{"id":269,"date":"2019-11-14T15:17:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T20:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=269"},"modified":"2025-08-14T16:24:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:24:51","slug":"introduction-to-developing-a-research-proposal","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/chapter\/introduction-to-developing-a-research-proposal\/","title":{"raw":"6.1 Introduction to Developing a Research Proposal","rendered":"6.1 Introduction to Developing a Research Proposal"},"content":{"raw":"A research proposal is generally a requirement in a third-year psychology or sociology methods course because it teaches students how to investigate an area of interest, design a research methodology, and communicate ideas through a detailed report. A research proposal is the starting point for what may later become an honours thesis or an advanced independent study project. The proposal includes a working title, an introduction and literature review, a method section, an anticipated outcome section, and prospective references. Since it includes all the main research components except for the collection, analysis, and discussion of actual data, a research proposal may be sent to a research ethics board or a funding agency for consideration before the study commences. This chapter describes the main parts of a research proposal and outlines ethical concerns involving research with human participants.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1016\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]<img class=\"wp-image-1016\" src=\"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/photos\/idea-solution-think-symbol-3839482\/\">Image<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/thedigitalartist-202249\/\">TheDigitalArtist<\/a> under a <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/service\/license\/\">Pixabay License<\/a>.[\/caption]","rendered":"<p>A research proposal is generally a requirement in a third-year psychology or sociology methods course because it teaches students how to investigate an area of interest, design a research methodology, and communicate ideas through a detailed report. A research proposal is the starting point for what may later become an honours thesis or an advanced independent study project. The proposal includes a working title, an introduction and literature review, a method section, an anticipated outcome section, and prospective references. Since it includes all the main research components except for the collection, analysis, and discussion of actual data, a research proposal may be sent to a research ethics board or a funding agency for consideration before the study commences. This chapter describes the main parts of a research proposal and outlines ethical concerns involving research with human participants.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1016\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1016\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1016\" src=\"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-65x43.jpg 65w, https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-225x150.jpg 225w, https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640-350x234.jpg 350w, https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/11\/idea-3839482_640.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1016\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/photos\/idea-solution-think-symbol-3839482\/\">Image<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/thedigitalartist-202249\/\">TheDigitalArtist<\/a> under a <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/service\/license\/\">Pixabay License<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-269","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":76,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/269\/revisions\/1018"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/76"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/269\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openbooks.macewan.ca\/navigatingsocialscience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}