THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

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THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

• BY
• JUSTICE G. DJOKOTO

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THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

• THE OUTLINE
• WHAT TO DO

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OUTLINE

• COVER PAGE
• BACKGROUND
• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• OBJECTIVES
• METHODOLOGY
• JUSTIFICATION/RELEVANCE
• ORGANIZATION OF STUDY

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COVER PAGE

• The Institution
• The Title
• Author
• Object
• Date

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The Title

• Also known as the topic
• This should include
• Concepts
• Linkages of the concepts
• Objects

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Steps to Choose a Topic

• Identify a problem
• Read further on the problem
• Clearly define the problem
• Write out the problem statement
• Outline your objectives
• From here you can now decide on the topic

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• Availability of literature
• Look out for about 20 literature
• Largely journal articles and research works of
  students
• Other research reports
• Books
• Newsletter

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• Availability of data
• Access to the data
• Cost of the data
• Timeliness of access
• Personal interest of the student
• Your personal interest will be a motivation
• Project work can be frustrating hence the need
  for personal interest
• Project will be funded by you

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Assessing the Topic

• Criteria
• In discipline you are pursuing
• Also, may be related to your discipline
• Or you want to apply theory from some area to
  your discipline

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BACKGROUND

• This explains the concepts
• University education
• Employee productivity
• Linkage
• Object of the research/setting
• Banking industry

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• This is the origin of the research
• This needs to be clearly defined
• The structure involves two things
• Preamble
• Questions
• You need to paint a picture
• Then the questions will be natural consequence

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• The preamble provides grounds to raise the
  questions
• Example
• Competition in banking industry
• The role of employees in organisation
• Concerns about employee productivity
• Ways to increase productivity e.g. education,
  traning

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• Questions
• These are the issues that agitate your mind for
  which you want to find solutions to
• State the issue in question form
• Major question
• The main issue in question form
• Specific questions
• Other issues within the main issue that are
  components of the main issue
• State these in question form

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

• Example
• Main/major question
• What is the relationship between between
  university education and employee productivity in
  the banking industry in Ghana?
• Specific questions
• What is the trend of productivity in the banking
  industry
• What is the trend of university graduates
  employment in the banking industry

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OBJECTIVES

• This what you have set to achieve
• The problem well stated helps to build your
  objectives
• These should be positive statement of the
  questions
• Major objective
• Specific objectives

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OBJECTIVES

• Example
• Major objective
• To analyse the relationship between university
  education and employee productivity
• Specific objective
• Determine the trend of employee productivity in
  the banking industry
• Determine the trend of graduate employment in the
  baking industry

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OBJECTIVES

• An alternative
• Determine the trend of employee productivity in
  the banking industry
• Determine the trend of graduate employment in the
  baking industry
• Assess the linkage between university education
  and employee productivity in the banking industry

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METHODOLOGY

• This describes the steps to be traced in
  achieving the objectives
• This has been covered already hopefully.

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RELEVANCE

• This section outlines the importance of the study
• Guide
• Importance of the concepts
• Importance of the linkage
• Importance of study to
• private sector
• Public sector
• Researchers
• Policy makers

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RELEVANCE

• If you need funding for the study by a donor this
  is where you need to provide reasons why you
  should be funded.
• For student research it is also important to
  provide cogent reasons

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ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

• How the chapters will be organised
• You need not tabulate them
• Dont provide the details of the subsections.
• in the proposal you can capture chapter one
• But in paper dont include chapter one

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Example

• The study will be presented in five chapters.
  Chapter two will present review of relevant
  literature. The methodology to achieve the
  objectives is outlined in chapter three. Chapter
  four presents the results and the accompanying
  discussions. The conclusions and recommendations
  are distilled in chapter five.

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ACTION PLAN

• This details
• Activities
• Dates to be completed
• Forms bass of budget if need.

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After the Proposal

• Cut-off the methodology section
• What is left constitutes chapter one-INTRODUCTION
• The methodology section becomes chapter
  three-METHODOLOGY