Writing a Research Proposal

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Writing a Research Proposal

• By
• Dr. Pearl Wattanakul
• Department of Teaching English to Speakers
• of Other Languages
• Payap University
• Workshop on Research Writing in ESL/EFL at Room
  1203,
• Yonok University

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• What is research?
• Research is the systematic approach to
  obtaining and confirming new and reliable
  knowledge

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The Process of Research

• The process is initiated with question or problem
• The next step is to formulate goals or objectives
  to deal with the problem
• The third step in the process is research design
• The fourth step that is generating research
  results
• Add, the last step is interpret results and draw
  conclusions

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Research Proposal Structure

• Title
• Type of Research
• Research field
• Researcher
• Rationale/Significance or Statement of the
  problem
• Research Question / Hypothesis
• Purposes / Objectives of the Study
• Significance of the Study
• Scope and Limitations
• Definitions of Term

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Research Proposal Structure (cont.)

• Literature Review
• Research Methodology
• a) Research Design and Plan
• b) Population and Samples
• c) Instruments
• d) Data collection/ Procedure
• e) Data Analysis
• Schedule /Time line
• References

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Classification of Research by Purpose

• Basic research It is conducted for the purpose
  of theory development and refinement.
• 2) Applied research It is conducted for the
  purpose of applying, or testing, theory and
  evaluating its usefulness in solving problems.

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• 3) Evaluation research It aims at facilitating
  decision making regarding the relative worth of
  two or more alternative actions.
• Evaluation involves questions such as the
  following
• Is this program worth what it cost?
• Is the new experimental reading curriculum better
  than the former curriculum?

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• 4) Research and Development (RD) It aims at
  developing effective products to meet specific
  needs such as teacher training materials, or
  management system.
• 5) Action research aims at solving problems
  through the application of scientific method.

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Classification of Research by Method

• Historical Research It is conducted to study,
  understanding, and explaining past events in
  order to arrive at conclusion concerning causes,
  effects or trend of past occurrences that may
  help to explain present events and anticipate
  future events.
• Exp Participation of Women in Higher Education
  in 1900-2009

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• 2) Descriptive research It is conducted to test
  hypothesis or answer questions concerning the
  current status of the subject of the study.
• Exp A survey of teachers to determine how and to
  what degree they believe anxiety affects
  achievement.

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• 3) Correlational research It attempts to
  determine whether, and to what degree, a
  relationship exists between two or more
  quantifiable variables. It aims at establishing a
  relationship (or lack of it) or to use
  relationships in making predictions.
• Exp A study to determine the relationship
  between scores on an anxiety scale and scores on
  an achievement measure.

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• 4) Causal-Comparative research It is conducted
  to examine the difference, or effect which is
  determined to occur or not occur. The cause is
  not manipulated it has already occurred. The
  cause-effect relationships are at best tenuous
  and tentative.
• Exp A study to compare the achievement of group
  of students classified as high-anxious and a
  group classified as low-anxious.

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• 5) Experimental research It truly establishes
  cause-effect relationships. The researcher
  manipulates at least one independent variable and
  observes the effect on one or more dependent
  variables.
• Exp A study to compare the achievement of
• two groups- one group taught in an anxiety
  
• producing environment and one group taught
• in an anxiety-reducing environment

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Steps in Conducting Research

• Research Problem
• 1) Selection of a problem
• What is to be researched?
• Why does this research need to be
  conducted?
• a) Identify a general problem area that is
  related to your area of expertise and of
  particular interest of you.
• b) Read different research studies and
  focus your research very specifically.
• b) Narrow down the general problem area to
  a specific, researchable problem.
• c) Get the most meaningful problem derived
  from theory.

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• 2)Characteristics of a good research problem
• a) It is researchable.
• b) It has theoretical or practical
• significance.
• c) It is a well-written statement which
  indicates the variables of interest to the
  researcher and the specific relationship between
  those variables which is to be investigated.

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• 3) Include a title on your proposal
• a) Have the most important words appear
• toward the beginning of your title
• b) Limit the use of ambiguous or
• confusing words.
• c) Breaking your title up into a title and
• subtitle when you have too many
• words.
• d) Include key words that will help you in
  the
• future find your work.

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• Example The purpose of the study is to
  investigate the effect of positive reinforcement
  on the quality of English composition.
• The variables 1) positive reinforcement
• 2) good quality of
  English
• composition
• The purpose is to see if positive
  reinforcement (the cause) influence the quality
  of composition (the effect)

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• Introduction
• a) Statement of the problem should be
  accompanied by a presentation of background of
  the problem (information required for an
  understanding of the problem) including a
  justification for the study ( in term of its
  contribution to theory or practice).

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• Exp The introduction might begin with a problem
  statement.
• The purpose of the study is to compare the
  effectiveness of teacher assistants and parent
  volunteers with respect to the reading
  achievement of Prthom 1 students followed by a
  discussion concerning (1) the role of teacher
  assistants, (2) increased utilization of teacher
  assistants by schools, (3) the expenses involved,
  and (4) the search for alternatives, such as
  parent volunteers. The significance of the
  problem would be that if parent volunteers are
  equally effective, their use can be substituted
  for teacher assistants.

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• Objectives of the research study
• 1. Link to the primary and secondary
• research problem
• 2. Clearly identify, briefly define and
  delimit
• the specific area, central ideas and
  concepts
• of the study.

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• Review of the Literature
• What has been researched on this topic before?
• It involves the systematic identification,
  location, and analysis of documents containing
  information related to the research problem.
• a) Theoretical paradigm
• b) Research constructs
• c) Relationship between the variables
• In proposal , the literature review is brief and
  to the point.

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• Research questions/Hypotheses
• A research question poses a relationship
  between two or more variables but phrases the
  relationship as a question a hypothesis
  represents a declarative statement of the
  relations between two or more variables.
  (Kerlinger,1979 Krathwohl, 1988)

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• Exp
• Research question
• Is there a relationship between students
  self-efficacy and their success in learning L2?
• Hypothesis
• There is no relationship between students
  self-efficacy and their success in learning L2.

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• Research design
• Research Design is a plan for collecting
  utilizing data so that desired information can be
  obtained with sufficient precision or so that an
  hypothesis be tested properly

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Population

• A population refer to all members of any
  well-defined class of people, event, or object
  who, for research purposes, are designated as
  being the focus of an investigation.
• Specify who or what is your population.
• If there are different components of population,
  clearly indicate it.

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Sample

• Those individuals or event that are selected
  from the population to serve as the subject are
  known as the sample for a study.

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Sampling Design

• Process of selecting a number of units for a
  study in such a way that the units represent the
  larger group from which they are selected.
• Identify what type of sampling you use, which
  sampling technique you employ in the study,
• why you apply it to your study, and how the
  sample is selected.
• Indicate the size of the sample .

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Sampling and representativeness
Sampling Population
Sample
Target Population
Target Population ? Sampling Population ? Sample
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Types of Sampling

• 1) Probability Sampling
• The sample is a proportion (a certain percent) of
  the population and such sample is selected from
  the population by means of some systematic way in
  which every element of the population has a
  chance of being included in the sample?
• 2) Non- Probability Sampling
• The sample is not a proportion (a certain
  percent) of the population and there is no
  systematic in selecting the sample. The selection
  depends upon the situation.

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Types of Probability Sampling

1. Simple random sampling
2. Systematic sampling
3. Stratified sampling
4. Cluster sampling

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Types of Non-Probability Sampling

• 1) Accidental sampling/ Convenience sampling
• 2) Purposive sampling
• a) Quota sampling
• b) Judgment sampling

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Instruments

• Treatment
• Data collection instrument
• Identify the instruments you propose to use.
• If instruments have previously been used,
  indicate the previous studies to show reliability
  and validity of the instruments.
• Identify how to make the instruments valid and
  reliable for collecting data.

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Data Collection

• Outline the general plan for collecting data.
• Clearly state whether you are going to use
  primary or secondary data.

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Data Analysis

• Specify the procedures you will use and label
  them accurately.
• a) Preanalysis procedure scoring procedures,
  tabulation and coding procedures, nominal scales,
  ordinal scales, interval scales, ratio scales.
• b) Descriptive statistics graphing data,
  mode, median, mean, standard deviation, etc.
• c) Inferential statistics standard error, the
  null hypothesis, test of significance (t-test,
  ANOVA),etc.
• d) content analysis, triangulation

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Time line
J F M A M J J A S O N D
1.Research from different sources x
2. Select a problem x
3. Research Design x
4. Research proposal x
5. Construct instruments x x
6. Improve instrument x
7. Collect data x
8. Analyze data x
9. Write research report x x
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References

• APA Style
• MLA style

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• Thank you
• for
• your attention.