Guidelines for Writing a Research Proposal

Guidelines for Writing a Research Proposal

A. Introduction

Writing a research proposal is the first step in conducting and publishing research. It is a written plan for a project that will be submitted to others for evaluation. At any university, anyone conducting research must write a proposal describing his or her plans before the study can be conducted.

Although it is the first step in a research process, writing a research proposal is very important for two reasons. First, a proposal describes the process and procedures that will be used by the researcher. In the proposal, the whole project crystallizes into a concrete form. The researcher’s inspirations and insights are translated into step-by-step plans for discovering new knowledge. By sharing it to colleagues or a committee will provide an opportunity to the researcher obtain feedback before the implementation of the study. This feedback can be used to improve the proposed study. Second, a research proposal is the only means a prospective researcher can use to ask for recognition and funding of a particular project. Since his proposal is the only document through which a researcher demonstrates that he knows what he is seeking and how to successfully complete the planned project, it is the only instrument he can use to get approval for conducting his/her project. In a university context, for instance, students are required to obtain approval of their proposals from a committee of supervising professors. In industries, a proposal is the main (if not the only) document one should submit to funding agencies to obtain grant money to pay for the costs of his research.

B. Anatomy of a Research Proposal

All research proposals use roughly the same format. Whether it is prepared by a student to fulfill the requirements of a research course, a formal thesis or dissertation proposal presented to a committee, or a funding request to a foundation or governmental agency, the general format is much the same. No matter what research to be conducted, be they are a student satisfaction survey, an action research, an experimental study on teaching reading strategies, or an error analysis on students’ paragraph writing, the proposal has the same basic structure and format. The vocal point is that readers of research reports (i.e., examiners, decision maker, etc.) will know exactly where to find the information they are looking for, regardless of the individual proposal.

As it is mentioned above, a research proposal is the plan for a project. Later, when the project is finished the researcher should report it in what is called with research report or research paper. A research paper usually has five chapters with well-established sections in each chapter. The use of such a standardized format will enable readers to easily find specific types of information they look for in the chapters and sections.

In general, all research reports begin with the information provided in its proposal. That is why the proposal is similar to the first three chapters of the research paper; except that it is written in future tense. In the proposal, the researcher might write something like “A set of questionnaire and semi-structured interview will be used to collect the data “, while in the report, it would be changed to “A set of questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used to collect the data.” In other words, with the exception of tense, the proposal is identical with the first three chapters of the research report.

Since a research proposal is identical with the first three chapters of the research report, a researcher should find no significant difficulty to report his study. All he needs to do later is to transform the materials in the proposal, add the “results and discussion” section (in which the results of the completed study are presented and analyzed), and put the conclusion and recommendation at the end. The following parts briefly describe the research proposal, and samples of samples of quantitative and qualitative research proposals could be accessed in other posts of this blog.

C. Outline of chapters and sections

All research proposals should contain the following information:

1. Title

The title should be short and explanatory. A good title gives a clear and concise description of the scope and nature of the research and is stated in a noun phrase not more than 16 words consisting of key words which allow bibliographers to index the study in proper categories. As a general guide, the words forming the title should indicate (1) major variables or theoretical issues to be considered in the study; (2) nature of research (descriptive, correlational, experimental, survey, or action research); and (3) target population.

To create the title page, make sure that all text on the title page is centered vertically and horizontally. The title page has no page number and it is not counted in any page numbering. The university logo (height= 1.5” and width= 2”) is put on top. Look at the following sample.

The sample could be downloaded from here

2. Table of Contents

The table of contents should locate each section and major subdivision of the proposal. In most circumstances the table of contents should remain simple; no division beyond the first subheading is needed. If the body of the proposal contains illustrations, graphs, or tables, they, too, should appear in the list of tables/graphs/illustrations which is incorporated into or follows the table of contents (Click here to see a sample).

3. Chapter I – Introduction

The Introduction section consists of four subsections: (a) background, (b) what the writer want to find out; (c) what main questions the writer wants to answer (research questions); and (d) what specific questions the writer asks to address the main question.

a. Background

In general, this section is written in one to three short introductory paragraphs (a couple of pages at most). The primary goal of these paragraphs is to inform them the readers the general area to be addressed by the study and to create a sense of interest in the topic. To achieve the goal, the writer typically presents his interest in and experience with this topic, the reasons why the research is important, relevant findings of previous researches, and arguments how this research will add to knowledge in this area. In short, these paragraphs set the stage for the paper and put the topic in perspective.

b. Research Question(s) (or Problems Statement)

The term ‘research question’ is used in qualitative or action research, while ‘problem statement’ is used in quantitative research. This section is the focal point of a research proposal, because this is the place where writer identifies and clearly and precisely states the specific problem to be investigated. The question(s) should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely).

To illustrate, the followings are the research questions derived from two studies. The first one belongs to Using BALL to Develop Writing Skills: Students’ Interest and Perception and the other belongs to Improving Students’ Vocabulary by Using Video: an Action Research.

The problem to be addressed in this study is the students’ perception and interest in the use of blogs to develop writing skills. Although the nature of blogs emerge them advantageous to be used to develop writing skills, blogs are a relatively new internet application. Thus, using them in writing classes without exploring the students’ perspectives is fundamentally risky. Thus, knowing what students think and whether they are interested in the use of blog or not is very crucial before implementing them in writing classes.

The problem is formulated as follow:

What do students think of the use of blogs to develop writing skills?
Are students interested in the use of blogs to develop writing skills?

Based on the description in the background section above, through this study the writer wants to know whether the use of videos can improve students’ mastery of English vocabulary. The writer hopes that this study can provide the answers to whether or not videos can improve students’ vocabulary mastery and how far the students’ vocabulary mastery improves after being taught by using video.

The problem is specifically formulated as follows:

1. Can videos improve the students’ vocabulary mastery?

2. How videos improve the students’ vocabulary mastery in teaching and learning process?

c. Objectives

The objectives (or purposes) is a single statement or paragraph that explains what the study intends to accomplish. The objective statement should be directly based on the identified and formulated problem(s) in the previous section, so that readers are be able to realize immediately that the purposes are directly related to those problem(s). The objective statement should be phrased in line with the nature of the problem. This is done by communicating the purpose using ‘action verbs’, such as describe, compare, develop and investigate, which accurately indicate your research objectives.

The followings are the objective statement derived from Using BALL to Develop Writing Skills: Students’ Interest and Perception:

The goal of this study is:

To discover and examine the students’ perception on the use of blogs to develop writing skills.
To investigate whether the students are interested in the use of blogs to develop writing skills.

d. Significance of the study

This section creates a perspective for looking at the problem. It points out how the study relates to the larger issues and uses a persuasive rationale to justify the reason for the study. It makes the objective worth pursuing. The significance of the study points out the benefit(s) to get if the study is done and to whom it is important. In my Using BALL to Develop Writing Skills: Students’ Interest and Perception, for instance, I state the significance of the study as follows:

The researcher wills this study could gives useful information and contributions to the teachers, and other researchers.

To teachers, the results of this study will hopefully provide information about students’ perception and interest in the use of blogs to develop writing skills.
To other researchers, the results of this study can provide a basis for conducting researches on the same area.

e. Scope of the study

All studies have limitations and a finite scope. Limitations are often imposed by time and budget constraints. Therefore, a researcher should precisely list the limitations of his study, and describe the extent to which he believes the limitations degrade the quality of the research. Look at the following exampletaken from the proposal of Using BALL to Develop Writing Skills: Students’ Interest and Perception.

Due to the researcher time and budget constraints, the participants in this study will be limited to students of the English Education Study Program of UKI only. In addition, the data will be collected through a survey and interview at one point in time (cross-sectional study). Therefore, the findings may be valid only to students in the single study program. It cannot be generalized to other students in other institutions.

f. Operational Definitions

The operational definitions section is used to define special terms used in the research. Thus, this section is included in a proposal only if it uses terms that are unique to the field of inquiry or that might not be understood by the general reader. Look at the following example:

“For the purpose of this research, improvement is operationally defined as posttest score minus pretest score”.

The introduction (Chapter I) is essentially a ‘miniversion’ of the much larger review of literature (Chapter II) and can be thought of as highlighting certain segments or pieces of it. That is why some researchers prefer to write the introduction after they have actually completed much of their literature review. This section can certainly be written early in the research process, but the researcher should revisit it after he has completed his literature review to ascertain that both sections are consistent one to another.

4. Chapter II – Literature Review Conceptual Framework and Hypothesis

This section includes:

a) Literature Review

The literature review serves the following functions:

Ensures that the writer is not “reinventing the wheel”.
Gives credits to those who have laid the groundwork for the present research.
Demonstrates the writer’s knowledge of the research problem.
Demonstrates the writer understands of the theoretical and research issues related to the present research question.
Shows the writer’s ability to critically evaluate relevant literature information.
Indicates the writer’s ability to integrate and synthesize the existing literature.
Provides new theoretical insights or develops a new model as the conceptual framework for the present research.
Convinces the reader that the present proposed research will make a significant and substantial contribution to the literature (i.e., resolving an important theoretical issue or filling a major gap in the literature).

b) Conceptual Framework

This section shows the relationship of the background to the problems and shows how the present proposed research could provide solutions to the problems or contribute to the literature.

c) Hypothesis

A research hypothesis is a prediction of the expected outcome of the study. The presence of this section depends of the research method proposed. Only experimental researches, causal-comparative, correlational studies, and some action researches have hypothesis. In those researches, this section states the hypothesis in the form of null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis. The hypothesis section is placed comes directly after the review of literature because hypotheses are based on and consistent with the findings reported in the literature review.

A good hypothesis contains two variables, i.e. the “independent” and the “dependent.” The independent variable is the one the researcher controls, and the dependent variable is the one he observes and/or measures the results. In an experimental study, the hypothesis is written this way: “If ____ [the independent variable is provided] _____, then _____ [the dependent variable] _____ will happen.” For examples:

“If my reading class is taught using SQ3R method [teaching using SQ3R is the independent variable], it will significantly increase the class reading achievement in reading comprehension [reading achievement is the dependent variable] will increase.
“The provision of a great number of interesting books in the classroom will significantly increase students’ vocabulary.

In an correlational study, the hypothesis is written this way: “There is a significant correlation between ____ [the independent variable] and _____ [the dependent variable].” For example:

“There is no significant correlation between the time-length of using the internet with the level of the students’ interest in using blogs to develop writing”.

5. Chapter III – Research Methodology

This section describes the basic plan of the proposed research. It usually begins with a few short introductory paragraphs that restate purpose and research questions. The phraseology should be identical to that used in Chapter I. Keep the wording of your research questions consistent throughout the document.

a) Specific Research Purpose and Research Questions

This section restates the research purpose and research questions previously provided in Chapter I. The objective of this restatement is to help the reader easily relate the research purpose and research questions to the research method.

b) Research Method

This section briefly but concisely describes the research method to be used. Two paragraphs will suffice for this.

c) Population and Sample

This section describes the population accurately and explains what technique is used to determine the sample. Usually, one sentence is sufficient to define the population, but the sampling procedure needs to be described in extensive detail. Describe in minute detail, how you will select the sample. Use specific groups, places, times, etc. Don’t omit any details. This is extremely important because the reader of the paper must decide if the sample will sufficiently represent the population.

d) Data Collection Instrument and Technique

This section describes how the data will be collected, including the specific technique, its procedure and the instruments for collecting data. If, for instance, the data will be collected using tests, describe the feature of the tests and how they will be administered. Do the same to questionnaire, observation and interview if they will also be used.

e) Data Analysis Technique

This section briefly but concisely describes the research data analysis technique to be used i.e. descriptive analysis and the statistical analysis (e.g. t-test)—if one will be used.

f) Validity and reliability (Triangulation)

This section describes the steps you took to assess the instrument’s validity and how its reliability is measured. If the instrument to be used was designed by someone else, then describe the previous validity and reliability. In qualitative research and action research, this section is entitled with triangulation.

g) Research Procedure

This section describes any special procedures that will be followed (getting permission to enter the research site from the authority, presentation of an informed consent form, conducting the research, and writing the report).

References

To get guidelines for referencing and citing, click and read Citing and Referencing in research Papers.

To get an example of this guidelines, see this research proposal sample. Feel free to download it.