Throughout this course, students have been focusing on a specific topic, collected articles and dissertations about related studies, composed a research question and subquestions, and designed a plan for collecting and analyzing data for the research study using a particular methodology. The goal of this assignment is to develop a draft of a full qualitative research proposal.
The research proposal should be at least 10-15 pages (but not more than 25 pages), double-spaced, not including your title page, abstract, Appendix, and references page, and should contain the following sections:
- A title page
- Abstract
- Rationale/Problem Statement: Explain your topic. Make a case for why this topic is important to you or your specialization area, etc. State your Research Problem.
- Research Questions: Conclude your discussion of your research topic by identifying specific research question(s) and possibly sub-questions.
- Literature Review: a minimum of 4 pages on 5-7 articles or edited book chapters, plus at least two dissertations: Your literature review should justify your study
- Provide a synthesized literature review on your topic making the case for why this study will add knowledge that will “fill a hole in the literature.”
- Research Methodology: Describe what research methodology you are proposing to answer your research questions and why it is an appropriate method. In addition, include the following as a description of your research plan:
- Participant Selection: If applicable, describe the site of the data collection. Explain who your participants will be and what method you will use to select them. Be as specific as possible as if you were giving directions to someone on how to choose and obtain the participants. Include instructions on how to get informed consent from the participants.
- Data Collection: Discuss how you will collect the data (interviews, observations, documents, etc.). Tell what sort of questions you will ask (for interviews) or what you will look for (for observations) and why that will help you answer your research questions. Include the interview protocol (if applicable) including how to conduct interviews for your study and what questions will be asked in an Appendix.
- Data Analysis: Provide a description of how you plan to code and/or analyze the data.
- Methods of achieving validity: No research project is perfect. But how are you assuring that your study is as valid as possible?
- Potential Ethical Problems: Could your participants be harmed by your research, either in carrying it out or affecting society after it is finished?
- Limitations: No research covers everything. What are the obvious limitations to your study? What will not be “proven” though your study?
- References Page: The references page should be formatted according to APA style.
- Appendix of your data collection protocol.