cover page or your reference list. Use 12-pt Times New Roman and 1-inch margins, double-spaced. Your paper should follow APA Styleguidelines.
● Title Page (does not count towards page count)
● Introduction – Statement of the problem and brief description of it (1-1 ½ pages):
○ Clearly identify the problem/issue you have been working on this semester.
○ What is the purpose and significance of the study? Why is it necessary or important for society? This section is brief and succinct.
○ This section should highlight both/either theoretical and/or practical importance of the proposed research.
○ Be as specific as possible
● Review of the literature (2-3 pages):
○ Summarize the major studies that have already examined your topic, emphasizing any significant contributions and documenting the need for additional research. (At least 5 peer reviewed academic studies)
○ What are their theoretical contributions? What are their methodological strengths and/or weaknesses?
■ A common mistake students make is confusing an annotated bibliography with a literature review. Do not simply list one study after the other and include all of the information from your annotations (reference the material from Week 2addressing how to write a literature review, what it should include, etc). Your job here is to communicate what researchers know about this topic as a whole and to evaluate what we still need to know based on what researchers have chosen to study before and the quality of that research; in essence you are creating a story
○ Does your study draw on any theoretical components/frameworks? Are you using an already established theory (deductive reasoning) or are you incorporating inductive logic to guide your observations?
● Research question and hypotheses (~½ pages):
○ Clearly introduce the research question(s) the current study will address.
■ It should be apparent when reading the RQ what the independent and dependent variables are
○ State the hypothesis or hypotheses that you will test. This should follow directly from your literature review. What gap in knowledge are you seeking to fill? How will this study add to the literature?
● Methods (5-6 pages):
○ Research Design: State the general type of research design you will use and adequately explain the methods.
■ Will this be a longitudinal or cross-sectional design?
● Be specific on the time-frame used for your study
■ What is your unit of analysis?
○ Measurement: Identify the key variables implied in your hypothesis and identify any additional variables that must be measured and included as control variables. Provide more detailed information about each of these measures. Collect this information in three sub-sections: Dependent Variable(s), Independent Variables(s), and Control Variable(s)
■ For each of your dependent, independent, and control variables, state:
● What the variable is and how you have conceptualized it (provide a conceptualdefinition)
● What level of measurement are you using?
● Explain your reasoning for measuring the variable in this way (operational definition)
○ Data and Data Collection
■ What is the data you are using and how will you collect it?
● Population and Sample: answer the following:
○ What is the population of interest you wish to generalize the results of the study, and why? What is your sample population?
○ How will your research subjects/cases (i.e. your sample) be selected? What is the sampling procedure?
○ If using a survey method and are using another research study to gain ideas for how to develop your survey (which is generally a good idea!), make sure to cite it and mention how it helped you to develop them. You may use questions word for word from another study if you wish, if available (you will just need to justify why you have used this study).
○ If using secondary/existing data, specifically explain how you are using this information to inform your variables
○ Limitations
■ Based on what you have developed in your design, what are the limitations you have identified that may impact the validity and generalizability of your results? NO design is infallible and perfect – there are always limitations on what can be done, especially with social science research. It is our responsibility to acknowledge that within the research and figure out the ways to best navigate these issues.
○ Ethical issues: discuss how you will handle the following ethical considerations:
■ Potential discomfort among participants
■ Confidentiality
● If your research does not involve the use of participants, this is fine, you will just need a brief statement making that explicit so that anyone reading your research is aware of that.
● Discussion/Conclusion (~1 page)
○ Use this space to discuss the overall implications of your research to the population of interest or the wider community. How does this contribute to the field? How does your research provide some additional understanding of the issue?
○ Provide a clear conclusion to the paper
*****I URGE you to PLEASE refrain from using the words “in conclusion” in this, and really any, paper*****
