How to write your thesis proposal

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How to write your thesis proposal final paper

• Dr C Gabrielle Salfati

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• These guidelines will
• Give you an example of what a proposal looks
  like
  
• Outline what goes in to each section in the
  thesis
  
• Show you how to make a logical development of a
  research question
  
• The most important thing to keep in mind is
• A thesis is a well told story, and each good
  story has a good plot, which is developed
  throughout the story, so STRUCTURE is key to a
  well-written thesis.

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The Research Proposal

• The first part of your thesis will be your
  RESEARCH PROPOSAL. You will need to pass this in
  order to continue on and complete the actual
  thesis research itself.
• The next section will show you what is required
  in a thesis proposal, and will guide you through
  how to complete it to the level required.

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The Research Proposal
The research proposal consists of the first 4
sections
of your thesis.

• 1 page introduction to your topic
• Justify the need for your specific study by
  writing a 1 page introduction to your thesis
  
• An outline of your literature review
• What is known about topic
• What is lacking
• Show how your study aims are based on an
  evaluation of the lit review
  
• Your specific aims
• Your methodology section
• Participants and access thereof
• Data collection method
• Design of materials (questionnaire, details of
  coding dictionary etc)
  
• Analysis to be done
• Ethical considerations
• An IRB proposal if one is needed

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An Example of a Proposal

• The following slides will give you a step by step
  guide to how to complete each section of the
  thesis

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YOUNG PEOPLE WHO SEXUALLY ABUSE

• An Example of a
• Research Proposal Outline

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Setting the scene Your 1-page introduction
What information should be included?
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Setting the scene Your 1-page introduction

• Since the 1990s there has been a growing
  awareness in the UK that children and young
  people under 18 years, sexually abuse (Erooga
  1999).
• State the problem
• Recent research in the UK (National Childrens
  Homes, 1992) has shown that this group provides
  an alarming 30 of the yearly figure for all
  sexual offences.
• Put a figure on it
• Despite these figures, an investigation
  undertaken by the Home Office (1998) into the
  services for sex offenders found that the largest
  and most problematic gap was in the provision for
  youth sex offenders.
• Reiterate the problem in light of the figures
• Sanders (1999) survey of practitioners further
  highlights that most practitioners in the field
  found themselves immobilised by the lack of
  specific knowledge on youth sex offenders.
• Put it in a practical context

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Lit review
What information should be included?
How should it be structured?
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Lit review

• Each main point/research highlighted in the
  1-page introduction should be a separate section
  in the lit review, where you go into the research
  that has dealt with this point.
• Include what we know (i.e what other studies have
  done) and what we dont know (i.e. what issues
  have not been solved satisfactorily in the
  literature. Which gives you an opportunity to
  use this as a justification for why you are
  taking one or more of these points nad doing a
  study investigating them).
• The most important thing is to make sure that
• Everything that goes in, is DIRECTLY relevant to
  the question (make sure you have a very specific
  thesis title in order to define the issue you are
  looking at it will help you be more specific in
  your literature search, and will help you
  structure the literature review. You can always
  change it later if need be)

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Lit review

• Start with a lead-in (a summary of what we know
  and what we dont know), e.g.
  
• Models (e.g. Finkelhor 1984 Lane and Zamora
  1982) have been developed to explain adult sexual
  offending. However, nothing comparable exists for
  youth sex offending. Most professionals working
  with young people thus find themselves adapting
  models of adult sex offending in order to deal
  with children, which is inappropriate and largely
  ineffective.

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• Include an overview of the models that ARE being
  used (ie the adult ones) and highlight what we
  can take from there to go on to develop models
  for young offenders.
• If there is any research on young offenders that
  can be used to understand the issues better, give
  a brief overview of these as well, e.g.
  
• The research carried out so far in this area has
  mainly been exploratory and descriptive.
  

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• Then use this as a stepping stone to highlight to
  what your project is going to deal with (aims),
  e.g.
  
• This project will involve classifying the large
  heterogeneous population of youth sex
  perpetrators into meaningful subgroups from
  which, common factors and psychological processes
  that contribute to their sexual aggression, can
  be observed. This will inform practitioners about
  the aetiology and developmental courses of these
  young people, and will allow them to apply the
  most effective and tailored treatment plans to
  each group.
• Make sure that this aim goes full circle to
  tackle the main problem exposed in the first
  paragraph which set the scene.
  

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Aims
What information should be included?
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Aims

• State the exact research aims/hypothesis in this
  section
  
• Be clear and concise

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The Methodology Section

• This section should detail how you intend to
  answer the questions you have laid out in your
  aims.
  
• You need to think about what the most appropriate
  data source would be (files, people to interview
  etc), and how you would access it (this is the
  time to think about things like ethical approval
  and IRB)
• You need to think about how you will collect the
  information, i.e. using a coding dictionary (a
  list of variables), and interview schedule (a
  list of questions), a survey etc.
• You need to think about what the
  advantages/disadvantages are of this data source
  (e.g. is it a representative sample, is it a
  biased sample, is it a small sample etc)
• You need to describe your data collection method
  in detail, and justify it in terms of how well it
  will help you collect the necessary information
  needed to answer your questions.
• And finally, you need to talk about what types of
  analyses is the most appropriate to do in order
  to answer your aims.

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Data
What information should be included?
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Data

• What types of cases will be used (i.e. cases
  files of young sexual abusers)
  
• How will you access them, and have you already
  made contact with the relevant agencies (i.e.
  what are the chances that you will access this
  information)
• Why are you using the sources/agencies you are
  (justification)
  
• What are you collecting, e.g.
• Information will be collected in order to reflect
  a wide range of important factors which the
  interpersonal violence literature has highlighted
  is important in terms of understanding sex
  offending, and specifically youth sex offending.
  These include
• The situational factors that led to the events
• Relationships between the perpetrator and the
  victim
  
• The nature of the dynamics between the
  perpetrator and the victim
  
• The actual behavioural compositions of the
  events
  
• The characteristics of the perpetrators and
  victims

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Data Analysis
What information should be included?
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Data Analysis

• What analysis will be done
• Why are you choosing methods you are
• How can this analysis answer your questions

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Ethical Considerations

• State how you will deal with any ethical
  issues/concerns

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In order to pass the thesis proposal (it is a
pass or fail), the following needs to be included

• Clear research question, that is relevant and
  do-able
  
• Thorough review, and understanding, of
  appropriate, most relevant literature (and any
  linked literature if needed), to back research
  question, and presented in a logical manner
• Choice of most appropriate research methodology
  for study, and thorough understanding of what is
  needed in order to produce valid and reliable
  study
• Clear description of methodology, and thorough
  research of data collection measures, linking
  this clearly to the aims of the study
  
• Appropriate selection of participant and a clear
  understanding of ethical issues
  
• Good reflection of what analysis is most
  appropriate for aims and for methodology

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You have now completed the thesis proposal

• What happens next?.....

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• Once you have completed, and passed, the proposal
  stage, you are then ready to do your data
  collection and then your data analysis.
  
• The tighter your proposal is, the clearer you
  will be about what the main issues are to your
  research, and the easier it will be for you to
  complete the rest of the thesis.

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Writing your results section

• Your results section should follow the same
  structure as your aims section
  
• which should follow the same structure of the
  lit review
  
• which should follow the same structure as the
  introduction
  
• remember structure is key to a well
  written thesis!

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• Each aim should be a separate section of your
  results.
  
• And each should start with re-iterating the aim,
  and why you are looking at that aim. You should
  then bring in the issues from the methodology
  section which was aimed at that particular aim,
  i.e. if you collected a certain number of
  variables relating to this specific aim, state
  that the results will focus on these variables,
  and re-iterate why again..
• Then you talk about what analysis was done, and
  here you re-iterate why you chose that specific
  type of analysis (i.e. because it was the best
  suited for what you needed to do)
• Then you outline your results, using tables or
  figures where necessary.
  
• For a real-world study (versus experimental
  studies where you tend to wait until the
  discussion section to do this), it then makes
  more sense for you to summarise the results at
  the end of this section, and talk about what your
  results mean (in terms of answering your aim).
• Then you move on to the next aim, start a new
  results section, and go through the whole process
  again.
  
• Once you have completed all the necessary
  sections, you should then have one big summary
  section at the end of the results section where
  you highlight the key findings OVERALL.

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The discussion/conclusion section

• The last section of your thesis is the
  discussion. Here you go beyond your study, and
  what you found (remember you have already
  talked about this in the results section) to talk
  about what the WIDER implications of your study
  is to the field as a whole i.e. has your study
  managed to deal with some of those key issues you
  mentioned in your 1-page introduction?
• By making the link to the start of your thesis,
  you have now come full circle.

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• Once you have talked about the theoretical
  implications of your study, you should then talk
  about
  
• Any methodological problems you had (and that you
  have identified as interfering with your
  results), and how future studies may avoid them
  
• Any further research questions that came up as
  being important, and that other people in the
  future may want to deal with in order to fully
  explore the area
• And any practical implications (if relevant) of
  your theoretical results.

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Finally

• Things not to forget to add at the end
• References (APA style)
• Any appendices