Research Proposal vs. Research Design
Research Proposal
and Research Design
Research Proposal: “It
constitutes the blueprint for the collection, measurement and analysis
of data” Bernard, 1966.
Writing a research
proposal is an invaluable way to organize your thoughts about a project that
you want to conduct and writing a successful grant application is one of the
few ways for you to pay for it.
A research proposal is
intended to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and
that you have the competence and the work-plan to complete it. Generally, a
research proposal should contain all the key elements involved in the research process
and include sufficient information for the readers to evaluate the proposed
study. Regardless of your research area and the methodology you choose, all
research proposals must address the following questions: What you plan to accomplish,
why you want to do it and how you are going to do it. (Sherina
MS., 2005)
Research Design:
“Research
design is the plan, structure and strategy of investigation conceived so as to
obtain answers to research questions and to control variance.” Kerlinger.
It is a procedural plan that is adopted by a
researcher to answer questions in a valid way. It is very objective and
accurate. Normally, a research design will determine the type of analysis you
should carry out to get the desired results. To what extent your design is good
or bad will depend on whether you are able to get the answers to your research questions.
If your design is poor, the results of the research also will not be promising. (Christensen,
L.,1988)
Need
1.
Need of Research Proposal
A good preparation for a
research proposal is necessary as:
v This
is vital for grant application in a competitive environment. Funding is very
competitive.
v It
assists the researcher in project formulation, planning, performance and monitoring
of the research.
v The
quality of the proposal contributes to the evaluation outcome.
v A
poorly prepared proposal may not be considered at all or cannot be considered
fairly.
2. Need for Research Design
v Research
design is necessary because it makes possible the smooth sailing of the various
research procedures, thereby creation research as professional as possible,
yielding maximum information with a minimum expenditure of effort, time and
money.
v For
better, economical and attractive construction of a house, we need a blueprint
(or what is a community called the map of the house) prepared by an expert
architect, similarly we need a research design or a plan in advance of data
collection and analysis for four research projects.
v Research design stands for advance planning of
the methods to be adopted for collecting the relevant data and the techniques
to be used in the analysis, keeping in view the objective of the research and
the audibility of staff, time and money.
v Designing the research project may result in
rending the research exercise unsuccessful. It is, therefore, imperative that
an efficient and appropriate design must be prepared before starting research
processes.
v The
research design helps the investigator to organize his ideas
in a shape whereby it will be possible for him to look for errors and
shortages. (Kabir, S. M. S., 2018)
Components:
1. Components
of Research Proposal
a) Executive
Summary – A umbrella statement of your proposal
b) Statement
of Need - A clear statement about why the project is
necessary
c) Project
Description – The specific details regarding the
implementation and evaluation of the project
d) Budget
– A financial description of the project with accompanying exploratory notes
e) Organisational
Information – The brief history and context of the
organisation / department. Include information on the department’s primary
activities, audience and previous successes
f) Conclusion
–
A summary of the proposal’s main points.
2. Research
Design-Five Components:
a) Goals:
Why is your study worth doing? What issues do you want it to clarify, and what
practices and policies do you want it to influence? Why do you want to conduct
this study, and why should we care about the results?
b) Conceptual
framework: What do you think is going on with the issues, settings,
or people you plan to study? What theories, beliefs, and prior research
findings will guide or inform your research, and what literature, preliminary
studies, and personal experiences will you draw on for understanding the people
or issues you are studying?
c) Research
questions: What, specifically, do you want to learn or understand
by doing this study? What do you not know about the things you are studying
that you want to learn? What questions will your research attempt to answer,
and how are these questions related to one another?
d) Methods: What will you actually do in
conducting this study? What approaches and techniques will you use to collect
and analyze your data, and how do these constitute an integrated. strategy?
e) Validity:
How might your results and conclusions be wrong? What are the plausible
alternative interpretations and validity threats to these, and how will you
deal with these? How can the data that you have, or that you could potentially
collect, support or challenge your ideas about what’s going on? Why should we
believe your results? (Maxwell, J.,2005)
Characteristics:
1.
Research Proposal
A
successful research proposal:
1.
Is innovative
2.
Includes specific aims
3.
Includes preliminary data
4.
Describes approach
5.
Indicates the significance of the proposal with regard to the specific award
and conveys
its impact on science and your personal growth.
2.
Research Design
1.
It is a plan that specifies the sources and type of information relevant to the
research problem.
2.
It is a strategy specifying which approach distil be used gathering and analysing
data.
3.
It also includes the time and cost budgets since most studies are done under
these two constraints.
In
brief research design must at least contain-
1.
A clear statement of research problem.
2.
Procedures and technique to be used for gathering data or information.
3.
The population to be studied.
4.
Methods to be used in processing & analysis data.
Types
1.
Research Proposal
There are different kinds
of research proposals. Each type of proposal, outlined below, may have its own
requirements or qualifications –
New Proposal: A proposal submitted to a sponsor for the first time, or a
proposal being resubmitted after having been declined by a potential sponsor.
Revised Proposal:
This modifies a proposal that is pending or is otherwise unfunded, but not
official declined by the sponsor. If a proposal has been declined, a new
proposal must be prepared.
Supplemental Proposal:
A supplemental asks for an increase in support for a proposal that has already
been funded. The requested increase would occur in the current budget period and
may involve a broadening of the project's approved scope. Since additional
funding is requested, a new budget is required.
Continuation Proposal:
A continuation applies to a multi-year award. The continuation proposal requests
the already approved funds for the next phase (or next year) of the project.
Typically, sponsors require a progress report and budget before releasing
additional funds. These proposals only apply to project and budget years that
were approved by the sponsor in the original award.
Pre-proposal/Notice of
Intent: The purpose of the pre-proposal is to peak the
interest of a potential sponsor. It typically does not include a cost estimate
and is not expected to result in an award. Interested sponsors will ask for a
full proposal. Pre-proposals are usually in the form of a letter of intent or
brief abstract. After the preproposal is reviewed, the sponsor notifies the investigator
if a full proposal is warranted.
Solicited:
Solicited proposals are those that are written and submitted in response to the
issuance of a ‘Request for Proposals’ (RFP), a document that identifies a
specific research problem of interest to the funding agency for which they are
specifically seeking a solution. Interested investigator then submits a
‘concept’ or ‘white paper’ briefly outlining their proposed solution to the problem.
If the funding agency or company is interested, they may then request that the investigator
submit a full proposal for consideration of funding.
Unsolicited:
Unsolicited proposals are those proposals that are submitted by an investigator
in response to a ‘general call’ for proposals that is issued by a funding
agency or company in a field or area of study.
Renewal or Competing
Proposals: Are requests for continued support for an existing project
that is about to terminate, and, from the sponsor’s viewpoint, generally have
the same status as an unsolicited proposal. The majority of funding agencies
issue calls for proposals which have firmly established deadlines and for which
the format of the proposals is fairly well defined. Thus, it is vitally
important at the outset after you have identified a funding source that you
obtain all of the relevant information on the specific grant program and its
requirements. Today most funding agencies have searchable websites where they
post detailed information concerning their grant programs. (Kabir,
S. M. S., 2018)
2.
Types of Research Design
Types of Research Design
1. Exploratory or
Formulative Research
2. Descriptive Research
or Statistical Research
3. Explanatory Research
4. Experimental Research or Analytical Research
Exploratory Research: It
is the primary stage of research and the purpose of this research is to achieve
new insights into a phenomenon. This research is one which has the purposes of
formulating a problem for more accurate investigating a problem for more
accurate investigation or for developing a hypothesis. This is applied when
there are few or no earlier research/studies to which references can be made
for information. The focus of this research is on gaming insights and familiarity
with the subject area fair more rigorous investigation later. Exploratory
studies are usually more appropriate in case of problem about which little
research knowledge is available, for instance, there is little knowledge
available about social interaction pattern of members of a most monastery an
enterprising researcher may be interested in such a problem to obtain insights
in the face of little knowledge available about it.
Descriptive Research: It
is also known as statistical research; this describes phenomena as they exist.
It is used to identify and obtain information on characteristic of a particular
issue like community, group or people. In other words, we can say that this
type of research describes social events, social structure, social situations,
etc. The observer observes and describe what did he find? Descriptive research
answers the questions, what, who, where, how and when. It is used to study the current
situation. It is widely used in the physical and natural science. But it is
used more common in the social sciences, as in socioeconomic survey and job and
activity analysis.
Explanatory Research
Design: When the purpose of the study is to explore a new
universe, one that has not been studied earlier, the research design is
called explanatory. The research is mainly concerned with causes or „why‟ factor
about some phenomenon. It does not involve comparison and factors of
change. For instance, research on “violence against bloomed‟ conducted
by this author described not only varieties of violence like criminal assault,
lettering, kidnapping, murder, dourly death, etc. but also explain why
men commit violence because of personality traits like dominance,
suspicion, possession, etc. and situational factors like
resourcefulness, alcoholism, maladjustment strains, and stresses, and so
on. Explanatory
research also, many kinds of designs could be appropriate, e.g. two-cell,
four-cell design, marching design. The explanatory study always carries with it
a set of concepts that guide the researcher to look for the facts.
Experimental Research
Design: The Research design that is used to test a Research
Design of causal relationship under controlled situation is called
experimental design. We should remember that an experiment is an
observation under controlled conditions or in other words, we can say
that it is a design in which some of the variables being studied are
manipulated or which seek to control the condition within which persons
are observed. Controlling of conditions means that the phenomenon or the
condition should not be allowed to change while the experimentation is
going on. In experimentation, various types of evidence have to be,
controlled so that the alternative hypothesis can be tested, and causal
relationship may be found out. In short, here “control‟ means holding once
factor constant while others are free to vary in the experiment. Independent
variable are manipulated and its effect upon dependent variable is measured,
while other variables which may confound such a relationship are controlled.
Types
of Experimental Research
1. After-only
experimental design
2. Before – after
experimental design.
3. Ex-post facto design
4. Panel study (Akhtar, Inaam, 2016)
References:
· Tiwari,
P., Mishra, A. C. and Jha, A. K. (2016). Case Study as a Method for Scope
Definition. Arabian Journal of Business and A Management Review. doi:10.4172/2223-5833.S1-002.
· Memon,
A. (2019). Research proposal- procedure and components. IJCIRAS. 1(9),
46-54.
· Book
Review: Maxwell, J. A. (Ed.). (2005) Qualitative research design: An
interactive approach (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
· Akhtar
I. (2016). Research Design. Research in Social Science: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives. 68-84.
· Abdulai, R. T. and Owusu-Ansah, A. (2014). Essential
Ingredients of a Good Research Proposal for Undergraduate and Postgraduate
Students in the Social Sciences. SAGE Open.
1-15.
Retrieved from: /content/4/3/2158244014548178
doi: 10.1177/2158244014548178
· Sidik,
S. M. (2005). How to write a research proposal? The Family Physician. 13(3),30-32.
Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308915548
· Accession
on 22nd March 2021: https://www.marketing91.com/steps-in-research-design/
· Accession on 22nd March 2021:
https://www.restore.ac.uk/mrp/services/ldc/mrp/resources/resproskills/comprespro.shtml
· Kabir, S. M. S. (2016). Research proposal.
Retrieved
from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325545912
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