Components of a Proposal (Part 2)

6. Research Questions

The research problem can be expressed as a question in both qualitative and quantitative studies, and often the question form of the problem is preferred because it is simple and expressive, since it leads the researcher to answer these questions.

The research questions can be divided into three categories:

A – Descriptive Questions: By descriptive questions we mean questions like “What is it?” and “How does it work?”. For example, regarding the achievement of middle school students in s specific district of a city who participated in a test, we can say: What is the level of academic achievement of middle school students in subordinate districts of Tehran province?

B- Questions Regarding the Relationships: This group of questions consider the relationship of two or more variables. For example, what is the relationship between the concept of self and academic achievement?

1. Questions Regarding the Differences: These questions deal with the different levels of variables and are usually expressed like the following example:

Is there a difference between the academic achievement of girls and boys in middle school?

7.Research Hypotheses

Research hypotheses are rational estimations that the researcher has about two or more variables of his research. Research hypotheses should be informative and reflect the expected results of the research. For example: “There is a positive relationship between the concept of self and academic achievement”.

A hypothesis is never proved or refuted, but only confirmed or rejected based on the obtained data. Hypotheses are logical conjectures. The empirical evidence enables the researcher to conclude that his statement is probably correct and can be reasonably accepted.

8. Literature Review

Every research falls under the same category as the previous similar ones. Therefore, the researcher should study the related literature to validate her/his research by making references to them.  When writing this section, you should:

• Know the framework of the problem
• Demonstrate the similarities and differences of the current research with the previous ones
• Acquire information about the previous tested methods
• Use the information provided by the previous research
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of previous research

First part : Components of a Proposal