Guidance for Research Proposal The Advancing Professional Task 2

Methodology

Are you proposing a qualitative of quantitative approach? Why? Explain the suitability to your research question, what the benefits are and why the opposite approach would be less suitable.

Study design and methods

You need to explain how you would undertake the research and why. This should be appropriate to you research question. This should include the following

• Sampling and recruitment
  • Who is your target population? Sampling strategy.
  • Inclusion/exclusion criteria how could this affect your results if you did not do this?
  • How will you recruit participants ie where? How will you provide information? (Appendices of participant information sheets etc)
• Data collection
  • What data are you going to collect?
  • How are you going to collect your data? (Appendices of data collection tools)
  • How will you store data?
• Data analysis
  • What method are you going to use to analyse your data? Why?
  • What are the strengths and limitations of doing it this way?
  • Discuss the potential data in relation to reliability and validity or trustworthiness.

Ethics and research governance

Some of you may wish to discuss the ethical issues of your design as you write about each element above, or you may wish to include it as a separate section at this point. Points to consider are:

• Brief overview of purpose of ethics
• What do you consider the main ethical issues that may arise from your proposed research and what will you do to address these? This may relate to:
  • Considerations around who your participants are eg children, mental capacity
  • Considerations around techniques being used in the research
• Will the research generate an additional need in participants eg might your research reveal a previously undiagnosed health condition, or have the potential to cause emotional harm?
• How will you ensure confidentiality of personal data?
• Relevant UREC process (Appendix of completed UREC form). Do you need to consider any other ethical processes?

Implications for practice

This section is for highlighting the potential value/implications of your proposed work:

• How does this work aim to add to the body of knowledge on the topic?
• Does this fill a gap in knowledge, add a new perspective, reinforce existing knowledge?
• What unanswered questions might remain?
• How could your work inform future research eg could larger studies be planned?

Timeline

You need to provide a plan for how you would undertake the proposed research. This should be realistic. A Gantt chart is helpful for this.

Appendices

These will depend on the nature of your proposed project. These should be attached in the order that you refer to them in your work. Potential documents you need to include are:

• Participant information sheet
• Participant consent form
• Recruitment documents (eg template letter, flyer, e-mail)
• Data collection tools (any validated tools that you are using, topic guides, questionnaires)
• Completed ethics form (UREC 1, UREC 2, UREC 3 or UREC 4)