For those who have done a research proposal before, can you please help me? My head hurts

[WestWorld]

Hi! So for one of my classes, I am required to do a research proposal. I'm a bit nervous because I'm not that good with coming up with questions. There are some subjects that I'm really interested in. Can you just check and see if it's okay to put it as a research proposal (like if I worded it correctly and if it's stated clearly as my professor wants it to be sorry it's sometimes hard to explain what I want lol English isn't my first language).

 

This is what my professor want us to do for our first assignment:

 

Write a clearly stated research question. Check for clarity and focus of the problem.

 

To determine if your problem is viable, ask yourself the following questions: Is the problem encapsulated in a single question? Is it clear that this problem can be approached through social science research (instead of theoretical or speculative reasoning or natural science methodology)? Is it clear that you have no bias as you study this problem? If you were going to study this problem for real, could it be accomplished with reasonable expenditure of time and money? Refine your research question after you have considered these questions.

 

Look at your research question and reflect on the following questions: Does it have potential for providing important information? Good research problems are usually more complex than yes/no questions. Is it focused enough that you could design a research proposal that would address your question and provide answers? Write a short justification for your problem and cite at least two previous research studies to support your claim.

 

At the bottom of the paragraph, include full references of the previous research in APA style.

 

 

 

Some subjects that I was interested in doing for my research proposal:

 

1.Depression and other mental disorders amongst Asian-Americans

 

2. The impact of media on terrorism

 

3.Effects of racial identity on police brutality

 

4.How social media can isolate us (or maybe a topic on social media and how it can affect intimate relationship)

 

5.Male Victims of sexual assault (how can I state this better..I want to do research on why male victims aren't taken as seriously as women, similarities and differences of the consequences on male and female victims, etc)

 

 

Also, if you have any other advice please let me know! Thank you so much in advance ^^

[Proxima Midnight]

twerking

[yunhae_yunhae]

I think >> 2. The impact of media on terrorism is your best bet. I think you would be able to address/answer all of those points/questions by doing this topic


In theory >>> 4.How social media can isolate us sounds like a good idea, but to me it seems like one of those questions that sound great at first but when you actually try to start on it it's actually really difficult to argue without it being opinion based

 

 

My tip to you (from my own painful experiences) would be to make sure you are 100% sure of the question/topic you want to address before starting. I can't tell you how many times I would change essay question, it even became a running joke amongst my friends.....

[WestWorld]

I think >> 2. The impact of media on terrorism is your best bet. I think you would be able to address/answer all of those points/questions by doing this topic

 

 

In theory >>> 4.How social media can isolate us sounds like a good idea, but to me it seems like one of those questions that sound great at first but when you actually try to start on it it's actually really difficult to argue without it being opinion based

 

 

My tip to you (from my own painful experiences) would be to make sure you are 100% sure of the question/topic you want to address before starting. I can't tell you how many times I would change essay question, it even became a running joke amongst my friends.....

Thank you so much! I agree that choosing can be really difficult. I'm going to try to find more research articles on that subject before I put it down thank you so so so much for your input!!!

[Jiraishin]

Good research questions usually explore the HOW, rather than looking for Yes or No questions (because in the latter case you're already assuming something from the start). The way I see it, you need to take something that is a given, and look at it at a much closer view, asking why and how, researching the components and establishing correlations between those components. Also, try not to ask something very general, try to zoom in and make your question specific.

 

 -The impact of media on terrorism - So here you're basically stating that there is an impact, only you want to know the form and magnitude of that impact?

 

-How social media can isolate us - It sounds a bit judgmental and subjective in my view. 

 

If you want to research social media, for example, try to zoom in on a certain social media platform, on a certain range of ages, population and etc. Think of existing research papers you can use to back you up or be your contra, or something you try to disprove. 

[Llydia]

All i know is that if you go for #4, please define what you mean by social media as well as the type of relationship. And be more specific if possible.

 

For example, i wrote a research proposal paper about

'how does facebook affect the satisfaction in interpersonal (romantic? Family? Etc) relationships?'

Then you can explore social penetration theory, lack of/supplemental face to face interaction, self disclosure, relationship maintenance, jealousy, anxiety, trust issues/surveillance & a bunch of other shit and how each category relates to satisfaction in the relationship. You can also propose using already existing scales (like jealousy scale and self disclosure scale) to get your numbers. You can propose to conduct tests by surveys or whatever.

For time and money, if you know anything about how they conduct studies, you can say it will take X amount of time because we plan to do a X type of survey. We wish to survey these people for this long and give some reasonable amount.

 

Im probably forgetting some other stuff but its been a while since ive written such a paper lol

[WestWorld]

Good research questions usually explore the HOW, rather than looking for Yes or No questions (because in the latter case you're already assuming something from the start). The way I see it, you need to take something that is a given, and look at it at a much closer view, asking why and how, researching the components and establishing correlations between those components. Also, try not to ask something very general, try to zoom in and make your question specific.

 

-The impact of media on terrorism - So here you're basically stating that there is an impact, only you want to know the form and magnitude of that impact?

 

-How social media can isolate us - It sounds a bit judgmental and subjective in my view.

 

If you want to research social media, for example, try to zoom in on a certain social media platform, on a certain range of ages, population and etc. Think of existing research papers you can use to back you up or be your contra, or something you try to disprove.

Wow thank you for your wonderful advice!!! It really helped me see it in a clearer way. Considering the recent and past events, for mass media and terrorism, would it be better to talk about how the mass media negatively influenced the public's perceptions on foreigners, specifically from the Middle East? I found some articles that also shows some research data on how the public shows more anxiety and fear towards foreign countries and the negative attitudes they have

[WestWorld]

All i know is that if you go for #4, please define what you mean by social media as well as the type of relationship. And be more specific if possible.

 

For example, i wrote a research proposal paper about

'how does facebook affect the satisfaction in interpersonal (romantic? Family? Etc) relationships?'

Then you can explore social penetration theory, lack of/supplemental face to face interaction, self disclosure, relationship maintenance, jealousy, anxiety, trust issues/surveillance & a bunch of other shit and how each category relates to satisfaction in the relationship. You can also propose using already existing scales (like jealousy scale and self disclosure scale) to get your numbers. You can propose to conduct tests by surveys or whatever.

For time and money, if you know anything about how they conduct studies, you can say it will take X amount of time because we plan to do a X type of survey. We wish to survey these people for this long and give some reasonable amount.

 

Im probably forgetting some other stuff but its been a while since ive written such a paper lol

 

Wow thank you so so so much! There were several ideas that I had involving social media. I was trying to find research data on the connection between self esteem/depression and maybe something like the amount of likes on Instagram, how using mobile phone decreases communication in person and the negative effects of it, and there was something similar about Facebook and jealousy in terms of romantic relationship. Maybe isolation wasn't the right word to use?

[Jiraishin]

Wow thank you for your wonderful advice!!! It really helped me see it in a clearer way. Considering the recent and past events, for mass media and terrorism, would it be better to talk about how the mass media negatively influenced the public's perceptions on foreigners, specifically from the Middle East? I found some articles that also shows some research data on how the public shows more anxiety and fear towards foreign countries and the negative attitudes they have

Those articles you found could really help. You can use it to back up your main topic, that there is a change in perception on the actual surface, and then you can dive into the factors to this change, and bring the mass media and its effect on the situation. Maybe looking at who it affects more, what type of media, fake news, real news, biased news, no news at all and etc. Heck, you can combine it with social media research too =)

[Llydia]

Wow thank you so so so much! There were several ideas that I had involving social media. I was trying to find research data on the connection between self esteem/depression and maybe something like the amount of likes on Instagram, how using mobile phone decreases communication in person and the negative effects of it, and there was something similar about Facebook and jealousy in terms of romantic relationship. Maybe isolation wasn't the right word to use?

So maybe your question that you should ask is

: how does computer mediated communication (CMC) affect self esteem in relationships?

 

Then you can give an overview of social media/cmc, social media usage - jealousy, surveillance (monitoring behavior), psychological well being (satisfaction/happiness/depression), see also face to face interactions (communication in person) etc.

 

Isolation wasnt the best word to use mostly because i didnt know what you meant by it. Anyway good luck, hope this helped!