Research proposal guide
Behavioral Sciences Research Methods
Research Proposal Guide
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For your final writing assignment in Research Methods for Behavioral science, you will be required to submit a research proposal around an experiment/study that you design. This is a research design proposal, therefore, you will not be required to complete data collection. Working forward from the literature review you submitted earlier in the semester will give you a head start, as this will be converted into the introduction section of this proposal.
The final paper is structured using the following sections:
Title page
In APA format with a Running head in the header of the page.
Introduction:
Statement of the Problem: So what? Define the issue at hand. What is the problem? Why is this problem significant? Why do you want to submit a proposal on this topic?
Guiding Question/Hypothesis
Identify and state what research question you are trying to answer.
Literature Review
Research other studies, articles, journal entries addressing your psychological question. Identify 5-8 sources that provide information to support your research design. The themes used in your literature review are not necessary here. A simple description of the research is more efficient, but do include demographics of those studies if it may impact your hypothesis.Â
Methods:
Description of who is going to participate in your study. What is the reasoning behind choosing these specific participants? What is the demographic information of your participants?
Procedures: (sampling, execution of experiment) How will you conduct your research study? Outline the logistics of your study. Examples: Will choose five males XXXXXXXXXXage group), give them three different scenarios about morality (list the scenarios), and then I will analyze their answers.
Statistics: Describe the alpha level you intend to use and which types of statistics you would employ.
Results:
Data Analysis: In this section, you are essentially predicting how you will interpret your data.
Is this a qualitative or quantitate study?
How will you analyze your hypothetical data?
Explain how to most effectively organize your potential results.
Discussion:
Implications: What would positive or negative results mean from this study? How does it increase our knowledge of your selected topic
Limitations: What are some issues/problems that your research proposal might have? Examples: Not enough participants, only teenage females, did used a trained professional, did not think about outside influences
Future directions: what would the next logical step in this line of research be?
References:Â 5-8 sources that were used to research your proposed problem. This can be the same as your review. But you may need to include more sources to justify the procedures you intend to use.
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Abstract:
Please note, this section actually goes before the introduction and after your title page, but I am placing it here to encourage you to write it last.
This is a one paragraph summary detailing the basic reasoning behind the purpose of the study, how you intend to explore the problem and what the results of this study would mean. This section does not necessarily need references, but can still discuss the main issues driving this research.