Research 101 · Module 4
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Research proposal template
Seven sections that have to agree with each other. If the method does not answer the question, nothing else matters.
1 · Title
Say what you are studying and in whom. "Screen time and sleep in Grade 11 students" beats "The Digital Night".
2 · Research question
One sentence, ending in a question mark. Everything below exists to answer it.
- Question:
3 · Background (half a page)
What is already known, with three to five real sources, and the gap your project sits in. End with: "No one has yet…"
4 · Method
- Design: survey, experiment, interviews, secondary data, computation or simulation, and why.
- Participants or materials: who or what, how many, how chosen.
- Measures: exactly what you record and with what tool.
- Analysis: what you will do with the numbers or words once you have them.
5 · Ethics
Consent, privacy, risk. Who checked your plan. If there is genuinely no ethical concern, say why in one line.
6 · Timeline
Weeks, not months. Double whatever you think data collection will take; it always runs long.
7 · Expected results and limitations
What you think you will find, what it would mean, and the biggest reason you might be wrong.
The five questions a professor will ask
- Why does this question matter to anyone but you?
- How do you know your measure actually measures that?
- What else could explain the result?
- Is your sample big enough to say anything?
- What will you do if it does not work?