RESEARCH PROPOSAL ASSIGNMENT
FINAL RESEARCH PROPOSAL ASSIGNMENT
· Proposal due June 19, 10:00 pm
· File format: word (doc, docx)
All assignments need to be submitted electronically. The resulting paper should be between 1000-1700 words, except for references. Your paper should include the title page and three sections (introduction, research design and methods, references).
Below is a brief outline specifying how you need to organize your proposal.
Title page
Your name, department, title of the proposed research
1. Introduction
· What is your research question, argument, or problem?
Should be more specific than literature review assignment
· Why is it important (from the societal perspective) and what is the purpose of your research?
· Please include the brief review of previous studies specifically related to your research questions (2 paragraphs: summary of key findings of previous studies)
· Explain how your study is different from previous studies (discuss the limitations of previous studies)
2. Research Design and Methods
Please select either qualitative analysis or quantitative analysis
* Quantitative analysis (5 subsections)
2.1. Study area
Please describe your study area. Justify the selection of your study area.
2.2. Research hypothesis
What is your hypothesis?
2.3. Data source
What is your data source? (e.g., surveys, government statistics, government survey data)
If you plan to use secondary data source, please explain the source of data in details (e.g., who created the data, address of website where I can download the data)
2.4. Study samples and sampling strategies
*If you are conducting your own survey, what are your study samples and sampling strategy?
*If you are using secondary data source (e.g., government survey data), please describe the sample size and sampling strategy used to create that data
2.5. Dependent variable and independent variables in regression analysis
What is your dependent variable and independent variables? Independent variable should be more than one. Please define each variable.
*Qualitative analysis (4 subsections)
2.1. Study area
Please describe your study area. Justify the selection of your study area.
2.2. Data collection method
What is your choice of data collection method (e.g., Interview, Focus groups, Participant observation) Why is your choice of data collection method better than other methods in your research? (e.g., Why is Interview better than focus group for your research?) If you are planning to use more than one method, please justify why you rely on more than one method.
2.3. Study samples and sampling strategies
What are your study samples (Who do you plan to interview/focus group/observe?) Justify the selection of your study samples.
What is your sampling strategies (e.g., snowballing sampling)? How can you access them?
2.4. Specific plans
* If you are planning to conduct interviews or focus groups, describe at least 10 interview/focus group questions you would like to ask study participants
* If you are planning to use participant observation, describe at least 5 topics that you would like to observe.
3. References
Should contain at least 15 scholarly sources from journals, books, and/or web sources. Among the 15 sources, 10 sources must be from scholarly journals written in English.
*Citation and references
· Both in-text citations and reference should follow APA Citation style
· APA format:
· If you include journal articles or book chapters not written in English, you need to provide the English citation
* Plagiarism
· Please make sure you rephrase the sentence/phrases and provide a proper citation.
· You cannot copy and paste sentences/phrases from other studies or sources, even if you provide a citation.
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