Please no Plagiarism APA Format only 1. Pick an area of interest and write a research proposal. The proposal should be APA style, at least 15 double-spaced pages in length (not including cover page and appendices), contain an abstract, have one table or figure, and have at least 10 references. These references should be from primary sources (i.e., empirical journal articles). You may refer to additional sources, but there must be at least 10 primary sources.

Final Paper: WRITING THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL OBJECTIVES 1. Understand how a research proposal assists in research planning and preparation 2. Recognize the necessary components of a research proposal REVIEW Believe it or not, successful research requires a great deal of planning and preparation. It looks fast and easy when reading the textbook, but any type of research takes time, energy, and commitment. Remember, research provides much to the world; information is discovered, questions are answered, and ideas are generated. All research methods contribute to our exploration; case study, naturalistic observation, survey, quasi-experimental, and experimental each have different ways of examining information and offer varying advantages. Because of the time and effort involved in research, investigators commonly write a research proposal before actually beginning the research activities. Think of Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France; he spent countless hours, days, and years preparing both physically and mentally for the bicycle race. It’s the same for research; much time is spent reviewing the literature, deciding on research design, outcome measures, and appropriate statistical analyses. And, all of these decisions must be made before collecting any type of data. Essentially, the research proposal provides both you and interested others with a “recipe” or “roadmap” for your work; everything you are planning to do is documented and open for review. The research proposal begins with the research question that will be answered, then a literature review that informs and educates the reader about the topic to be studied, followed by the hypothesis. Most literature reviews provide current information about the research topic, obtained from articles found in peer reviewed journals. Peer reviewed journals contain articles that have been reviewed for quality and correctness by scholarly peers and then published. Thus, peer reviewed journals offer a “quality check” for research, and provide the best sources of information to put in a literature review. The research hypothesis is generally found towards the end of the literature review. So, while the literature review informs and educates the reader about the certain topic, the research hypothesis states the purpose of the current research proposal. That is, what question will be answered with this research? Or, what will this research proposal accomplish? The research hypothesis is like the icing on the cake. It tops off the literature review and sets the stage for discussing the method. The next part of the research proposal is the method section, which contains everything about the materials and/or outcome instruments, participants, and procedure. The method section describes everything about how the research will be conducted, including how one plans to recruit and compensate participants, details of the specific materials used, and what participants experienced from the beginning to the end of the study. Essentially, the method puts the research hypothesis in operational terms. Finally, the research proposal needs to have an expected results section that states what will be done to the information obtained or data collected. This includes the statistical analyses that will be performed after collecting data, the variables being compared in the analysis, and the expected findings from each analysis. Next, the research proposal should contain a general discussion that involves five components: a restatement of the expected results, how the research informs and contributes to the literature, why this research is important, limitations to the study, and future directions that research could take regarding your research question beyond what is proposed. The research proposal contains a great deal of information about the research to be conducted, and requires much thought and preparation. Good luck and have fun! ASSIGNMENT: 1. Pick an area of interest and write a research proposal. The proposal should be APA style, at least 15 double-spaced pages in length (not including cover page and appendices), contain an abstract, have one table or figure, and have at least 10 references. These references should be from primary sources (i.e., empirical journal articles). You may refer to additional sources, but there must be at least 10 primary sources.