Need help in creating a research design and/or proposal?

Question

I am a research master's student in social and health psychology. I have been trained to conduct research, which includes creating research designs/experiments and writing research proposals for potential grant-funding institutions. If you have an assignment or project that requires you to do this, I am glad to be of help and give advice, tips, and a general template as to how a research proposal or design should look!

Answer 1

For any psychology research proposal, it helps to follow a scientific publishing framework. It should look something like this:

Introduction: Explain the problem or the question you seek to answer. This is the section where you will include a previous literature review (your own research), identifying where the field is and what gaps in knowledge need to be addressed.

Methods: Detail how you plan to tackle your question. Do you need human participants, or other living organisms? Will you need to use a certain validated scale, like a mood symptom inventory? Other considerations depend on your research question. If it involves human participants, you may wish to include information on how participants will be blinded (or if they will not be), etc. Also include your budget/projected costs and when/where experiments will be carried out. Include an ethics component as well: IRB approval, animal research approval from institutions, and consent forms.

Results: This is the part to largely leave off, because it depends on the data! You can add your hypothesis here, though, if you wish.

Discussion: What do you hope to gain from this project? How will this information help progress knowledge and research in your field? What are potential limitations of your research design?

References: This is essential. Make sure to list all references you used to develop the proposal here.

Answer 2

I can definitely help with that! For research design/proposal, focus on these key components:

1. Research Q: Clear and concise hypothesis or question.
2. Literature Review: Brief summary of relevant studies and gaps.
3. Methods: Define the sample, variables (independent/dependent), data collection (survey, interviews, etc.), and analysis (statistical tests).
4. Ethical Considerations: Informed consent, confidentiality, etc.
5. Timeline & Budget: Project milestones and funding requirements.
6. Expected Outcomes: Hypothesized results and their implications.

Feel free to reach out if you want to learn more about how to do this. I would be more than happy to help!