Effective Research Design and Planning: Unveiling Unknowns

A research is designed to answer a specific question, whose answer is not known. It could be about what causes the diseases (e.g. diabetes, or cancer, etc.) or any social problem (such as homelessness, drug abuse and binge drinking, crime etc.), OR it could be which intervention works. For example, does need exchange stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. Or effectiveness of a policy, e.g. Does the family engagement and safeguarding policy help to prevent genital mutilation among at risk girls?

a)Define the topic you want to study (for example if your topic is dementia, then define what is dementia. If it is homelessness, then define what is meant by homelessness)

b)Describe the scale or burden of the problem. This is normally in terms of statistics or numbers. For example, if your topic is dementia, then discuss how many people are affected by or have dementia in the UK or/and globally? What age group is this disease most common, which gender, which ethnic group, which socio-economic class etc.

c)If your topic is about risk factors, then you can discuss the type of interventions on the disease

d)If your topic is interventions, then you can discuss risk factors of the disease.

e)Problem statement: Describe what is the question the research wants to answer

f)Aims and objectives of the study

Describe your proposed research aim (s) e.g. This research aims to explore……….. in order to answer the question………/ Objectives or research question (s)

2.Chapter 2: Literature Review

a)Background and rationale of the research

i.Make the literature review a case so you can justify your proposed research

ii.Provide summary of research articles that you have reviewed.

b)Draw your “Conceptual Framework” ( You can use a framework from the articles that you reviewed or create your own based on your understanding of the factors and the aim of your proposed research)

c)Find a gap in the research articles and make your case based on that

d)Rationale for conducting the research (also called Justification) (what would be the contribution of the research towards the research problem)

a)Study design and Data collection

i.What type of research (Primary studies include qualitative/quantitative/both), will be applied? Secondary studies include Reviews

ii.What methods of data collection will be utilised?

·For secondary studies; use of online databases such as google scholar or Ebscohot etc.

·For primary studies data collection methods include surveys using a questionnaire (face-to-face/ semi-structured interview, participant observation, questionnaires.)

iii.Why do you choose specific method of data collection?

iv.How to do you select potential participants

v.How many participants would be recruited to your proposed research?

(If you are doing a secondary research describe what articles you will be interested in. Articles which includes which type of perticipants, of which age group etc)

b)Data Analysis

i.How you will analyse the data/material once they have been collected

ii.What are the Expected outcome(s) for your study? Focus of the outcomes that will answer your proposed research question

iii.Biases and limitations Do you anticipate any challenges/ limitations for your proposed research?

·What would be the strength of your proposed research?

·Any weaknesses in your planned research, and how will you plan to overcome them?

·Are there any biases? e.g. observation bias…

c)Ethical considerations

i.Ethical considerations that are likely to be involved in the study

ii.Will you need ethical approval?  (will usually be from the university’s ethics committee).

iii.Do you plan to obtain participants consent (e.g. children under 18, Individuals with a learning disability, individuals suffering from dementia, prisoners, young offenders (16-21 years old), elderly persons, individuals without legal capacity to consent, specific ethnic groups)?

iv.Who do you include in your research?

v.Who will be excluded from your research

vi.What steps will be taken to safeguard the anonymity and confidentiality of the participant’s records?

NB: For secondary research, ethical considerations may include things like whether the review followed the standard methods for literature search, data analysis and other issues relevant to conducting reviews

d) Project timeline (Gant chart)

i.Draw a chart and give yourself a timeline to conduct a research. In other words, you should include an outline of the various stages and corresponding time lines for conducting the research.