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Dissertation Suite: Writing a Research Proposal

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Join the University of Chester's Academic Skills Team for The Skills Pod. In this episode of our Dissertation Suite, Academic Skills Advisers, Emma and Anthony, discuss research proposals. They chat about what a research proposal is and its purpose, go through the general structure (although do be sure to follow departmental guidance regarding this!) and share some top tips for writing a proposal.


You might also find it useful to listen to our episode on Literature Reviews. 

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Emma:

Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Skills Pod. I'm Emma, and I am one of the Academic Skills Advisors at the University of Chester. And today I am joined by my colleague.

Anthony :

Hi everyone, I'm Tony, and I'm one of the senior academic skills advisors as part of the team.

Emma:

In this episode, we are going to talk about research proposals as part of our dissertation suite. So research proposals.

Anthony :

Yeah, so research proposals are something that every student will have to go through if they're doing some sort of projectslash dissertation. And research proposals before we get into the mechanics of what's in there? The reason we have these is um primarily to see is your chosen topic feasible?

Emma:

Yeah.

Anthony :

So, you know, is is there a particular gap? Because obviously, if everybody has already researched this to death, why are you doing it? Are the methods that you're going to employ actually going to get an answer to your particular research question?

Emma:

And also to see if there are any ethical um issues or concerns with your research. Because obviously, if there are, you're going to have to mitigate those before you actually start doing your study, if that's interviews, collecting data, how are how are you going to go about that?

Anthony :

Yeah, and with the ethics, research proposal and ethics go hand in hand. So quite often you'll be working on a research proposal and also submitting a risk in ethics form. And we have an episode on how how do we fill out an ethics form? What what do we do with ethics on this channel? So do have a listen to that. Um, but yeah, so it's it's basically to see what are you doing, why are you doing it, is it feasible, and for you as students, can you get what you need to do in the time frame that you are allocated to? Um, you know, those people who are doing um like an M Res or a PhD, you know, you'll have a lot longer to do your your research typically, and for undergrads, you might have um maybe just under a year. Postgrads typically it's a lot less, it's uh you know four to five, six months as a max. Um so we don't want you to go and do your research and a find out halfway through that your methods are wrong, or that all the things you said you were gonna do, you can't do because you've over-exerted yourself and your reach.

Emma:

Um yeah, and I think that said, your research proposal is isn't kind of it is set in stone to a certain extent, but your research might evolve when you're when you're actually carrying out your study. So it might be that you find other avenues of interest within that field or that topic. Um, and your kind of supervisors have are researchers themselves, so they know that that that's potentially going to happen. So don't feel like you get a lot of students who are panicked and think, Oh, I've how can I change my topic? or you know, have those conversations with your department or your supervisors.

Anthony :

Yeah, and kind of think about a research proposal is a little bit of a like an exercise of like a dry run for your actual thesis, because when you're doing all the literature searching and you're figuring out what methodology, a lot of that's gonna be expanded in your actual thesis. Now, obviously, some departments um they may well do a formalized assignment of a research proposal of something that you're not actually going to do. Some departments like getting you to do your proposal, which then feeds directly into your dissertation to kind of streamline that process. So if you are somebody who is being told no, your research proposal is a standalone exercise, you'll do a separate one for your actual thesis. Then similarly, just treat this like an exercise of okay, I know I'm gonna use interviews for my actual thesis, so let me have an explanation of something more quantitative in nature, just so I get a feel because that might alter what you do later on. But if you are somebody who's gonna go, right, got a good idea about what it is I want to do, this is a good exercise for you, and it's gonna streamline your process when you actually do your licitation.

Emma:

Um, so the kind of key thing about your research proposal is it's like uh you're presenting your topic, you're justifying why it's needed, and you're also providing an outline of how you're gonna carry out your research, things like that. Well, actually, I guess before we jump into structure, it's really important to say that you will need to do a lot of reading for your research proposal. Because what your tutors want to see, you're gonna have a literature review in there, but what your tutors want to see is that you um your kind of proposed, um, your proposed question, topic, whatever, is grounded in research, that you've got a good knowledge of the field and you've made um, you know what, you've identified the gap. So you need to do a lot of reading, even though it's a proposal, it's not your dissertation, you still need to be very well informed on your topic to show your teachers you've made the judgment, this is the gap, this is why the gap exists, and this is why it needs filling.

Anthony :

And and a good research proposal, when it comes to like the literature review kind of element, is having a consideration for like sample sizes, methodologies, because if everybody in that field is doing um uh interviews, semi-structured interviews, for example, that could be a justification of why you're gonna then pick that, because that seems to be the standard in that field, you could compare those results a little bit more. Um if everybody is doing uh uh interviews, for example, but you're like, Well, I want to do a quantitative study, well, then that's your gap because everybody in the field's looking at it through a qualitative way, so you're gonna do quantitative, but if you don't explore that in the literature review, and this is the problem I think with proposals is a lot of students treat this as a this person said this, this person did this, this study did that, without actually going into the mechanics of those studies because it is a review of the literature, it's not a recounting of the literature, you are reviewing that, which helps you as a researcher in that proposal stage figure out okay, a lot of people are doing this, maybe I can adapt that, or maybe I can do it this way as well. So, yeah, engage with that literature.

Emma:

Absolutely. So, I guess the kind of key thing with with talking about structuring a research approval is make sure that you're aware of departmental guidelines. It might be that you're given um a breakdown of what you need to include and what you need to include in those sections. So make sure that you are following that brief that you've been given and that you're talking to your tutors because they can be quite departmental or subject-specific, can't they?

Anthony :

Yeah, they can be. There's there's a general structure most departments will kind of follow through, and we'll talk we're gonna talk about that today in terms of a general sense. But absolutely, as Emma said, some departments have their own particular nuances. Some of them as well would be quite prescriptive about how many words go in these sections. You know, uh again depends totally on disciplines. I've seen lit reviews being particularly large, other people are like, I just want a summary of like 300 words, so those kind of things do do check.

Emma:

But the principles we'll chat about today in a general sense should cover most kind of and and also, yeah, as we said, like there is a general structure, but also I know I say a lot, my background is English literature, and I know we've spoken to Tony um about like what your research proposals were like for your um dissertations. Um, mine were very different because of those kind of um discipline differences. So, yeah, so key thing is always speak to your tutors, but yeah, Tony, let's chat about a general structure.

Anthony :

General structure. So typically you would have a a small introduction, you know, like you would any other assignment, telling your reader what it's about, what's coming up. Um now most departments will have particular definitely if you are at um post-grad level, there'll be some element of your researcher position. Um now, some departments will have that straight away after the introduction, some people will have that after the lit review. If you're undergrad, sometimes that is a requirement, but again, just check. So effectively, that's you telling your reader, setting your stall out early on about your researcher position. So you're talking about your paradigm. So are you going to be qualitative, are you quantitative? And then you go into the murder, the kind of the nuances of are you an interpretivist, a positivist? Um, and if you're concerned about any of those terms, again, we've got another good episode where we break that down, me and Sharon, I think it was, um breaking that down in detail, and we've got some uh resources on Moodle about that. So effectively, you're telling your reader what paradigm are you sitting in, because that gives them a good idea about okay, uh, I've got a rough idea where this is potentially going, quantum qual. Then you move into your lit review. Typically, so that's all the things me and Emma have already said about exploring that literature, yeah, break breaking it down, what are people doing, what's the common things that are being found. And the absolute key thing here is is the gap, identifying the gap.

Emma:

Mind the gap.

Anthony :

Mind the gap, yeah.

Emma:

Instead of minding the gap, it's show the gap.

Anthony :

Show the gap, yeah. Um that reminds me of and I was in London once, and there was an American tourist who went to the gap store and they put the bag that said gap on the platform said mind the gap, uh, and they were taking pictures. Um don't know why that popped into bed. Um, so yeah, the the gap is really important because this is about like your viability. Why are you doing it? Now, some locations are or not locations, some study areas are incredibly well researched, so finding the gap is a little bit more difficult. Some disciplines the gap is huge. Um, and we're never going to fill this gap, we're just aiming to try and offer a little bit, we're trying to close the gap a little bit. Um, and there are pros and cons to each one of these. If you're in a field that's really well researched, you've obviously got a lot of data to pull from. And you know, as my odd supervisor kind of said, even if it is a well-researched area, they're not using your participants, they might not be in your location, so there's always nuanced differences where you can pull out a gap. If you're in an area where it's not that well researched, it might be quite novel, quite new research. A lot of my research, particularly um for my postgrad and my PhD, was really quite new, and that's great because your gap is huge. But the issue is you struggle with the literature review because no one's really talking about that particular area. So there's there's pros and cons, but the key thing is what you don't want to do is in your lit review have your study doing the exact same that everybody else is doing in the same population because what is the the point? So you have to find that gap, and that's your justification for why you're doing what you're doing.

Emma:

Yeah, and we also have an episode on literature reviews as well. So, um, again, I will pop the link in the show notes. Um, should you want to listen to that to kind of get more of a sense of what's included in literature review. Um, but yeah, as Tony said, I feel like we've said mine the gap so many times, but yeah, it's showing the gap, it's making sure that everything is leading to essentially kind of like the ta-da moment, isn't it? Like here's all the research that already exists, ta-da, this is what my study is seeking to kind of fill, address, start a conversation about. Yeah.

Anthony :

And this is where again departmental guidelines will will differ because some disciplines will then have okay, you've identified the gap. Now tell me the research question.

Emma:

Yeah.

Anthony :

So what is it you're gonna do? Give me your aims, give me your objectives. Some departments want that in the introduction, so you're setting it out pretty pretty early doors, but it will follow either or, but again, it has to have been brought out of the literature, so you know, and make sure, and this is my book, Ben, being methods, is a research question that's not a question. Yeah, it's a research statement, yeah, which is so annoying. It has to be a question you are trying to answer a question.

Emma:

And the other thing to kind of mention is if you're doing a quantitative study, you will also have to include a hypothesis.

Anthony :

Yeah, nicely done. Um so yeah. In that introduction, yeah, and that's really important. And and again, here a lot of students get really confused about aims and objectives, and quite often they kind of get these mixed up. So the aim of the study is the overall thing that you're trying to do. So, what's the study's overall aim? And it might be to shed light on X or to investigate X. Your objectives are things that you need to do in order to be able to investigate that. So it's breaking down that aim into tasks, is effectively what your objectives are. Um yeah, a lot of students will have objectives as aims, or vice versa. So um quite often your study will definitely have an aim, and it should have a couple of objectives, but don't have like more than three, three, four, because that becomes more manageable then. Um so yeah, so we do that. Then we move into our methodology.

Emma:

So we're got introduction, which ends with aims, objectives.

Anthony :

But then if that's your discipline, yeah, sometimes it might just be an intro.

Emma:

And then you've got your literature review, and then we're moving into methodology.

Anthony :

Yeah, yeah. Um so again, if your discipline hasn't asked you to outline your research position, you're gonna start talking about that in your methodology. And then we move into okay, so we've defined ourselves of an as an interpretivist, so we're gonna be doing a qualitative study. So now you want to tell your reader, okay, we're going down that. Is there a particular methodology we're gonna be using? So are you using like a case-based approach, or you know, is this some sort of methodological thing that you're gonna do? So you need to tell your reader, and we call that the research design. So imagine I was doing a mixed method study, a sequential mixed method study. I'm a pragmatist, I'm gonna use both quants and quals. I need to tell my reader, well, I'm gonna do my survey first, and that's gonna then feed into my uh interviews, and then I'm gonna analyze both of them together. So I need to tell my reader in what stage these things are gonna happen. Then we move on to the instruments themselves. So if you are doing an interview, what's the interview? Why are you doing an interview? What's the pros and what's the cons? What type of interview are you gonna do? Again, pros and cons. And again, tell your reader how long are these potentially gonna last. And the key thing here a proposal is, and from uh an academic standpoint, it's about making sure that your marker knows that you have looked at the alternatives and the method you're choosing, or the instrument you're choosing, is because it's the right one and you've you recognize there are limitations, but there's also pros to it. So it's bringing in literature there as well.

Emma:

Yeah, and I guess it's about again at every stage, it's almost it is justifying. Yeah why are you doing it? Why is this method the best, or sort of the most robust way of approach? Um, yes, as you said, there there are limitations, but this is why I've chosen it.

Anthony :

Yeah. Because a lot of students will go, yeah, I'm doing an interview, um, and this is what I'm gonna do. And it's like, okay, why why? Yeah, but why exactly? Or you know, have you considered the limitations of that? Like the biggest one, a lot of students for ease now will go, I'm doing an online semi-structured interview, and that's it. We're out thinking about okay, there's a lot of pros to that, but there's some real significant cons to doing an online survey, an online interview. So your mark and it needs to know, oh yeah, you've really you've really thought about that. You you've weighed it up and you've gone right. This is the best method. So, so typically once we talk about the instrument, we then move into our sample population. So, what people are we looking for? How are we gonna recruit them? And again, it's gonna be a common theme here. What's the pros and cons of that? You know, are you doing a random stratified sampling or are you doing convenient sampling? What's the pros? What's the cons? What's your procedure? If you're somebody doing a very quantitative thing, you're gonna be in the lab, what's your procedure? What are you gonna be doing? What are you investigating? How are you gonna do it? Once we've done that, we move into analysis then. So, what's your chosen piece of analysis? Again, if you're quantitative, what tests are you gonna run? Um, in what order you're gonna do them, and if you're qual, what's your analysis? So you're picking thematic, you're doing IPA, and again, what's the procedure behind that?

Emma:

And what else? Um, so so what's next? So we've done our methodology, and I let you run that because you are methods man, you're the one.

Anthony :

I am methods man. When I left my old role, I they gave me a beard comb that had methods man written on it. So I I take that title very seriously.

Emma:

It's on a beard comb, so it's official. So what comes next?

Anthony :

So after we've done the analysis part, that's when we would move into our risk and ethics element. So there is a kind of a duplicate here. You will have to fill in an official ethics form for approval. But again, this will help you because if you're doing your proposal, a lot of the things you talk about in your risk and ethics can then be transferred over into your ethics form. So we need to think about here primarily about not harming our participants, or if you're not using participants and you're out in the field, you know, not harming the environment, not harming animals, what you know, whatever it may be. So it's all your classic things, and again, we say we we have an episode, so we're not going to go into massive details about the ethics here, but you know, it's primarily protecting yourself, protecting your participants, think about consent, think about how you're going to store that data, um, think about who has access to it, think about anonymity. And then the risk element is something that again, a lot of students spend a lot of time on ethics, not so much risk. So, what's the risk to you as a researcher? You know, are you going out to meet random people? Uh, if you're out on the field, you know, what think about even the simplest. So, say as a geographer, you know, doing risk assessments, some of the things like sunburn, dehydration, if you buy a river, you know, do you have the appropriate life jacket and stuff? Um, those type of things need to be covered because when you do like your risk score, particularly if you're out on the field, if that if your research site is so risky, that makes your study unfeasible. And so if you don't plan this out beforehand, you're not going to know. So, most people, the risks are minimal, but there are still risks at play. And the biggest one is you might think, oh, my questions, let's say you're doing an interview or even a survey, my questions are fine. Yeah, there's nothing particularly leading in there, but there might be something that's triggering, you know. So, what outlet have you got for your participants to not be harmed? And making sure that's kind of done. Um, and obviously, with that, what's going to be in your consent form, what's going to be in your partisan information sheet? Do you are you going to have a consent form? What's that going to look like? And then once you've done that, we simply have a time frame. Now, this is something that again a lot of students get caught up on on a like a Gantt chart. Gant charts are great, they're not always stuck to, and I wouldn't necessarily say that they they should be because research is messy, things change, but it's an indication to your market that you've thought about how long certain things are going to take. And if a proposal comes back, most of the time, if it's not an ethical or risk issue, it's a timing issue because a student has gone uh yeah, a week for a week for interviews, and I reckon two days for analysis. No, you're looking at months here for that, or where a student will have 10 months for their methodology. Well, your study's only six months long. That methodology should be done a lot earlier in the right time frame. So it's a way for your tutors to go again. The big question, is this actually feasible? So the big thing here is again, let's say you are a trainee teacher and you want to interview teachers, and yeah, your study data collection period is running over the summer. Yeah, that's how yeah, how feasible? It's not really gonna work, correct? So, you know, does that mean you might have to jiggle this up and put your data collection early doors rather than doing your standard lit review methods first to get that in? You know, that's a chat to have with your supervisor. But if you just put it in over the summer, it ain't gonna pass because it's not ideal.

Emma:

And I guess it's about being realistic, isn't it? Yeah, you know, mapping it out, you know, putting down all the different components that you need to do and really kind of being realistic with yourself that yeah, some things take longer than others. And when you're dealing with people, yeah, and also like the practicalities as well. So, as you said there, like you know, so if you're wanting to interview teachers over summer, that's probably not gonna happen. Um so yeah, I guess it's I guess the kind of key thing with a research proposal, which we say about everything is drafting. Make sure you've got multiple drafts, you're giving yourself time to edit, to take time away so that you can come back to it with a fresh perspective, because it might be where you pick up on those things that oh, actually, this isn't gonna work because of of X, Y, and Z or whatever. So I guess, yeah, that was it.

Anthony :

Yeah, and well, and and for me, having spent many many years looking after dissertation modules, my biggest bugbear with the proposal is students not just kind of half-baked doing it. If your discipline allows you to use that research proposal as a bridge to your dissertation, that time period you have to do that proposal to do as much reading to really nail down your methodology that when you come to do your dissertation, you can shorten that dissertation process so much because a lot of that reading's being done. Yes, you need to expand on it, your literature view, yes, your methodology needs to be tighter, but you can have a real good idea, you've already planned it, you know when things need to be done, get out there done. And those students who come to us as a team who are super chill, super relaxed because they're well ahead of schedule, and that's because they spent so much time on their proposal, and that's really, really a vital tip for me is see this reset, put a lot of effort into that proposal because it will pay huge dividends for your dissertation. Now, if you are somebody who your discipline for whatever reason has said no, the research proposal is separate, then again, still throw yourself into that because even if you know you're going to do qual, yeah, having that exploration of the other side of the fence is again that might offer a nuanced perspective for when you do your dissertation. Put lots of effort in because even if you are looking at someone slightly different, the fields might still slightly overlap. So don't just treat this as a guard, this is a four, because they are, you know, they're not the most exciting thing. The ethics form, as I said in that episode, it's not the most exciting form. I sat on ethics committees for a couple of years, they're not the most exciting things to read, but we have to do them because they're so important. So please, please engage with this, and you should be excited. And this is the other thing I will say: your topic should be exciting to you because dissertations, as you might have picked up on from some of the previous episodes, you know, they are a challenge, it's a big piece of research. And if you are not intrinsically motivated to find out something like for me, I find research so fun to do, and I love this job when we get you know, these different proposals come through to us and we read the dissertations, and I find the quality of student research is unbelievable, and I find research in general exciting. You should be excited by it. Don't see this as a chore. It's a privilege to do research.

Emma:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a nice, nice thing to end on if we don't have anything else to say about research proposals. So, um, so kind of key takeaway.

Anthony :

Um, dive into it head head first, say properly go at it. You know, if if you are somebody who the research proposal can follow into the dissertation, do the hard work now, it will it will help you out in the long run. You might not see it, but it will.

Emma:

Yeah, I was gonna say um do your research for your research proposal to make sure that you're doing a lot of reading because what your research proposal, as we've said, is it your research proposal is trying to convince your tutors that this is a worthwhile, achievable, measurable piece of research and and and should be carried out. And important, that's the other thing. You know, you're you're seeking to kind of start to fill or fill a gap. Where do the episode is?

Anthony :

Where do the episodes great academic processes, practice? Ah, there we go. Uh and obviously you know, your supervisors take absolute precedent in all of this, but we've seen plenty of proposals over the years in our careers, so um you know we're we are there to give advice. Um and the academic conventions still apply here about referencing, about paragraph structures. Reference, reference, reference, reference. You know, it doesn't just fall by the wayside because it's a form, so you know, all those things, please do use the team.

Emma:

Well, thank you for the pleasure to do another episode of the Skills Pod. Um and hopefully you are finding these dissertations we're useful.

Anthony :

Yes, and if you do have anything you'd like us to cover, please let us know. Because I know I can talk for many, many days about my research because I love it so much. Methods man. And on that note, Methods Man, Methods Man. Bye. Bye.

Emma:

Hi there. If you're a University of Chester student, here are the ways you can access support from your academic skills team.

Anthony :

On our Moodle pages, we've got lots of interactive resources for you to use. On our Literacies Moodle page, you'll find help with a range of skills from academic rating to revision. On our Maths and Statistics Moodle pages, you'll find help with different statistical tests, calculations, and formulas.

Emma:

You can also use our Feed Forward email assistance service. You can send 750 words, which is around three paragraphs of your work, to ask at chester.ac.uk and we'll respond within three working days with generic and developmental advice on aspects such as paragraph structure, criticality and referencing.

Anthony :

You can also book a one-to-one with the Academic Skills Advisor via our Moodle pages. These appointments typically last 30 minutes and are available online and in person. You're able to see the campuses we're at by looking at our booking scheduler. You can send across an extract of your work for us to look at in preparation for the one-to-one, or you can book a one-to-one to discuss a generic skill such as referencing or critical thinking.

Emma:

If you and a group of your course mates are struggling with the same academic skill, you can book an Ask Together session by emailing ask at chester.ac.uk with details of your availability, how many people are in your group, what skills you want to cover, and where you'd like the session to take place.

Anthony :

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook using the handle AkadskillsUOC, where we post practical tips on a range of academic skills, and it's also a great way to see what the team are up to.

Emma:

And of course, you've got the skills pod. If you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, or you'd like to be involved with our podcast, please email ask at chester.ac.uk.

Anthony :

Ask.

Emma:

Supporting your success.