Formulating and Classifying a Research Topic

LEARNING OUTCOME
 Able to develop a project topic
 Able to formulate the relevant research questions

Research proposal can vary from a simple statement of intent to a full-blown

assessment, which might include things like:

1. a working title, encapsulating the aims, scope and strategy of your study
2. a critical literature review of your research area, out of which you may be
expected to derive research questions
3. a short statement of your overall research issues / statement of problem and
research questions
4. specific aims and objectives for your study
5. how you would intend to gain access to appropriate sites, data or informants for
your study
6. the methods of data collection you intend to use and a justification of their
appropriateness, strengths and weaknesses in relation to your study, including
relevant references to the literature
7. an indication of what type of analysis you would wish to perform on your data
8. any problems you might anticipate (limitations) and how you might resolve these
9. a consideration of any ethical or professional issues raised by your proposals
10. a research timetable or timeline

General advice on writing proposals:

1. you should avoid making your research ideas too vague as this generally leads
to too wide a range of issues to cover - your overall task will probably be to
present a coherent review which should enable you to refine your possible
research ideas into specific and viable research questions
2. just because you don't yet have a clear idea of what you want to do does not
mean you cannot write a clear research proposal, you can still present a
coherent plan which should enable you to address your questions realistically
3. though it may be impossible for you to accurately predict levels of access
available to you and consequently to determine a precise sample frame, you
should still be able to propose what kinds of access would be needed and rough
estimates of the ideal sample frame and sampling strategy needed in order to
collect the kind of data you propose

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 A 'What, Why, and How' Framework for Crafting Research

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Research questions should

1. be clear. They must be understandable to you and to others.

2. be researchable. They should be capable of development into a research
design, so that data may be collected in relation to them. This means that
extremely abstract terms are unlikely to be suitable.
3. connect with established theory and research. This means that there should be
a literature on which you can draw to help illuminate how your research
questions should be approached. Even if you find a topic that has been scarcely
addressed by social scientists, it is unlikely that there will be no relevant
literature (for example, on related or parallel topics). Making connections with
theory and research will also allow you to show how your research has made a
contribution to knowledge and understanding.
4. be linked to each other. Unrelated research questions are unlikely to be
acceptable, since you should be developing an argument in your dissertation.
You could not very readily construct a single argument in relation to unrelated
research questions.

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 5. have potential for making a contribution to knowledge. They should at the very
least hold out the prospect of being able to make a contribution-however small-
to the topic.
6. be neither too broad nor too narrow. The research questions should be neither
too large (so that you would need a massive grant to study them) nor too small
(so that you cannot make a reasonably significant contribution to your area of
study).

Remember that

 we cannot answer all the research questions that occur to us

 we therefore have to select from the possible research questions at which we
arrive
 we should be guided by the principle that the research questions we choose
should be related to one another

Consider the following situation:

Developing a Turnaround strategy for Amber Products Ltd.

For the last three years, Amber, a manufacturer of standard engineering parts based in
Honley, has been losing market share. Its share declined from 10% of the UK market in
2000 to 4% in 2005, with associated loss of turnover and profits. This proposal is
designed to address this problem and to recommend an appropriate turnaround
strategic plan to regain long term market share and company viability. This project is of
particular interest because the author is Marketing Manager of the company and, unless
the appropriate action is taken, the company will cease trading with the resultant loss of
jobs.

Question

Design a research proposal which would outline the way you would intend to do the
research to provide an answer to the above situation

There are a variety of ways to tackle the situation outlined above. One way is as follows:

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Research questions

The following are the questions to be addressed by the research:

 What are the causes of loss of market share, both internal and external?
 Why has it occurred?
 What can be done to arrest the decline in share?
 How can a recovery plan be implemented effectively?

FORMULATING AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Relation to research areas/topics/ideas/problems/questions:

1. These should reflect the sources from which your interest is derived e.g.:
a. an area or topic in which you have an interest
i. e.g. - appraisal systems
b. ideas or issues which you wish to explore in detail
i. e.g. - women's experience of appraisal
c. problems detected and needing a solution in practical or theoretical terms
i. e.g. - the 'glass ceiling' effect in promotion/advancement
d. questions arising from experience, reading the literature, etc.
i. e.g. - do women feel that the glass ceiling effect is embedded in
appraisal systems?
e. you should clearly state the nature of the problem etc. and its known or
estimated extent
f. if possible you should locate your questions within the context within which
it is to be studied
i. e.g. - do women at (company/institution/etc) feel that the glass
ceiling effect is embedded in the internal appraisal systems of their
(company/institution/etc)

Having selected your research topic and questions, the next stage is to begin designing
and planning your research project, the focus of which is usually expressed in terms of
aims and objectives.

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Aims:

1. are broad statements of desired outcomes, or the general intentions of the

research, which 'paint the picture' of your research proposal
2. emphasize what is to be accomplished, not how it is to be accomplished
3. address the long-term project outcomes, i.e. they should reflect the aspirations
and expectations of the research topic
4. do not need to be numbered

Once aims have been established, the next task is to formulate the objectives.
Generally, a project should have no more than two or three aims statements, while it
may include a number of objectives consistent with them.

Objectives:

1. are the steps you are going to take to answer your research questions or a
specific list of tasks needed to accomplish the goals of the project
2. emphasize how aims are to be accomplished
3. must be highly focused and feasible
4. address the more immediate project outcomes
5. make accurate use of concepts and be sensible and precisely described
6. are usually numbered so that each objective reads as an 'individual' statement to
convey your intentions

For each specific objective you must have a method to attempt to achieve it. The
development of a realistic time schedule may help to prioritize your objectives and help
to minimize wasted time and effort.

Aims and Objectives should:

1. be presented concisely and briefly

2. be interrelated. The aim is what you want to achieve, and the objective describes
how you are going to achieve that aim i.e.:
a. make sure that each aim is matched with specific objectives
3. be realistic about what you can accomplish in the duration of the project and the
other commitments you have i.e.:

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 a. the scope of your project must be consistent with the time frame and level
of effort available to you
4. provide you and your assessors with indicators of how you:
a. intend to approach the literature and theoretical issues related to you
project
b. intend to access your chosen subjects, respondents, units, goods or
services and develop a sampling frame and strategy or a rationale for their
selection
c. will develop a strategy and design for data collection and analysis
d. you will deal with ethical and practical problems in your research

Aims and Objectives should not:

1. be too vague, ambitious or broad in scope:

a. though aims are more general in nature than objectives it is the viability
and feasibility of your study that you have to demonstrate and aims often
present an over-optimistic picture of what the project can achieve
2. just repeat each other in different terms
3. just be a list of things related to your research topic
4. spend time discussing details of your job or research site i.e.:
a. it is your research study your assessors are interested in and you should
keep this in mind at all times.
5. contradict methods, that is, they should not imply methodological goals or
standards of measurement, proof or generalizability of findings that the methods
cannot sustain

Remember:

1. at the conclusion of your project you will need to assess whether or not you have
met your objectives and if not, why not.
2. you may not however always meet your aims in full, since your research may
reveal that your questions were inappropriate, that there are intervening variables
you could not account for or that the circumstances of the study have changed
etc. Whatever the case, your conclusion will still have to reflect on how well the
research design that was guided by your objectives has contributed to
addressing your aims.

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Aims and Objectives for Amber Products Case Study

The overall aim of the research is to develop a turnaround strategy for Amber Products
Ltd.

The specific objectives of the research are:

 To critically appraise the literature on turnaround strategy with particular

reference to engineering firms in a UK environment
 To assess the causes of a loss in market share using Amber Products Ltd. as a
case study
 On the basis of the literature review and the research, to recommend a
turnaround strategy for the company

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 EXAMPLE

Hawley College was one of many Further Education Colleges in the UK, funded
by the Government's Learning and Skills Council (LSC). Well established, it had
some 12,000 students on average per annum, both full and part time, studying
courses as diverse as business studies, hairdressing, building and computing. Its
student population was mainly aged 14 to 18. It had some 300 learners studying
for GCEs (aged up to 16 years) and 100 studying for GCE 'A' levels and GCE 'S'
levels, (aged up to 18 years), the latter often going on to University if the grades
obtained were good enough. It was the latter set of learners where Hawley faced
stiff competition from other schools and 6th form colleges in the area. Its learners
only gained moderate success at GCE 'A' and 'S' level, so parents in the area
sought Colleges and schools which had a far better success rate. Moreover, the
staff, some with many years of service were less than enthusiastic to get 'with it'
One example was the reluctance to embrace new technology in teaching such as
the use of 'PowerPoint' lecture presentations.

A change in Government policy in the early 2000's meant that Government

funding became targeted at 14-18 year olds, those taking the GCE and GCE 'A'
and 'S' levels. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, the College
successfully bid the LSC to fund a brand new 6th Form College in 2003. The
College Governors and Executive, believing that the relatively poor reputation of
the current 14-18 age group provision would be detrimental to attracting the
required 1500 learners to make the College viable, decided to build the new
College some 2 miles away from the existing campus, giving it a catchy new
name and marketing it as a separate entity. The new College would embrace the
latest in technology, classroom facilities, learning resources and, above all, be
attractively located in the City centre. However, there were disadvantages, not
least the lack of staff car parking facilities and a paucity of teaching staff office
space. The biggest threat to the vision for the new College, at least according to
the College Executive, was the 'mindset' of the staff, which, in their view, would
need ratcheting up a fair few notches to embrace the philosophy of the new
College as an 'up market, quality' establishment. One of the many things the staff
would need to embrace was new teaching technology, like the use on
"PowerPoint' lecture presentations. This, and other new innovations, would be a
steep learning curve for many staff.

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 The College decided to initiate research to examine how the College should
prepare itself for the change, position itself with the new College in the market
place and the appropriate accompanying staff behaviour.

What possible research questions should be addressed by the College? State the
relevant aim and objectives.