Research Topic

Introduction

[week 3: put your title here]

[Your title should be descriptive enough that your reader will know what your paper is about. ‘The Dangerous Future’ is inadequate—it doesn’t say anything. ‘Global Warming’ is better, but it’s still too broad and imprecise. ‘Global Warming: the Dangerous Future of Agriculture in California’ gives the reader enough information to know if they want to read your study.]

Problem Statement [week 3]

[put your problem statement text here]

[The purpose of research is to provide solutions to problems. What problem will you be trying to solve? Note that ‘objectives’ and ‘conditions’ are not ‘problems’. In other words, ‘This research will discuss what farmers in California need to do to combat global warming’ is not a problem. It’s an objective, and it may have a place in the research paper, but it’s not a problem. Similarly, ‘California is experiencing the impacts of global warming’ is not a problem. It’s a condition. ‘This research will examine whether or not global warming in California is impacting the economic future of agriculture in the state, and provide possible solutions’—THAT’S a good problem statement.

In your role in this class, you are a researcher who is developing a project that will be of value to the field of emergency management and to the broader world of humanity in general. The instructor, in contrast, is playing the role of approval and funding authority. He or she will ultimately decide if you will be granted time to complete the study and be given a budget with which to accomplish it. He or she knows nothing about your project going in, so you have to convince him or her that your project is worthwhile. Assume the funding authority will always have many more projects wanting money than there is to go around. Latest government statistics show that approximately 10% of research applications are funded. There’s no reason to think that will get any better.

So you have to be persuasive about why your project is valuable. A one-sentence or one-paragraph problem statement won’t accomplish that. You will need to explain in depth why your problem is a problem. You will need to explain the background of how your problem came to be. You will need to explain in detail why the solution that you will develop will be worth the investment in the project. Expect your problem statement to require at least two or three double-spaced pages. If you haven’t written that much, then you haven’t done justice to your project.]

Need for the Study [week 3]

[put your need for the study text here]

[Ok, now you’ve identified the problem you want to solve and given all the reasons that it’s a problem that is worthy of the time and effort it would take to solve. In this section, you answer the question: Why should this research project be the one approved and funded? Begin by explaining the project in detail. What research method do you anticipate using? Where do you anticipate that you will get your data? Explain how this analysis will directly relate to the problem that needs to be solved. Explain why your project design is the best one that could be selected to accomplish the research. Explain what happens if research on your problem is never conducted. This section should probably be a page or more in length.]

Target Audience [week 3]

[put your target audience text here]

[In this section, you will answer the question: Who will use the results of your work? Be specific. ‘FEMA’ is too broad, because FEMA is a giant bureaucracy where lots of great ideas get lost. Similarly, ‘farmers’ or ‘government officials’ or ‘California citizens’ are too imprecise. ‘California farmers and public policymakers that are dealing with the impacts of global warming in the San Joaquin valley’ is better. The more precise a target audience you can identify, the more likely it will be that your research will have a useful impact. This section doesn’t need to be very long, but it does need to be precise.]

Objectives of the Research [week 3]

[put your objectives of the research text here]

[What do you want your research project to accomplish? In generic terms, all research is conducted to solve problems, so developing a solution to a problem and providing it to your target audience is a good objective. ‘This research will provide practical, implementable solutions to global warming to farmers in the San Joaquin valley’ is a good objective. Typically, a research project could have a number of objectives, including validating the existence of a problem, creating public awareness of the problem, educating government officials and the target population, providing solutions, generating public policy recommendations, etc. This section should probably be a page or so in length. Worthy research projects accomplish many things.]

Hypothesis [week 3]

[put your hypothesis here]

[The hypothesis is probably the least understood component of the research process. However, it’s not that complicated as concepts go. Simply put:

A hypothesis is a definitive statement that can be proven to be true or false through research and experimentation.

So these are the things a hypothesis is not: A hypothesis is never a question—one cannot prove a question to be true or false. A hypothesis is not a statement of objectives, or a list of conditions, or anything like that. Here’s an example:

H1: Global warming is having no impact on agriculture in California.

Simple, straightforward, testable, refutable, can be proven true or false. Those are the hallmarks of a good hypothesis.]

Research Questions [week 3]

[put your research questions here]

[Most research seeks to answer research questions. Sometimes the hypothesis indicates what the research questions should be. Any project should probably seek to answer only three or four research questions. The research questions are developed here in the project formulation process, and then are revisited in the Conclusions section to determine if they have been answered. Here are some possibilities from our example:

RQ1: Is global warming currently impacting agriculture in California? In what ways? What are the impacts?

RQ2: What are the future projections for global warming impacts on agriculture in California?

RQ3: What public policy recommendations can be developed and farming practice adjustments can be made to lessen the impacts of global warming on California agriculture?

These questions all have findable answers that can be developed through research. The answers to them will be valuable to the target audience. The recommendations that result from the answers to these questions, if implemented, would improve the field of emergency management—at least, the small component involving global warming and agriculture in California. If a project can do these things, then it’s a highly successful project.]

Literature Review [week 4]

[put your literature review text here]

[Provide a few examples of literature that you would utilize in your research. Give the title, author, and citation, and a brief description of the work and the value you think it would add.]

Shortfalls in the Literature [n/a—do not fill out]

[put your shortfalls in the literature text here]

Summary of Findings [n/a-do not fill out]

[put your summary of findings text here]

Methodology

Selection of Method(s) [week 4]

[put your selection of methods text here]

[The methodology section is one of the most important sections of the research proposal or actual research paper. In it, you explain to your funding authorities, approving authorities, peers, and anyone else who may read your research exactly what it is you plan to do. What you describe must be designed to answer the research questions that you plan to ask, have rigor to be credible, and be clear so whoever is funding the work will open their checkbooks.

This is where you establish the academic validity of your work. Cite and quote heavily from van Thiel in this section. Talk about what you learned from the weekly assignments—design criteria, boundaries, single case design, design validity, evidence collection, evidence analysis, etc. This section should be no less than two pages.]

Data Collection Process and Analysis [week 4]

[put your data collection text here]

[This is where you will explain what data you plan to collect, where you will get it, and how you will analyze it. This section should probably run two pages or so.]

Researcher’s Perspective

Potential Bias Issues [n/a]

[put your potential bias text here]

Anticipated Ethical Issues [n/a]

[put your anticipated ethical issues text here]

References

[put your references text here]