Research Proposal PART 1: RESEARCH TOPIC

Research Proposal PART 1: RESEARCH TOPIC: PROBLEM STATEMENT, PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTION(S), LITERATURE REVIEW & LITERATURE MAP

Due at the end of week 6 (Sunday at midnight)

You need to conduct some research (Qualitative/Quantitative or Mixed Methods in nature) related to your own interests or to serve the interests of some organization (employer/client/sponsor). Before you start writing a formal proposal, you (or your employer/client/sponsor) would like to gather some information about the problem as well as understand its importance.

Choose your research topic thoughtfully, as this assignment will be part of your term paper.

HERE ARE THE KEY PARTS OF THIS TERM PAPER (PART 1):

Title of your research

Make it intriguing –

Introduction/Background

Provide a brief description of what the proposed research topic is about and how you came to be interested in it, following the elements of a Proposal document.

Statement of the Problem

Detail the problem that you are considering. Write a Statement of the Problem following the elements of a Proposal document. Make sure you address the following questions as well:

●Why is this topic important?

• Why does this research need to be conducted?

Purpose of the Study

Detail the purpose for your study. Write a purpose section following elements of a Proposal document. Make sure you address the following questions as well:

●How are you defining and delimiting the specific area of the research?

●What it is that you hope to learn by conducting this research?

●How might your research contribute to our understanding of the issue, or be useful?

• Discuss the anticipated outcomes and benefits to the researcher, the organization, or society.
• What is the scope of your research? Is the Scope reasonable?

Research Question

Provide focused research questions which will be the subject of your final Research Proposal. Draft the questions following section 4 of The elements of a Proposal document. Also provide a back-up question in case the first one does not pan out.

Hypothesis

If you decide to do Quantitative research you will have to provide Hypothesis which includes:

• The original claim that your research is making i.e., Null hypothesis.
• Alternative claim i.e., Alternative hypothesis
• Test and verify the phenomenon that you are studying.

MIND MAPING

• Students are required to provide a spray diagram (mind map) in the appendix of part 1 submission
• The mind map has to illustrate how the student worked with the topic and designed the main and sub-questions for their research
• Mind map also has to elaborate the research interest of the students in particular dimension of their research topic

Literature Review

The purpose of literature review is to develop skills in finding valid literary resources for your research proposal. You will develop an annotated bibliography by doing searches of the literature on your chosen topic of interest. You will also design a literature map of the sources you have found for your Research Proposal.

This part of your research proposal should be written in paragraphs, report format. All citations and references for this course are to be done in the APA style.

Please note: Cite with in text citations all ideas, concepts, text, and data that are not your own. If you make a statement, back it up with a reference!

1. Research a minimum of 15 relevant literature sources (focus on material available in digital format only for this course). Carefully choose your 15 “keepers” that are clearly related to your study. (Note: you might need to find 30 to “keep” only 15).
2. Write a literature review section that summarizes what you found and evaluate the literature. State how the reviewed research results connected to your proposed study.
3. Critique and analyze the similarities and differences among the articles (e.g. different or the same point of views? different or the same research methods? why? etc.). Identify the gaps in the literature and provide recommendations for what needs to be done to move forward in your research. You will be using the information in this section in the final research proposal as well.
4. Design a literature map of the sources you have found for your Research Proposal. This map should help you organize your source materials in a way that will facilitate the organization and writing of your Literature Review.

Note: For the final research proposal, you need to review more than 15 literature sources. Aim for at least 30.

Note: Part 1 should be about 7-9 pages Maximum in length – excluding title page, literature mapping table, list of references and appendix. 5% deduction would be applied in case of excessive length. Late submission would result in 10% marks being deducted.