Main items to cover in an Independent Study proposal Jan 2018

Main items to cover in an IS proposal [1,000 words, excluding the contents of "preliminary reference list" and "title of the report"] for Jan 2018

Title that should closely mirror the content of your proposal

1. Introduction containing:

·      Problem or issue that is going to be addressed.

·      What is going to be included and what is going to be excluded (scope of the study)

·      Purpose of the study –who will the research benefit and its unique features.

·      Why you have selected the topic.

·      Research Questions/ Hypotheses.

·      Theoretical perspective

2.  Review of the literature:

·      Indicates the literature base for the work and seminal works.

·      This section may be used to justify the proposed research, e.g. it may identify a gap in the literature

3. The proposed research method

·      Overall research method, e.g. quantitative research on certain secondary data to test certain hypothesis and answer certain research questions

·      Data gathering approach, e.g. secondary data from what data sources, target sample and sample size

·      Data analysis approach, e.g. correlation analysis on secondary data, hypothesis-testing.

·      Ethical and aspect aspects of the research method to be used

4. Action plan

·      A time schedule for the research.

A preliminary reference list

***** As a proposal, it does not have findings, analysis, conclusions and recommendations; this is because the project is still at the planning stage.