Research Proposal Operational Plan for obtaining answers to research questions

1. Research ProposalOperational Plan for obtaining answers to research questions June 19, 2013

2. Proposal: An overall Plan • Design to obtain answer to the research questions or problems • Outline the various tasks you plan to undertake to fulfill your research objectives

3. Function • To detail the operational plan for obtaining answers to your research questions. In doing so it ensures and reassures the reader of the validity of the methodology for obtaining answers to your research questions accurately and objectively

4. A research proposal must tell: • What you are proposing to do • How you plan to find answers to what you are proposing • Why you selected the proposed strategies of investigation

5. Contents • Introduction – including a brief literature review • Broader perspective • The problem • Issues relating to central theme • Gaps in the existing body of knowledge/unanswered questions • Main questions that are being answered through proposed study • Identify what knowledge is available/difference of opinion • Rational that how your study will fill the identified gaps • Objectives/research questions of your study • Statement of main and sub-objectives

6. Contents • Hypothesis to be tested (if applicable) • What you are going to test • Use correct wordings • Proposed study design • Study design used to answer your research questions • Case study/descriptive/cross-sectional/etc. • Identify the strength and weaknesses of study design • Details about logistical procedures • Details about population/sample/data collection methods/etc. • Setting for your study • Brief description of organization, agency or community where study will be conducted (services, administrative structure, community size and social profile, issues relevant to your study, etc.) • Salient features of study population

7. Contents • Measurement Procedures • Details regarding operationalizing of major variables • Discussion of instrument (including justification, strengths and weaknesses) • Outline major segments of research tool and their relevance to main study objectives • Evidence of reliability and validity • Attach a copy of research instrument • Sampling • Size of sampling population (if known with source) • Sample size with justification • Explanation of sample design (simple random sampling/stratified random sampling/others) • Ethical issues • Identify relevant ethical issues • propose ways to deal with them

8. Contents • Analysis of Data • Data processing procedures • Specify proposed strategy for data analysis • Structure of the report • Proposed chapters of the study (in light of your objectives) • Problem and limitations • Problems – refer to difficulties relating to logistical details • Limitations – designate structural problems relating to methodological aspects of the study • Anticipated problems (availability of data, securing permission from the agency to carry out study, obtaining sample, others) • Due to limited resources– sometimes you do less than an ideal job – but – be aware and communicate – any limitations that could affect the validity of your conclusions • Limitation of the study design, sampling or measurement procedures

9. Contents • Appendix • Attach research instrument • List of references??? • Work schedule • Proposed time-frame for the project • Keep sometime towards end as a cushion in case of any unforeseen hurdles • References and bibliography

10. References to the literature • No separate section for ‘literature review’ • References to the literature should be included in all sections • Literature on issues pertaining to research design under ‘study design’ • Literature relating to sampling under ‘sampling’ • Literature pertaining to research instrument under ‘measurement procedures’ • and so on

11. Examples Planned study: relationship between academic achievement and social environment

12. Introduction may include • Role of education in our society • Major changes in the philosophy of education over time • Factors affecting attitudes towards education • Development of education in Pakistan • Role of parents and peers in academic achievements • Impact of social environment on academic achievement • Etc.

13. The problem • What theories have been developed to explain the relationship between academic achievement and social environment? • Theoretical models will be basis of your study? • What do previous studies have to say?

14. Objectives

15. Hypothesis

16. Study Design

17. Sampling

18. Analysis of data

19. Structure of report • It is proposed that the report will be divided into the following chapters: • Chapter 1: Introduction • Chapter 2: Study population • Chapter 3: Extent of parental involvement and academic achievement • Chapter 4: Academic achievement and student attitudes towards teachers • Summary, conclusions and recommendations

20. Work schedule

21. Processing of Data in Quantitative Research

22. Data processing • Once data/information have been collected the next step is to process the data • How do you make sense of the information collected? • How can you use this information to find answers to your research questions? • How the information be analyzed to achieve the objectives of your study?

23. Editing • Raw data (or simply data) ---- to ------ clean data (free from inconsistencies and incompleteness) • Research Instrument: • Identify and minimize, as far as possible, errors, incompleteness, misclassification and gaps in the information obtained from respondents • Possible errors: • Forget to ask a question • Forget to record a response • Wrongly classify a response • Write incomplete response • Write illegibly

24. Coding • After data cleaning, next step id data coding • It is the process of transforming the information into numerical values • Depends on • measurement scales used for measuring a variable • how the findings need to be communicated • For coding quantitative and qualitative data: • Step I: Developing a code book • Step II: Pre-testing the code book • Step III coding the data • Step IV: verifying the coded data

25. Developing a code book • Code book: provides set of rules for assigning numerical values to answers obtained from respondents • See example in the text book

26. Analysis • A frame of analysis should consist of: • Which variables you are planning to analyze? • How to analyze? • What statistical procedures suite to the selected variables? • Cross tabulation of variables • Etc.

27. Role of Statistics in Research • Simple tasks of statistics may include: • Data summarization (percentages, mean, mode, variance, etc.) • Statistics can play a major role in answering research question with a level of confidence on findings • May assess the contribution of each variable in bringing out change • Measure the association, relationship or independence between various variables • Ascertain strength of these relationships (correlation coefficients) • Make predictions by establishing trends (trend analyses) and developing models (regressions models)