Research in Project Management - Research Proposal
Purpose of Assignment
- To ensure you have attained the unit learning outcomes.
- To demonstrate your collective understanding of research process, skills and tools.
- To validate your competencies in project management.
Assignment from PM perspective
- Assignment 2 is the second phase of your project.
- The completion of this deliverable signifies the completion of the "proposal phase" and entry to the next phase "research execution" next term.
- Stakeholders: UC, lecturer/tutor, peers, Studiosity, ALC, librarian.
Main sections and word limits
- Abstract: (100-200 words)
- The background and rationale: (500 words)
- Significance: (100-200 words)
- Research question(s) and objectives: (100 words) 1-2 questions, 3-5 objectives or sub-questions
- Research Approach: (100-200 words)
- Data collection: (800 words)
- Preliminary literature review: (1000-1500 words)
- Research Project Management: (300 words plus filling out the tables) - only needed in final submission
INSTRUCTIONS
This proposalis effectively your business case and project management plan for the execution and closing phases of your research project. As such, it must be written in a clear language so anyone can use this document to complete the project.
You must submit both Draft Proposal and Final Proposal in Word format. Please strictly adhere to word limits in each section.
You are highly encouraged to consult Studiosity, ALC and/or Turnitin before submitting your draft or final version.
Youare encouraged to include relevant diagrams in any part of this submission to more clearly illustrate ideas,including the research design.
1. The rationale of the study (500 words)
References would be needed in this section to support your arguments.
Provide a research contextand issues that surround the research topic. Explain why this project is needed and demonstrate the evidence for this need. Evidence could be a limitation of a previous study on the selected research topic or previous literature that suggest there no adequate information to explain the problem or no solution exists for that problem. Think of this section as building the case for the problem you plan to investigate and define the problem.
2. Significance of the study
(up to 200 words) This section is your argument that the study makes a significant contribution to project management profession. Explain why the topic is worth studying, how it may impact policy, how it contributes to the general understanding of the theory under investigation or who will benefit from this project.
3. Preliminary literature review
(1500 words, use a minimum of five scholarly refereed papers.)
Conduct an overview of the key literature sources from which you intend to draw.This is not the same as the critical literature review you will present in your final research paper. You just need to highlight the theories or sets of constructs underpinning your research topic. In particular, you should describe the phenomenon you are researching, the context in which it occurs, and other factors contained in your research questions and objectives.
Sources may include: CQUniversity Library texts, research journals/papers, online journals, etc.
4. Research question(s) and objectives
(dot point can be used in this section)
(Up to 100 words) Include one or two research questions and up to 5 objectives only
Define the problem in the form of research questions and objectives. You can also include a hypothesis.
4.1 Definition of key terms
(Optional section)
Define any used term that may be vague or have a contextually related meaning.
5. Research Methodology
5.1 Research Approach
(Up to 200 words)References would be needed in this section to support your justification.
Research approach and data collection methods should be detailed enough to describe how you intend to answer the research questions and achieve the research objectives. In this section, you should select and justify a methodological approach to solve the problem (i.e.qualitative, quantitative, mixed method).
5.2 Data collectionmethods and analysis
(up to 800 words)References would be needed in this section to justify your choices.
This section should include a set of investigative strategies or methods which is considered, coherent and appropriate to the outcomes that the project is designed to achieve. Will it be based on a survey, interviews, examination of secondary data or combination of methods? And what are the reasons of choosing a certain method. If you are using a survey method, you should specify the target population,sampling plan, identification and access toparticipants, the methods and tools you will use to distribute the questionnaire and analyse collected data.It is also encouraged to provide samples of the survey questions you intend to ask and how the questions are aligned with your objectives.
5.3 Ethics Statement
(Up to 150 words)
Explain the ethicalconsiderationsthat you will follow if you research will involve collecting data from people.
6. Research project management
Provide the necessary project management information in the sub-sections below. This section is only needed in the final research proposal submission. Do not include it in your draft submission.
Project exclusions
(Up to 150 words)
Explain boundaries of your research scope (i.e. geographic boundary, sampling, etc.) The boundaries could be self-imposed (de-limitations) or potential weaknesses in the study design or methodology. Explain the rationale as to why and how you chose to narrow your study and explain what you will do to minimize the effect of the identified weaknesses.
Project schedule:
You should use the table below to schedule work packages and/or activities relating to identified deliverables of your project including project milestones (identified with zero durations), logical relationships and assigned resources. (The template belowis very flexible but you should include a minimum of 15 activities).
Data management
(Up to 150 words)
This section should briefly explain how you will organise your secondary and primary data and whether you have used a software (i.e. Endnote) to help you with this. You should also explain how to safeguard research data & prevent unauthorised use. Include a hyperlink of the shared folder where you saved your work including Endnote library or secondary data used in preparation for this proposal.
7. References List
A complete list of cited works, as referenced in the proposal, must be included.Youmust refer to a well-rounded and relevantlist of contemporary literature(within the last five years) when justifying the theoretical framework, research design, and analysis sections of this proposal.Do not include a bibliography - only those texts referenced in-textshould be included in the reference list.
Attachment:- Research Project Proposal Template.rar