Final Project: Qualitative Research Proposal:
As a part of this course you are required to complete a qualitative research proposal. Depending on your purpose and audience, you may take a basic or applied approach to the proposed research project. The objective is to develop a draft proposal that might be instructive for future
dissertation research, advance qualitative research courses, and professional endeavors, as well as other purposes.
In no more than 8-10 pages (double-spaced), please include the following sections in your final research proposal:
I. Title page—the title should be descriptive, identifying the topic of your proposed study and the most important variables/concepts involved. The title page should include a running head, page number, article title, author name and course number/title (APA format).
II. Introduction (1 –1 ½ pages)
1. Background of the Research Interest:
What is the general context of your research interest? What is the personal context of your interest in this study? How will your study contribute to this literature? What did you hope to learn? What is the “so what”? What makes your study important and unique?
2. Research Purpose and Research Questions:
III. Theoretical/Conceptual Framework & Literature Review (3 – 3½ pages)
3. Theoretical Framework & Literature Review: What are the substantive theories, if any, that informed your work? What scholarly literature informs this work? What do we already know from research about this problem? What are the gaps/openings in the literature?
IV. Methodology (4 – 5 pages)
4. Epistemology and Methodology:
Describe the epistemological underpinning of your proposed study, as well as the
methodology.
5. Site of Research: Describe the site where you will be working. Why this site and not another? What is your rationale for selecting this site?
6. Sample and Sample Selection: Who are your participants? What is your rationale for selecting these participants? What are your selection criteria? What is your rationale for selecting these people and not others?
7. Methods of Data Collection and Analysis: What are the specific methods you will use to generate the data in order to answer your research questions? Describe your analytic process.
8. Validity: What do you see as the most important potential threats to the validity (i.e., trustworthiness) of your conclusions? What will you do to address these?
V. References
Be sure to utilize and cite relevant sources from the research literature and course readings in completing this assignment.
