Once you've selected the problem you plan to study, you can profit from casting it in a form appropriate for submitting it to your advisors. Although professors may not all agree on exactly what should be in your proposal, most of them will at least want a clear statement of your research problem, your reasons for choosing it, and a concise description of how you hope to find a solution. They also may want to know how you define the key terms that are at the heart of your project. Chapter 6 addresses these matters in the following order: (a) stating the problem to be investigated, (b) defining key terms, (c) supporting your choice of a topic with a convincing line of reasoning, and (d) briefly describing your intended research methods.

STATING YOUR RESEARCH PROBLEM

Two popular ways to state a research problem are as a question and as a hypothesis. To illustrate, consider three graduate student projects. The first concerns academic aptitude, the second family functions, and the third political theory.By casting a problem in the form of a question, the researcher suggests the kind of answer being sought, with that suggestion then serving to guide decisions about the methods of investigation to employ.

A hypothesis represents a probable answer to the research question, but the probability that the answer is correct still needs to be tested through further investigation.

Now, which of these approaches is preferable--a question or a hypothesis? In what circumstances is one better than the other?There are at least two conditions under which you might favor the hypothesis over the question. One is when there is good reason to believe that a proposed solution to the research issue is correct, but that belief still needs to be corroborated or refuted by evidence. The other is when you intend to apply a statistical test to the data you collect, and casting the problem as a hypothesis renders statistical testing more convenient.However, the vast majority of problems can be expressed as questions that involve who, how, which, why, what, when, where, how much, how frequently, or several of these.

DEFINING KEY TERMS

Synonyms

At first glance it might seem that a synonym could clarify the meaning assumed for a key word or phrase. However, for the precision needed in research, synonyms rarely suffice, because too frequently they carry as many different meanings--or as many vague meanings--as the words they are supposed to elucidate. In the main, the only occasions on which synonyms are suitable are ones in which a new, unfamiliar word can be adequately clarified with a familiar word or phrase. This can occur with places ( Kalimantan= Borneo, Vanuatu= New Hebrides, Myanmar= Burma), people ( Muhammad Ali= Cassius Clay), institutions or agencies ( State Department=foreign relations department), or conditions (Downs' syndrome=mongolism).

Sentence Descriptions

Sentence definitions often contain words that require further clarification in the form of additional sentences. Such is true of the terms high school students and later success in college in the first of our examples. It is also the case with Mexican heritage and related by blood in the second example and forms of advertising and active party workers in the third example.Sometimes it is desirable to tell not only what a key word is intended to mean, but also to explain what it is not intended to include. The purpose is to rule out unintended meanings that readers might reasonably assume unless they are told otherwise.

Shared Experiences

Sentence definitions can sometimes be usefully enhanced with lifelike examples that serve as clarifying experiences shared by author and reader.

Operational Definitions

Defining a key term operationally consists of specifying the techniques used for measuring or assessing the characteristic that the term signifies.

Conclusion

It is not necessary to limit yourself to only one of the above ways of defining terms. You may often find it best to cast one definition as a sentence, another as several sentences elaborated with lifelike examples, and a third as the procedures used for measuring the variable that is being defined. Which methods you choose can depend on (a) which type you believe will be most precisely understood by readers and (b) which type guides you most accurately in selecting datagathering techniques and interpreting the data.

PROVIDING A RATIONALE

A rationale typically consists of a line of reasoning that performs two principal functions. It describes a context within which to locate the intended project and suggests why doing such a study is worthwhile. A further function can be that of justifying the methods you plan to use for solving your research problem.

Roles for the Rationale

The rationale plays a role at two stages of your project: (a) when you first submit your research proposal to your advisors for their advice and approval and (b) when you write your final version of the thesis or dissertation so readers will understand the contribution to knowledge or the contribution to practice that your work represents.  

Placing your work in context

Locating your study in a context consists of identifying a domain of life into which the research fits. One popular way to accomplish this is to introduce a label that you assume is familiar to your readers. Labels can be on different levels of specificity. To illustrate, for our hypothetical study of Mexican-American families, consider three alternatives that descend from the general to the specific. The first label--social change--places your work within a very broad field. The second--family structure--identifies a more limited realm. The third-trends in family structure and function among Mexican-Americans--represents a very narrow field, indeed. Your rationale might start with the label that signifies the field in which you think your work belongs.

Among theories of social change, the most prominent types . . . .

The literature on family structure can be divided into . . . .

Investigations of trends in family structure and function among MexicanAmericans treat such issues as . . . .

Your next task is that of showing how your project fits into the selected realm. Here is one way that could be done for the second option--family structure.

The literature on family structure can be divided into six categories focusing on (1) family members' roles, (2) types of human needs met within different family structures, (3) nuclear and extended forms of family, (4) lineage and governance (i.e. patrilineal, matrilineal), (5) explanations of family structural change over time, and (6) cross-cultural comparisons. The present study links the second and fifth of these categories by addressing the question: What changes have occurred in the structure and functions of Mexican-American families during the twentieth century, and what trends do such changes reflect? In addition, by centering attention on a particular ethnic group--Mexican-Americans--the study provides material useful to people interested in the last of the categories, that of cross-cultural comparisons.

Identifying your intended contribution

Perhaps the most important function of an author's rationale is the explanation of how the project can contribute to knowledge (basic research that corrects or expands people's understanding of the world) and/or to practice (applied research that improves the conduct of some aspect of life). This function is typically performed by the author's identifying shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge or practice that could be remedied by the proposed research. As noted, contributions can be of various kinds, including

Evidence about kinds of events, individuals, groups, or institutions not studied before

Outcomes derived from applying existing theories or methods of investigation to events, individuals, groups, or institutions not yet studied in such a fashion

The use of new data-gathering methods or instruments for studying phenomena

A novel theoretical view of familiar events

New interpretations of existing data

Conclusions drawn from combining the results of similar studies (meta-analysis)

The following examples illustrate two ways of wording research proposals so that they (a) specify the question to be answered, (b) locate the study in a domain of knowledge or practice, and (c) identify the study's intended contribution.

The first description begins with the domain of the project (cognitive development), then cites a shortcoming in the literature related to a particular theory within that domain. The author ends the proposal by specifying the research question, which implies what the project should contribute to the body of knowledge about cognitive development.

In L. S. Vygotsky's theory of children's cognitive development, a feature that has attracted increasing attention among psychologists and educators has been his zone of proximal development, which can be defined as "the set of actions that the child can perform when helped by another person, but which are not yet available to the child in his individual acting" ( Valsiner, 1987, p. 233). Although Vygotsky's proposing such a zone has been widely praised, the present writer's survey of the literature on learning suggests that very little is known about how to recognize when a child has entered such a zone of readiness for instruction. But if the people who bear responsibility for children's learning are to profit from the notion of a zone of proximal development, they need guidance in how to recognize when a child is within that zone. The purpose of this dissertation is to help fulfill that need by seeking answers to three questions: (1) What are the potential indicators of the zone of proximal development? (2) How accurately can each indicator predict a learner's readiness to acquire a particular skill or type of knowledge? (3) Which characteristics of teaching methods are most effective for promoting learning in the zone of proximal development?

The second example opens with the research problem, cast in the form of a hypothesis, which is followed by the domain of knowledge (social stratification) and a rationale suggesting how the author's project could add to that domain. The proposal has been rendered more elaborate than the cognitive-development example by this author's bolstering the presentation with several citations from the professional literature and defining two key terms.

This thesis is designed to test the hypothesis that the class structure of a society is a social construction which is perceived differently (a) by people at different levels of the structure and (b) by different age cohorts.

My aim in conducting such an investigation is to help settle a controversy in the field of social stratification about the defining characteristics of social-class structures. A large body of theory and empirical research has been devoted to identifying dimensions of social class ( Allsworth, 1973; Bennel & Masovic, 1967; Garcia, 1982; Mendoza, 1990; Swenson, 1986). However, the issue of how people in the social system perceive the structure continues to be muddled and controversial ( Johnson & Haxton, 1996; Pontius, 1992). Furthermore, there is a lack of information about how the variable age-cohort may influence perceptions of class. My intention is to help clarify these matters by studying social-class perceptions of residents of the city of Mapleton.

For the purpose of this thesis, the concepts social construction and age cohorts are defined in the following manner:

Social construction refers to the belief that social class is not an objective reality, in the sense of a necessary relationship among people based on their possessions, abilities, or accomplishments. Instead, social class is an agreement (a mental construction) among people about (a) where individuals belong in terms of their relative prestige and (b) the characteristics that contribute to that prestige.

The term age cohort refers to the period of time (such as the year or cluster of a few years) during which a particular group of people were born. For example, all persons who are now age 14 form one cohort, and all who are now age 27 form another.

Describing your data collection methods

Some faculty advisors will be satisfied to have you submit your proposed study initially as a topic and a rationale, as illustrated in the cognitivedevelopment and social-stratification examples. But before giving final approval to your plan, they will usually wish to learn what methods you intend to use for collecting and analyzing your data. This means that you may wish to submit your proposal in two stages.

The first stage consists of describing your research question and supporting that choice with a rationale. Your intention at this juncture is to solicit your advisor's opinion about the suitability of your topic before you go to the trouble of working out a data-gathering plan. Then, if your topic and its rationale are judged acceptable--either in their original state or in a revised version--you move ahead to specifying your methodology. At the first stage, your advisor may wish to suggest which methods will and which will not be suitable for answering your particular research questions. Subsequently, in the second phase of your submission on a later occasion, you describe your intended data-gathering techniques and perhaps the mode of interpretation you hope to employ.

However, at the time that you first submit your proposal, some advisors will want you to specify your methodology as well as your topic and supporting rationale. The following excerpt illustrates one way that might be done. In this example the author (a) begins by identifying a domain (high school vocational counseling), (b) then explains that his intended contribution consists of a theory generated out of other researchers' work (cited in brackets) and that the project is designed to test hypotheses derived from that theory, and (c) finishes by describing the intended methods of data-gathering and interpretation. In this instance, the research question (Why do the effects of high school vocational counseling on students' subsequent careers vary from one school to another?) is implied rather than stated outright.

Writers have often proposed that the influence of high schools' vocational counseling procedures on students' subsequent careers varies among schools, but none has offered a compelling theory for why such effects occur [ Lindsey, 1994; Hanks, Stuart, & Alpert, 1995; Risutto, 1995]. I use existing knowledge about counseling effects to develop hypotheses for between-school differences in counseling outcomes. Building on the work of Stevens [ 1987], I argue that the impact of vocational counseling varies according to the vocational opportunities in the community. I also consider claims that counseling produces different effects in public and private schools [ Galloway & Burton, 1987; Portia & Vandenberg, 1990]. I plan to test these hypotheses by applying methods of multi-level contextual analysis to data on vocational counseling and later job placement in a national sample of high schools.

A Final Comment

In order to cover a lot of ground and offer diverse examples within the space of a few pages, we have described research problems and their rationales in an unrealistically brief form. In actual theses and dissertation proposals, such descriptions are far more detailed. To show how a more true-to-life, extensive proposal looks, we have included in the appendix at the end of this volume the outline of a dissertation proposal by Robin Ganzert.

PLANNING CHECKLIST

In planning your thesis or dissertation, you may find it helpful to answer the following queries: