Research Proposal

Outline for Research Project Proposal

(adapted from Course Materials for Psycholinguistics)

When writing, please use section headings to indicate where the information can be found. Subheadings need not be used, though in long sections they may facilitate organization.

1. Introduction

Explain the issue you are examining and why it is significant.

Describe the general area to be studied

Explain why this area is important to the general area under study (e.g., Botany, Ecology, Environmental Science, etc.)

2. Background/Review of the Literature

A description of what is already known about this area and short discussion of why the background studies are not sufficient.

Summarize what is already known about the field. Include a summary of the basic background information on the topic gleaned from your literature review

Discuss several critical studies that have already been done in this area(cite according to APA style).

Point out why these background studies are insufficient. In other words, what question(s) do they leave unresolved that you would like to study?

Choose (at least) one of these questions you might like to pursue yourself. (Make sure you do not choose too many questions)

3. Rationale

A description of the questions you are examining and an exploration of the claims.

• List the specific question(s) that you are exploring.
  • Explain how these research questions are related to the larger issues raised in the introduction.
  • Describe what specific claim or hypothesis you will evaluate with these questions.
• Explain what it would mean if your hypothesis is confirmed.
• Explain what it will suggest about your topic if the hypothesis is disconfirmed.

4. Method and Design

A description of how you would go about collecting data and test the questions your are examining. You are not required to come up with a new or original method (though you can try!). Look at journal articles to determine what methods are generally used in this type of research.

Method: How would you collect the data and why?

Describe the general methodology you choose for your study, in order to test your hypothesis(es).

Explain why this method is the best for your purposes.

Participants: Who or what would you test and why?

Describe the sample you would test and explain why you have chosen this sample.

Are there any participants you would exclude? Why, why not?

Design: What would the stimuli look like and why?

Describe what kinds of manipulations/variations you would make or test for in order to test your hypothesis(es).

Describe the factors you would vary.

Explain how varying these factors would allow you to confirm or disconfirm your hypotheses.

Explain what significant differences you would need to find to confirm or disconfirm your hypothesis(es). In particular, how could your hypothesis(es) be disconfirmed by your data?

Controls: What kinds of factors would you need to control for in your study?

Describe what types of effects would be likely to occur which would make your results appear to confirm, or to disconfirm your hypothesis(es).

Describe how you can by your design rule out or control for apparent effects.

Procedure

How are you going to present the stimuli?

What is the participant in the experiment going to do?

Analysis

How will you analyze the results?

What kind of results would confirm your hypothesis?

What kind of results would disconfirm your hypothesis

5. Significance and Conclusion

Discuss, in general, how your proposed research would lead to a significant improvement over the original studies, and how it would benefit the field. (In other words, why should someone care? If you were applying for money to do this, why would someone fund you? If you wanted to publish your results, why would they be interesting?)

6. References

Include all references in APA style.