Final Proposal

This is your signature assignment (the most important assignment in this course). As explained in earlier assignments related to this, for this assignment you choose a topic and write a research proposal (has to be quantitative) based on what you have done in earlier assignments (Selecting a topic and Pre-proposal). The proposed research could be any type of quantitative research. However, experimental and quasi experimental research studies are preferred. Qualitative research and longitudinal studies are not allowed for this assignment.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to develop your skills in writing a research plan. However, you are not expected to actually do the research.

Grading Criteria

Your research proposal will be 8-12 pages and should contain the following parts. Your proposal will be based on how much you addressed my earlier comments and using the attached rubric.

Format of the proposal

The proposal must be typed, spell-checked, double-spaced with a standard 12-point font, and submitted to BeachBoard. You should include at least 10 references in your proposal (5 of them should be empirical research). Whenever references are used, they must be properly cited using the American Psychological Association (APA) format. You should include the followings in your proposal.

Click here to see a good sample proposal (second sample, third sample).

Click here to see a poor example 1, poor example 2, poor example 3, poor example 4

Chapter I: Introduction (1-2 pages)

a. Start the introduction by stating the research problem in the opening paragraph. Explain the nature of problem and if applicable explain different aspects of the problem. For example, you may explain that teachers are not using technology effectively in their teaching. And then you explain different aspects of the problem such as lack of training, lack of facilities, lack of administrative support, busy with standard tests…etc.

b. Justifying the importance of the research problem and the need for your research study. Justification should be based on what other researchers have found or based on personal or workplace experiences, or based on the experiences others have had in the workplace. Explain the benefits of your proposed research findings (theoretical / practical)

In your introduction you introduce your topic and provide an overview of the broad problems in education that lead up to this particular study. You may include the trend of the research in this area and the major gap or the major controversial issue in this area. You may also provide some current crisis, news, and statistics to grab attention of the reader (narrative hook). Describe what your study will do (the main goal of your research). Explain how your research will fill the gap. If there is a controversy will your research take any sides? Is there a specific theory or method that you support (or trying to support)? Describe the need for or the importance of the project and explain what contribution to the broad literature or set of broad educational problems would be made when the study is finished. If you are repeating a research that has already been done you need to justify why it is important to redo it or redo it with some modifications.


Chapter II: Literature Review (5-6 pages)

Part 1

In 1-2 paragraphs explain the purpose and process of your literature review. Explain how you selected these particular articles to be included in this literature review (what criteria or what keywords you used to find these articles). Also explain if you excluded some articles which were relevant to the topic but you decided not to include. It is not enough to show the relevance of each article to your topic you should also show they are closely related to your research goals, research questions, or research method. Try to find a few closely related studies rather than many unrelated studies.

Part 2 (research synthesis)

a. Identify what is known regarding your research topic. Explain different categories of research, subtopics, trends, and the major findings of earlier studies as the foundation of your study.

b. Identify deficiencies in the evidence. What do we still need to know? Explain any discrepancies or disagree as well as deficiencies and limitations of earlier studies. The literature review should not be an article- by- article description of one study after another; instead, the articles should be presented in an integrated manner. You may use a literature map in this regard.

c. It is critically important how you put these articles together. The best way to introduce articles is the integrated method in which you start with a question, a controversy, a dilemma, a specific model or method and then continue your argument and use those articles to support your argument.

d. Fragmented, unrelated, isolated paragraphs should be avoided. The paragraphs in this part should follow a smooth transition. This means you should avoid introducing each article in a separate paragraph without comparing it or linking it to other paragraphs.

e. Try to show how these articles (studies) are related. For example, you explain if there are similarities or differences in their research goals, research questions, or research method. Remember the best way to write the literature review is the one in which the reader can predict what is coming in the next paragraph.

Part 3 (literature summary , hypotheses, and research questions)

a. Summarize the articles listed in this chapter and make an overall conclusion of the literature review. Here you should show how the literature review has helped you to design your research in the way you plan to do it as explained in the next chapter (methodology).

b. Based on the literature review and your theoretical viewpoints you introduce your research hypotheses. You should also list your specific research questions here.

Chapter III: Methodology (1-2 pages)

a. Procedure

Provide a detailed description of the data collection process. Explain in details what you will do (step by step). How many groups will you have? How long and how often you will collect data. What experimental treatments (if any) or teaching methods (if any) would be used and how? How many instruments (surveys, tests, observations, …etc.) will be used and the order in which these instruments are going to be used? Include detailed description of your treatments and also your control groups.

b. Subjects

Provide a description of the subjects. Include your sampling strategy. Explain the population and justify your sampling method.

c. Instrumentation

Explain the relation of research questions to instruments. You should justify why you preferred this instrument over other possible alternatives. You should find information about reliability and validity of the instrument. Otherwise you need to show at least a few other research studies that used the same instrument. Finally, if it is something you made it yourself you need to justify why and also you need to propose a way (like a pilot study) to show the reliability and validity of your instrument.

Chapter IV. Data Analysis (1/2 page)

You should include the statistics that you will use and also you should justify your statistical analysis. For example you explain why a t-test will be used instead of ANOVA

Chapter V. Expected results (1/2 page)

Regarding the literature review you explain what results you expect (predict) if you actually do the research.