The Introduction section of the research proposal should provide the reader with an overview of your research. You want to take the time to briefly explain why you selected your topic and why it is important to your field. You will then want to express what your research adds to the field and why it is important. It is helpful for the reader and yourself to use the section to define terms and/or concepts that will be important to your proposal and overall research. The introduction should conclude with your research question(s) or hypothesis(es) and what you aim to learn or achieve by completing this research. Many find it helpful to make the Introduction the last section that they complete. By doing this, you will have a clearer understanding of your overall research strategy and research question.
Your Introduction should do the following:
Explain the problem being investigated and related issues
Explain the purpose of investigating the problem
Provide relevant background or historical information
Explain research trends and relevant theories for the field
Define key terms and theories
Set parameters and aims for the study
State the proposals research question(s) or hypothesis(es)
The Literature Review section of your research proposal is where you present an analysis of the published literature on your research topic. The Literature Review does not need to cover every published paper or book but should survey scholarly literature that is the most important research within your field and on your particular topic. The goal of the literature review is to analyze the available body of literature and to present how it is related, either through theory, method, or concepts. You want to show the reader that your research fits any gaps present within the field, therefore making your research new and valuable to the field.
TIPS
Organize your results.
Utilize literature review trackers
Save all your journal articles to one place
Keep track of databases searched and terms used.
Group Findings.
You want to find similarities and differences in the literature.
Try grouping by methods, concepts, theories, or findings.
Look for controversy.
Is there a debate within your field of study?
Are some researchers using one theory over another?
Find the gaps.
You want to find the gaps in the literature to help show that your research is new and important to the field.
Do not summarize.
You want to ensure that you are analyzing the literature in your review, don't just summarize each study.
The Research Design section of your research proposal is where you will explain your research plan and the process and procedures that will go into carrying out your plan.
You should explain the type of research you will be performing: qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, etc. This determination will impact all other components of your research plan from population to data analysis (Pickard, 2013, 52-53).
This section should answer the following questions:
Is your study qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods?
Why have you made this decision?
Why is this the most appropriate study design?
Examples
Qualitative
Quantitative
The Methodology section is where you describe exactly how you anticipate carrying out your research. This section will include detailed explanations of your research methods, data collection, and data analysis (Pickard, 2013, 53).
You should be answering the following questions:
What research method(s) are you applying to the study?
Why have you made this choice?
How do you intend to structure the method(s) for your investigation?
Population
You will first need to determine who will constitute your research population, i.e. who are you studying? Are you planning on studying a large group of people, or a small group?. This decision will be in part be determined by your research design and methods.
"Your research population is the entire set of individuals about which inference will be made." (Pickard, 2013, 60).
Sample
Sampling methods are used when you cannot include everyone in your research population, and therefore there is a need to create a pre-defined 'sample' of your population. Within this section, you will need to explain how you plan on obtaining your sample and why this sampling method is the most appropriate and generalizable.
"Sampling is the process of selecting a few from many in order to carry out empirical research." (Pickard, 2013, 59).
Types of sampling techniques:
Probability sampling
Simple random sampling
Stratified random sampling
Cluster sampling
Quota sampling
Purposive sampling
A priori criteria sampling
Snowball sampling
Data Collection
Within this section, you will need to explain who you plan to obtain your research data and what type of data you plan on collecting. Will you be performing an experiment with data points, an interview with questions, or will you be utilizing a research instrument? The research design and type of data will determine your data collection procedures. Remember that data collection techniques are tied with data analysis, the type of procedure for data collection must match how your data will be analyzed.
Examples of data collection techniques:
Empirical
Interviews
Research Instruments
Questionnaires
Reliability: measures consistency
Validity: does it measure what it's supposed to measure
Observations
Documents
Focus Groups
Data Analysis
In this section, you will need to explain how you plan to analyze the data you collected. The type of data analysis is based upon the type of data collected and your research design. You will need to determine if your research is quantitative or qualitative, this will impact how you will analyze your data. Quantitative data analysis involves statistical calculations and procedures, while qualitative does not.
Quantitative Analysis
Nominal
Frequency distribution
Chi-square
Ordinal
Frequency distribution
Chi-square
Wilcoxon
Mann-Whitney U test
Rank order correlation
Interval
All parametric statistics
Qualitative Analysis
comprehending
synthesizing
theorizing
re-contextualizing
The Research Ethics section is where you describe how you plan to uphold ethical considerations. All research involving human or animal participants need to abide by ethical standards. The types of ethical considerations and standards you must consider for your research plan will depend on the type of research design, population, sample, and data collected.
You must show you understand and acknowledge the ethical boundaries placed on your research plan.
IRB
The IRB or Institutional Review Board is a type of committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ensure they are ethical.
Federal Regulations involving human subjects MUST be reviewed by an IRB. The IRB must approve or determine the project to be exempt prior to the start of any research activities.
You must submit your research for IRB approval if it meets the following criteria:
You are utilizing human participants
Your data collection is systematic and methodical
The goal of your research is to contribute to the generalizable scientific knowledge base of your discipline
Informed Consent
You will need to obtain informed consent from your study participants. Informed Consent is a document that study participants agree to sign acknowledging that they understand what they are agreeing to, what is being asked of them, the purpose of the research, how their information will be used and/or protected, and are aware of any danger to their body or mind. Informed Consent creates a mutual understanding between researchers and study participants.
Data Ethics
Anonymity: the study participants remain totally anonymous during and after the research activity.
Confidentiality: the identity of the participants will not be revealed when using any data provided by that participant.
References:
Pickard, A.J. (2013). Research Methods in Information (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: ALA Neal-Schuman.
