You might have to get the proposal approved by your supervisor before you get started, and it will guide the process of writing your thesis or dissertation. The research design section describes your approach and explains exactly what you will do. The proposal outlines the context, relevance, purpose, and plan of your research.Īs well as outlining the background, problem statement, and research questions, the proposal should also include a literature review that shows how your project will fit into existing work on the topic. >Read more about creating a research design Step 5: Write a research proposalįinally, after completing these steps, you are ready to complete a research proposal. You also need to determine the specific tools, procedures, and materials you’ll use to collect and analyze your data, as well as your criteria for selecting participants or sources. You need to decide whether you will use primary or secondary data and qualitative or quantitative methods. For example, do you want to determine causes and effects, draw generalizable conclusions, or understand the details of a specific context? The decisions you make will partly be based on your priorities. There are often many possible paths you can take to answering your questions. It involves making decisions about the type of data you need, the methods you’ll use to collect and analyze it, and the location and timescale of your research. The research design is a practical framework for answering your research questions. >See research question examples Step 4: Create a research design In some types of research, at this stage you might also have to develop a conceptual framework and testable hypotheses. Questions that can be answered with “yes/no” or with easily available facts are not complex enough for a thesis or dissertation. It should also be complex enough to require in-depth investigation, analysis, and argument. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research problem.Ī strong research question should be specific enough that you can answer it thoroughly using appropriate qualitative or quantitative research methods. These target exactly what you want to find out. Next, based on the problem statement, you need to write one or more research questions. See editing example Step 3: Formulate research questions >Read more about defining a research problem This describes who the problem affects, why research is needed, and how your research project will contribute to solving it. To put the problem in context and set your objectives, you can write a problem statement. The problem might be a practical issue-for example, a process or practice that isn’t working well, an area of concern in an organization’s performance, or a difficulty faced by a specific group of people in society.Īlternatively, you might choose to investigate a theoretical problem-for example, an underexplored phenomenon or relationship, a contradiction between different models or theories, or an unresolved debate among scholars. So you’ve settled on a topic and found a niche-but what exactly will your research investigate, and why does it matter? To give your project focus and purpose, you have to define a research problem. >Read more about narrowing down a research topic Step 2: Identify a problem Before moving onto the next stage, it’s a good idea to discuss the topic with your thesis supervisor. Make sure to consider the practicalities: the requirements of your programme, the amount of time you have to complete the research, and how difficult it will be to access sources and data on the topic. Your aim is to narrow down from a broad area of interest to a specific niche. As you read, take notes and try to identify problems, questions, debates, contradictions and gaps. Conduct an initial literature review to begin gathering relevant sources. Think about the general area or field you’re interested in-maybe you already have specific research interests based on classes you’ve taken, or maybe you had to consider your topic when applying to graduate school and writing a statement of purpose.Įven if you already have a good sense of your topic, you’ll need to read widely to build background knowledge and begin narrowing down your ideas. Your thesis or dissertation topic can start out very broad. First you have to come up with some ideas.
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