Your Research Proposal is a six- to seven-page plan for a new study on your research topic. Incorporate at least four scholarly/peer-reviewed journal articles in addition to the course text to support your proposed study.
Include the following sections and content in your paper:
- Introduction – Introduce the research topic, explain why it is important, and present your research question and/or hypothesis.
- Literature Review – Summarize the current state of knowledge on your topic by citing the methods and findings of at least two previous research studies. State whether your proposed study is a replication of a previous study or a new approach using methods that have not been used before.
- Methods
- Design – Indicate whether your proposed study is qualitative or quantitative in approach. Select one of the research designs you have studied in the course, and indicate whether it is experimental or non-experimental. Evaluate why this design is appropriate for your research topic. Cite the textbook and one other source on research methodology to support your choice.
- Participants – Identify the sampling strategy you would use to recruit participants for your study. Estimate the number of participants you would need and explain why your sampling method is appropriate for your research approach.
- Procedure/Measures – Apply the scientific method by describing the steps you would use in carrying out your study. Indicate whether you will use any kind of test, questionnaire, or measurement instrument. Cite the source of any instruments to be used.
- Data Analysis – Describe the statistical techniques (if quantitative) or the analysis procedure (if qualitative) you plan to use to analyze the data. Cite at least one source on the chosen analysis technique.
- Ethical Issues – Analyze the impact of ethical concerns on your proposed study, such as confidentiality, deception, informed consent, potential harm to participants, conflict of interest, IRB approval, etc. Explain how you would address these concerns.
- Conclusion – Briefly summarize the major points of your research plan and reiterate why your proposed study is needed.
The Research Proposal
- Must be six- to seven- double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Writing CenterLinks to an external site.’s APA StyleLinks to an external site. resource.
- Must include a separate title page with the following:
- Title of proposal
- Student’s name
- Course name and number
- Instructor’s name
- Date submitted
- ***SUBJECT: Using a qualitative phenomenological approach
with a purposeful sample of trauma psychologists, explore best practices for
treating anxiety associated with an experience of severe trauma following a
serious automobile accident.***Now you can see we have formalized to question to include your design (qualitative phenomenology); your sample (the psychologists); and specifically what you would be interviewing them about.USE THIS EXACT RESEARCH QUESTION IN YOUR FINAL PROPOSAL. It will tell your readers (and remind you) exactly how you would carry out your study
-
there are eight sections to your paper. Much of what you did for the Preliminary Research Proposal (discussion question) will be included.
- Introduction: this section contains the explanation – background on your topic, telling why this topic is important (using a reference here is a plus-plus!) Lastly, present your research question – this is the question we decided upon early in the course. (You will find the question in my feedback comments in the Week 2 Assignment where you wrote your research question. It most likely has been modified a bit – so be sure to use the finalized question you will see bolded there).
- Literature Review: You may have already identified articles about the focus and peer reviewed studies on the focus. This tells us a little about what other research has already been done on your topic. (This was the goal of the week 1 written assignment – based on the final research question, and my comments to your week 1 assignment, your original references may be used if they are applicable to the finalized question. If the question has changed so the original works no longer apply, you will need to find new sources for the review of literature section).
- Methods: this section actually has five parts:
1. Design: Your research question has already directed your study to either a qualitative or quantitative design. Provide a little information about that specific design – for example, if you are doing a correlation study or an ethnographic study, what do those terms mean?
2. Participants: Explain how you would obtain your participants; what types of participants would be correct for your study? How many would you need?
3. Procedure / Methods: List down the steps you would follow to actually do the study. Starting with contacting the sample to doing the final write up report. If doing a qualitative study, describe the interview make-up. For example: if you are doing a phenomenological study using an open interview format, how much time will you need, about how many questions would be used, will you tape record or video tape? Would you perform a pilot test, trying out the questions before the actual interviews?
If doing a quantitative study using a survey (as an example), explain a little about the survey (how many questions, is each question given a separate score or is there a total score?)
4. Data analysis: For qualitative research the data (generally narrative data) is analyzed using a process known as coding to theme creation. For quantitative studies, if using a survey with a Likert Scale you can compute means and standard deviations for the individual items, or for a total score if there is one.
5. Ethical issues: Explain how you will handle informed consent, confidentiality with sample identification and the data; How would you prevent potential harm to the participants? Explain IRB approval.
- Conclusion: this is your wrap up. Explain (again) the importance of your topic and identify who might benefit by knowing about the study and its results.
- 1. You may certainly use any information you included in the week 5 discussion also in the final proposal so any information used from discussion will not be considered plagiarism.
2. The key topics (Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, and Conclusion should all be bolded and included.
Under the Methods section you may also include the sub-topics of Design, Participants, Procedure, Data Analysis and Ethical Issues. However, if dividing the Methods by these headings seems awkward, or disrupts the flow of the paper, you may eliminate them (just be sure all are covered in your discussion). - additional source:
Birur B, Math SB, Fargason RE. A Review of Psychopharmacological Interventions Post-Disaster to Prevent Psychiatric Sequelae. Psychopharmacol Bull. 2017 Jan 26;47(1):8-26. PMID: 28138200; PMCID: PMC5274533.
-
American
Psychological Association. (2017). What
is exposure therapy?. American Psychological Association.
https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/exposure-therapyCurtiss, J. E.,
Levine, D. S., Ander, I., & Baker, A. W. (2021, June 1). Cognitive-behavioral treatments for
anxiety and stress-related disorders. Focus (American Psychiatric
Publishing). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8475916/Shapiro, F.
(2014). The role of eye
movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in medicine:
Addressing the psychological and physical symptoms stemming from adverse life
experiences. The Permanente journal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951033/#:~:text=Eye%20movement%20desensitization%20and%20reprocessing%20(EMDR)1%20is%20an%20empirically,and%20other%20negative%20life%20experiences.