Does smoking e-cigarettes help people quit smoking?
The aim of this assignment is to provide you with the experience of designing a study
and writing a research study proposal. The benefits of this assignment are both
academic and professional: A research proposal is a common form of writing in
academia, but the structure of a research proposal is very often required in various
professional contexts.
In general, a research proposal explains why and how the study will be conducted. A
research study proposal is guided by the relevant literature in the research area of
interest and the question you want to answer. For your research proposal you have to
reference at least five peer-reviewed journal articles. note that the links provided
in the background information for the suggested topics are not references.
If you have a preferred research question that you would like to use for this assignment, contact your course convener to discuss whether this research question is
appropriate for this assessment.
Suggested Research Questions
A research proposal generally begins with an introductory section that describes the
research problem and establishes its significance. This section answers the following
kind of questions:
What exactly do you want to study? Why is it worth studying?
Does the proposed study have theoretical and/or practical significance?
Does it contribute to a new understanding of a phenomenon (e.g. does it address new or little-known material or does it treat familiar materials in a new way or does it challenge an existing understanding or extend existing knowledge)?
For your assignment, you can choose to design a study which will aim to answer ONE of the following research questions:
1. Does smoking e-cigarettes help people quit smoking?
Provide a section that covers a literature review of the relevant research in
your chosen area. This introduction should outline the background literature in order to provide a rationale for your research proposal. This section is similar to the introduction in a research report.
There are examples available for you that demonstrate the structure and purpose of the introduction.
Provide a critical analysis of the current research in order to highlight the gap the in the literature that you would like to address in your proposed experiment.
Note: you do not need to have an abstract
You need to clearly outline your research question and your hypothesis
You need to provide a section which outlines your research design, you should include
what type of study you think would be appropriate to these this question, identify and
operationalise your variables and clearly outline your groups/conditions.
Who/what will you use to conduct your study? How will they be recruited? You can
include demographic information, if that is relevant. How will they be grouped?
What tools will you need to conduct your experiment? This includes scales, tests,
surveys, questionnaires, computers or any other apparatus.
You should include how your study will be conducted, step-by-step. Write this
chronologically. There should be enough information about how you will conduct your experiment so that someone else can replicated it.
