research work in project

Illustration by James Round

How to plan a research project

Whether for a paper or a thesis, define your question, review the work of others – and leave yourself open to discovery.

by Brooke Harrington   + BIO

is professor of sociology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Her research has won international awards both for scholarly quality and impact on public life. She has published dozens of articles and three books, most recently the bestseller Capital without Borders (2016), now translated into five languages.

Edited by Sam Haselby

Need to know

‘When curiosity turns to serious matters, it’s called research.’ – From Aphorisms (1880-1905) by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Planning research projects is a time-honoured intellectual exercise: one that requires both creativity and sharp analytical skills. The purpose of this Guide is to make the process systematic and easy to understand. While there is a great deal of freedom and discovery involved – from the topics you choose, to the data and methods you apply – there are also some norms and constraints that obtain, no matter what your academic level or field of study. For those in high school through to doctoral students, and from art history to archaeology, research planning involves broadly similar steps, including: formulating a question, developing an argument or predictions based on previous research, then selecting the information needed to answer your question.

Some of this might sound self-evident but, as you’ll find, research requires a different way of approaching and using information than most of us are accustomed to in everyday life. That is why I include orienting yourself to knowledge-creation as an initial step in the process. This is a crucial and underappreciated phase in education, akin to making the transition from salaried employment to entrepreneurship: suddenly, you’re on your own, and that requires a new way of thinking about your work.

What follows is a distillation of what I’ve learned about this process over 27 years as a professional social scientist. It reflects the skills that my own professors imparted in the sociology doctoral programme at Harvard, as well as what I learned later on as a research supervisor for Ivy League PhD and MA students, and then as the author of award-winning scholarly books and articles. It can be adapted to the demands of both short projects (such as course term papers) and long ones, such as a thesis.

At its simplest, research planning involves the four distinct steps outlined below: orienting yourself to knowledge-creation; defining your research question; reviewing previous research on your question; and then choosing relevant data to formulate your own answers. Because the focus of this Guide is on planning a research project, as opposed to conducting a research project, this section won’t delve into the details of data-collection or analysis; those steps happen after you plan the project. In addition, the topic is vast: year-long doctoral courses are devoted to data and analysis. Instead, the fourth part of this section will outline some basic strategies you could use in planning a data-selection and analysis process appropriate to your research question.

Step 1: Orient yourself

Planning and conducting research requires you to make a transition, from thinking like a consumer of information to thinking like a producer of information. That sounds simple, but it’s actually a complex task. As a practical matter, this means putting aside the mindset of a student, which treats knowledge as something created by other people. As students, we are often passive receivers of knowledge: asked to do a specified set of readings, then graded on how well we reproduce what we’ve read.

Researchers, however, must take on an active role as knowledge producers . Doing research requires more of you than reading and absorbing what other people have written: you have to engage in a dialogue with it. That includes arguing with previous knowledge and perhaps trying to show that ideas we have accepted as given are actually wrong or incomplete. For example, rather than simply taking in the claims of an author you read, you’ll need to draw out the implications of those claims: if what the author is saying is true, what else does that suggest must be true? What predictions could you make based on the author’s claims?

In other words, rather than treating a reading as a source of truth – even if it comes from a revered source, such as Plato or Marie Curie – this orientation step asks you to treat the claims you read as provisional and subject to interrogation. That is one of the great pieces of wisdom that science and philosophy can teach us: that the biggest advances in human understanding have been made not by being correct about trivial things, but by being wrong in an interesting way . For example, Albert Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics, but his arguments about it with his fellow physicist Niels Bohr have led to some of the biggest breakthroughs in science, even a century later.

Step 2: Define your research question

Students often give this step cursory attention, but experienced researchers know that formulating a good question is sometimes the most difficult part of the research planning process. That is because the precise language of the question frames the rest of the project. It’s therefore important to pose the question carefully, in a way that’s both possible to answer and likely to yield interesting results. Of course, you must choose a question that interests you, but that’s only the beginning of what’s likely to be an iterative process: most researchers come back to this step repeatedly, modifying their questions in light of previous research, resource limitations and other considerations.

Researchers face limits in terms of time and money. They, like everyone else, have to pose research questions that they can plausibly answer given the constraints they face. For example, it would be inadvisable to frame a project around the question ‘What are the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict?’ if you have only a week to develop an answer and no background on that topic. That’s not to limit your imagination: you can come up with any question you’d like. But it typically does require some creativity to frame a question that you can answer well – that is, by investigating thoroughly and providing new insights – within the limits you face.

In addition to being interesting to you, and feasible within your resource constraints, the third and most important characteristic of a ‘good’ research topic is whether it allows you to create new knowledge. It might turn out that your question has already been asked and answered to your satisfaction: if so, you’ll find out in the next step of this process. On the other hand, you might come up with a research question that hasn’t been addressed previously. Before you get too excited about breaking uncharted ground, consider this: a lot of potentially researchable questions haven’t been studied for good reason ; they might have answers that are trivial or of very limited interest. This could include questions such as ‘Why does the area of a circle equal π r²?’ or ‘Did winter conditions affect Napoleon’s plans to invade Russia?’ Of course, you might be able to make the argument that a seemingly trivial question is actually vitally important, but you must be prepared to back that up with convincing evidence. The exercise in the ‘Learn More’ section below will help you think through some of these issues.

Finally, scholarly research questions must in some way lead to new and distinctive insights. For example, lots of people have studied gender roles in sports teams; what can you ask that hasn’t been asked before? Reinventing the wheel is the number-one no-no in this endeavour. That’s why the next step is so important: reviewing previous research on your topic. Depending on what you find in that step, you might need to revise your research question; iterating between your question and the existing literature is a normal process. But don’t worry: it doesn’t go on forever. In fact, the iterations taper off – and your research question stabilises – as you develop a firm grasp of the current state of knowledge on your topic.

Step 3: Review previous research

In academic research, from articles to books, it’s common to find a section called a ‘literature review’. The purpose of that section is to describe the state of the art in knowledge on the research question that a project has posed. It demonstrates that researchers have thoroughly and systematically reviewed the relevant findings of previous studies on their topic, and that they have something novel to contribute.

Your own research project should include something like this, even if it’s a high-school term paper. In the research planning process, you’ll want to list at least half a dozen bullet points stating the major findings on your topic by other people. In relation to those findings, you should be able to specify where your project could provide new and necessary insights. There are two basic rhetorical positions one can take in framing the novelty-plus-importance argument required of academic research:

• Position 1 requires you to build on or extend a set of existing ideas; that means saying something like: ‘Person A has argued that X is true about gender; this implies Y, which has not yet been tested. My project will test Y, and if I find evidence to support it, that will change the way we understand gender.’
• Position 2 is to argue that there is a gap in existing knowledge, either because previous research has reached conflicting conclusions or has failed to consider something important. For example, one could say that research on middle schoolers and gender has been limited by being conducted primarily in coeducational environments, and that findings might differ dramatically if research were conducted in more schools where the student body was all-male or all-female.

Your overall goal in this step of the process is to show that your research will be part of a larger conversation: that is, how your project flows from what’s already known, and how it advances, extends or challenges that existing body of knowledge. That will be the contribution of your project, and it constitutes the motivation for your research.

Two things are worth mentioning about your search for sources of relevant previous research. First, you needn’t look only at studies on your precise topic. For example, if you want to study gender-identity formation in schools, you shouldn’t restrict yourself to studies of schools; the empirical setting (schools) is secondary to the larger social process that interests you (how people form gender identity). That process occurs in many different settings, so cast a wide net. Second, be sure to use legitimate sources – meaning publications that have been through some sort of vetting process, whether that involves peer review (as with academic journal articles you might find via Google Scholar) or editorial review (as you’d find in well-known mass media publications, such as The Economist or The Washington Post ). What you’ll want to avoid is using unvetted sources such as personal blogs or Wikipedia. Why? Because anybody can write anything in those forums, and there is no way to know – unless you’re already an expert – if the claims you find there are accurate. Often, they’re not.

Step 4: Choose your data and methods

Whatever your research question is, eventually you’ll need to consider which data source and analytical strategy are most likely to provide the answers you’re seeking. One starting point is to consider whether your question would be best addressed by qualitative data (such as interviews, observations or historical records), quantitative data (such as surveys or census records) or some combination of both. Your ideas about data sources will, in turn, suggest options for analytical methods.

You might need to collect your own data, or you might find everything you need readily available in an existing dataset someone else has created. A great place to start is with a research librarian: university libraries always have them and, at public universities, those librarians can work with the public, including people who aren’t affiliated with the university. If you don’t happen to have a public university and its library close at hand, an ordinary public library can still be a good place to start: the librarians are often well versed in accessing data sources that might be relevant to your study, such as the census, or historical archives, or the Survey of Consumer Finances.

Because your task at this point is to plan research, rather than conduct it, the purpose of this step is not to commit you irrevocably to a course of action. Instead, your goal here is to think through a feasible approach to answering your research question. You’ll need to find out, for example, whether the data you want exist; if not, do you have a realistic chance of gathering the data yourself, or would it be better to modify your research question? In terms of analysis, would your strategy require you to apply statistical methods? If so, do you have those skills? If not, do you have time to learn them, or money to hire a research assistant to run the analysis for you?

Please be aware that qualitative methods in particular are not the casual undertaking they might appear to be. Many people make the mistake of thinking that only quantitative data and methods are scientific and systematic, while qualitative methods are just a fancy way of saying: ‘I talked to some people, read some old newspapers, and drew my own conclusions.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. In the final section of this guide, you’ll find some links to resources that will provide more insight on standards and procedures governing qualitative research, but suffice it to say: there are rules about what constitutes legitimate evidence and valid analytical procedure for qualitative data, just as there are for quantitative data.

Circle back and consider revising your initial plans

As you work through these four steps in planning your project, it’s perfectly normal to circle back and revise. Research planning is rarely a linear process. It’s also common for new and unexpected avenues to suggest themselves. As the sociologist Thorstein Veblen wrote in 1908 : ‘The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.’ That’s as true of research planning as it is of a completed project. Try to enjoy the horizons that open up for you in this process, rather than becoming overwhelmed; the four steps, along with the two exercises that follow, will help you focus your plan and make it manageable.

Key points – How to plan a research project

• Planning a research project is essential no matter your academic level or field of study. There is no one ‘best’ way to design research, but there are certain guidelines that can be helpfully applied across disciplines.
• Orient yourself to knowledge-creation. Make the shift from being a consumer of information to being a producer of information.
• Define your research question. Your question frames the rest of your project, sets the scope, and determines the kinds of answers you can find.
• Review previous research on your question. Survey the existing body of relevant knowledge to ensure that your research will be part of a larger conversation.
• Choose your data and methods. For instance, will you be collecting qualitative data, via interviews, or numerical data, via surveys?
• Circle back and consider revising your initial plans. Expect your research question in particular to undergo multiple rounds of refinement as you learn more about your topic.

Good research questions tend to beget more questions. This can be frustrating for those who want to get down to business right away. Try to make room for the unexpected: this is usually how knowledge advances. Many of the most significant discoveries in human history have been made by people who were looking for something else entirely. There are ways to structure your research planning process without over-constraining yourself; the two exercises below are a start, and you can find further methods in the Links and Books section.

The following exercise provides a structured process for advancing your research project planning. After completing it, you’ll be able to do the following:

• describe clearly and concisely the question you’ve chosen to study
• summarise the state of the art in knowledge about the question, and where your project could contribute new insight
• identify the best strategy for gathering and analysing relevant data

In other words, the following provides a systematic means to establish the building blocks of your research project.

Exercise 1: Definition of research question and sources

This exercise prompts you to select and clarify your general interest area, develop a research question, and investigate sources of information. The annotated bibliography will also help you refine your research question so that you can begin the second assignment, a description of the phenomenon you wish to study.

Jot down a few bullet points in response to these two questions, with the understanding that you’ll probably go back and modify your answers as you begin reading other studies relevant to your topic:

• What will be the general topic of your paper?
• What will be the specific topic of your paper?

b) Research question(s)

Use the following guidelines to frame a research question – or questions – that will drive your analysis. As with Part 1 above, you’ll probably find it necessary to change or refine your research question(s) as you complete future assignments.

• Your question should be phrased so that it can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
• Your question should have more than one plausible answer.
• Your question should draw relationships between two or more concepts; framing the question in terms of How? or What? often works better than asking Why ?

c) Annotated bibliography

Most or all of your background information should come from two sources: scholarly books and journals, or reputable mass media sources. You might be able to access journal articles electronically through your library, using search engines such as JSTOR and Google Scholar. This can save you a great deal of time compared with going to the library in person to search periodicals. General news sources, such as those accessible through LexisNexis, are acceptable, but should be cited sparingly, since they don’t carry the same level of credibility as scholarly sources. As discussed above, unvetted sources such as blogs and Wikipedia should be avoided, because the quality of the information they provide is unreliable and often misleading.

To create an annotated bibliography, provide the following information for at least 10 sources relevant to your specific topic, using the format suggested below.

Name of author(s):

Publication date:

Title of book, chapter, or article:

If a chapter or article, title of journal or book where they appear:

Brief description of this work, including main findings and methods ( c 75 words):

Summary of how this work contributes to your project ( c 75 words):

Brief description of the implications of this work ( c 25 words):

Identify any gap or controversy in knowledge this work points up, and how your project could address those problems ( c 50 words):

Exercise 2: Towards an analysis

Develop a short statement ( c 250 words) about the kind of data that would be useful to address your research question, and how you’d analyse it. Some questions to consider in writing this statement include:

• What are the central concepts or variables in your project? Offer a brief definition of each.
• Do any data sources exist on those concepts or variables, or would you need to collect data?
• Of the analytical strategies you could apply to that data, which would be the most appropriate to answer your question? Which would be the most feasible for you? Consider at least two methods, noting their advantages or disadvantages for your project.

Links & books

One of the best texts ever written about planning and executing research comes from a source that might be unexpected: a 60-year-old work on urban planning by a self-trained scholar. The classic book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) by Jane Jacobs (available complete and free of charge via this link ) is worth reading in its entirety just for the pleasure of it. But the final 20 pages – a concluding chapter titled ‘The Kind of Problem a City Is’ – are really about the process of thinking through and investigating a problem. Highly recommended as a window into the craft of research.

Jacobs’s text references an essay on advancing human knowledge by the mathematician Warren Weaver. At the time, Weaver was director of the Rockefeller Foundation, in charge of funding basic research in the natural and medical sciences. Although the essay is titled ‘A Quarter Century in the Natural Sciences’ (1960) and appears at first blush to be merely a summation of one man’s career, it turns out to be something much bigger and more interesting: a meditation on the history of human beings seeking answers to big questions about the world. Weaver goes back to the 17th century to trace the origins of systematic research thinking, with enthusiasm and vivid anecdotes that make the process come alive. The essay is worth reading in its entirety, and is available free of charge via this link .

For those seeking a more in-depth, professional-level discussion of the logic of research design, the political scientist Harvey Starr provides insight in a compact format in the article ‘Cumulation from Proper Specification: Theory, Logic, Research Design, and “Nice” Laws’ (2005). Starr reviews the ‘research triad’, consisting of the interlinked considerations of formulating a question, selecting relevant theories and applying appropriate methods. The full text of the article, published in the scholarly journal Conflict Management and Peace Science , is available, free of charge, via this link .

Finally, the book Getting What You Came For (1992) by Robert Peters is not only an outstanding guide for anyone contemplating graduate school – from the application process onward – but it also includes several excellent chapters on planning and executing research, applicable across a wide variety of subject areas. It was an invaluable resource for me 25 years ago, and it remains in print with good reason; I recommend it to all my students, particularly Chapter 16 (‘The Thesis Topic: Finding It’), Chapter 17 (‘The Thesis Proposal’) and Chapter 18 (‘The Thesis: Writing It’).

Goals and motivation

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11.3 Managing Your Research Project

Learning objectives.

• Identify reasons for outlining the scope and sequence of a research project.
• Recognize the steps of the research writing process.
• Develop a plan for managing time and resources to complete the research project on time.
• Identify organizational tools and strategies to use in managing the project.

The prewriting you have completed so far has helped you begin to plan the content of your research paper—your topic, research questions, and preliminary thesis. It is equally important to plan out the process of researching and writing the paper. Although some types of writing assignments can be completed relatively quickly, developing a good research paper is a complex process that takes time. Breaking it into manageable steps is crucial. Review the steps outlined at the beginning of this chapter.

Steps to Writing a Research Paper

• Choose a topic.
• Schedule and plan time for research and writing.
• Conduct research.
• Organize research
• Draft your paper.
• Revise and edit your paper.

You have already completed step 1. In this section, you will complete step 2. The remaining steps fall under two broad categories—the research phase of the project (steps 3 and 4) and the writing phase (steps 5 and 6). Both phases present challenges. Understanding the tasks involved and allowing enough time to complete each task will help you complete your research paper on time with a minimal amount of stress.

Planning Your Project

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, step 3, conducting research, involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

Jorge had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Jorge chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

Review Jorge’s schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Jorge planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

• Working backward from the date your final draft is due, create a project schedule. You may choose to write a sequential list of tasks or record tasks on a calendar.
• Check your schedule to be sure that you have broken each step into smaller tasks and assigned a target completion date to each key task.
• Review your target dates to make sure they are realistic. Always allow a little more time than you think you will actually need.

Plan your schedule realistically, and consider other commitments that may sometimes take precedence. A business trip or family visit may mean that you are unable to work on the research project for a few days. Make the most of the time you have available. Plan for unexpected interruptions, but keep in mind that a short time away from the project may help you come back to it with renewed enthusiasm. Another strategy many writers find helpful is to finish each day’s work at a point when the next task is an easy one. That makes it easier to start again.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Staying Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Revisit the schedule you created in Note 11.42 “Exercise 1” . Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have your e-mail account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Some people enjoy using the most up-to-date technology to help them stay organized. Other people prefer simple methods, such as crossing off items on a checklist. The key to staying organized is finding a system you like enough to use daily. The particulars of the method are not important as long as you are consistent.

Anticipating Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

Key Takeaways

• To complete a research project successfully, a writer must carefully manage each phase of the process and break major steps into smaller tasks.
• Writers can plan a research project by setting up a schedule based on the deadline and by identifying useful project resources.
• Writers stay focused by using organizational tools that suit their needs.
• Anticipating and planning for potential setbacks can help writers avoid those setbacks or minimize their effect on the project schedule.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Get Started With a Research Project

Last Updated: October 3, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Chris Hadley, PhD . Chris Hadley, PhD is part of the wikiHow team and works on content strategy and data and analytics. Chris Hadley earned his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UCLA in 2006. Chris' academic research has been published in numerous scientific journals. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 312,511 times.

You'll be required to undertake and complete research projects throughout your academic career and even, in many cases, as a member of the workforce. Don't worry if you feel stuck or intimidated by the idea of a research project, with care and dedication, you can get the project done well before the deadline!

Development and Foundation

• Don't hesitate while writing down ideas. You'll end up with some mental noise on the paper – silly or nonsensical phrases that your brain just pushes out. That's fine. Think of it as sweeping the cobwebs out of your attic. After a minute or two, better ideas will begin to form (and you might have a nice little laugh at your own expense in the meantime).

• Some instructors will even provide samples of previously successful topics if you ask for them. Just be careful that you don't end up stuck with an idea you want to do, but are afraid to do because you know someone else did it before.

• For example, if your research topic is “urban poverty,” you could look at that topic across ethnic or sexual lines, but you could also look into corporate wages, minimum wage laws, the cost of medical benefits, the loss of unskilled jobs in the urban core, and on and on. You could also try comparing and contrasting urban poverty with suburban or rural poverty, and examine things that might be different about both areas, such as diet and exercise levels, or air pollution.

• Think in terms of questions you want answered. A good research project should collect information for the purpose of answering (or at least attempting to answer) a question. As you review and interconnect topics, you'll think of questions that don't seem to have clear answers yet. These questions are your research topics.

• Don't limit yourself to libraries and online databases. Think in terms of outside resources as well: primary sources, government agencies, even educational TV programs. If you want to know about differences in animal population between public land and an Indian reservation, call the reservation and see if you can speak to their department of fish and wildlife.
• If you're planning to go ahead with original research, that's great – but those techniques aren't covered in this article. Instead, speak with qualified advisors and work with them to set up a thorough, controlled, repeatable process for gathering information.

• If your plan comes down to “researching the topic,” and there aren't any more specific things you can say about it, write down the types of sources you plan to use instead: books (library or private?), magazines (which ones?), interviews, and so on. Your preliminary research should have given you a solid idea of where to begin.

Expanding Your Idea with Research

• It's generally considered more convincing to source one item from three different authors who all agree on it than it is to rely too heavily on one book. Go for quantity at least as much as quality. Be sure to check citations, endnotes, and bibliographies to get more potential sources (and see whether or not all your authors are just quoting the same, older author).
• Writing down your sources and any other relevant details (such as context) around your pieces of information right now will save you lots of trouble in the future.

• Use many different queries to get the database results you want. If one phrasing or a particular set of words doesn't yield useful results, try rephrasing it or using synonymous terms. Online academic databases tend to be dumber than the sum of their parts, so you'll have to use tangentially related terms and inventive language to get all the results you want.

• If it's sensible, consider heading out into the field and speaking to ordinary people for their opinions. This isn't always appropriate (or welcomed) in a research project, but in some cases, it can provide you with some excellent perspective for your research.
• Review cultural artifacts as well. In many areas of study, there's useful information on attitudes, hopes, and/or concerns of people in a particular time and place contained within the art, music, and writing they produced. One has only to look at the woodblock prints of the later German Expressionists, for example, to understand that they lived in a world they felt was often dark, grotesque, and hopeless. Song lyrics and poetry can likewise express strong popular attitudes.

Expert Q&A

• Start early. The foundation of a great research project is the research, which takes time and patience to gather even if you aren't performing any original research of your own. Set aside time for it whenever you can, at least until your initial gathering phase is complete. Past that point, the project should practically come together on its own. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• When in doubt, write more, rather than less. It's easier to pare down and reorganize an overabundance of information than it is to puff up a flimsy core of facts and anecdotes. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

• Respect the wishes of others. Unless you're a research journalist, it's vital that you yield to the wishes and requests of others before engaging in original research, even if it's technically ethical. Many older American Indians, for instance, harbor a great deal of cultural resentment towards social scientists who visit reservations for research, even those invited by tribal governments for important reasons such as language revitalization. Always tread softly whenever you're out of your element, and only work with those who want to work with you. Thanks Helpful 8 Not Helpful 2
• Be mindful of ethical concerns. Especially if you plan to use original research, there are very stringent ethical guidelines that must be followed for any credible academic body to accept it. Speak to an advisor (such as a professor) about what you plan to do and what steps you should take to verify that it will be ethical. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 2

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/research/research_paper.html
• ↑ https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process
• ↑ https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185905
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/research_papers/choosing_a_topic.html
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/using-an-interview-in-a-research-paper
• ↑ https://www.science.org/content/article/how-review-paper

About This Article

The easiest way to get started with a research project is to use your notes and other materials to come up with topics that interest you. Research your favorite topic to see if it can be developed, and then refine it into a research question. Begin thoroughly researching, and collect notes and sources. To learn more about finding reliable and helpful sources while you're researching, continue reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Education During Coronavirus

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Science | June 15, 2020

Seventy-Five Scientific Research Projects You Can Contribute to Online

From astrophysicists to entomologists, many researchers need the help of citizen scientists to sift through immense data collections

Rachael Lallensack

Former Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation

If you find yourself tired of streaming services, reading the news or video-chatting with friends, maybe you should consider becoming a citizen scientist. Though it’s true that many field research projects are paused , hundreds of scientists need your help sifting through wildlife camera footage and images of galaxies far, far away, or reading through diaries and field notes from the past.

Plenty of these tools are free and easy enough for children to use. You can look around for projects yourself on Smithsonian Institution’s citizen science volunteer page , National Geographic ’s list of projects and CitizenScience.gov ’s catalog of options. Zooniverse is a platform for online-exclusive projects , and Scistarter allows you to restrict your search with parameters, including projects you can do “on a walk,” “at night” or “on a lunch break.”

To save you some time, Smithsonian magazine has compiled a collection of dozens of projects you can take part in from home.

American Wildlife

If being home has given you more time to look at wildlife in your own backyard, whether you live in the city or the country, consider expanding your view, by helping scientists identify creatures photographed by camera traps. Improved battery life, motion sensors, high-resolution and small lenses have made camera traps indispensable tools for conservation.These cameras capture thousands of images that provide researchers with more data about ecosystems than ever before.

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s eMammal platform , for example, asks users to identify animals for conservation projects around the country. Currently, eMammal is being used by the Woodland Park Zoo ’s Seattle Urban Carnivore Project, which studies how coyotes, foxes, raccoons, bobcats and other animals coexist with people, and the Washington Wolverine Project, an effort to monitor wolverines in the face of climate change. Identify urban wildlife for the Chicago Wildlife Watch , or contribute to wilderness projects documenting North American biodiversity with The Wilds' Wildlife Watch in Ohio , Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild in Minnesota , Michigan ZoomIN , Western Montana Wildlife and Snapshot Wisconsin .

"Spend your time at home virtually exploring the Minnesota backwoods,” writes the lead researcher of the Cedar Creek: Eyes on the Wild project. “Help us understand deer dynamics, possum populations, bear behavior, and keep your eyes peeled for elusive wolves!"

If being cooped up at home has you daydreaming about traveling, Snapshot Safari has six active animal identification projects. Try eyeing lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, elephants, giraffes, baobab trees and over 400 bird species from camera trap photos taken in South African nature reserves, including De Hoop Nature Reserve and Madikwe Game Reserve .

With South Sudan DiversityCam , researchers are using camera traps to study biodiversity in the dense tropical forests of southwestern South Sudan. Part of the Serenegeti Lion Project, Snapshot Serengeti needs the help of citizen scientists to classify millions of camera trap images of species traveling with the wildebeest migration.

Classify all kinds of monkeys with Chimp&See . Count, identify and track giraffes in northern Kenya . Watering holes host all kinds of wildlife, but that makes the locales hotspots for parasite transmission; Parasite Safari needs volunteers to help figure out which animals come in contact with each other and during what time of year.

Mount Taranaki in New Zealand is a volcanic peak rich in native vegetation, but native wildlife, like the North Island brown kiwi, whio/blue duck and seabirds, are now rare—driven out by introduced predators like wild goats, weasels, stoats, possums and rats. Estimate predator species compared to native wildlife with Taranaki Mounga by spotting species on camera trap images.

The Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Instant Wild app has a dozen projects showcasing live images and videos of wildlife around the world. Look for bears, wolves and lynx in Croatia ; wildcats in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula ; otters in Hampshire, England ; and both black and white rhinos in the Lewa-Borana landscape in Kenya.

Under the Sea

Researchers use a variety of technologies to learn about marine life and inform conservation efforts. Take, for example, Beluga Bits , a research project focused on determining the sex, age and pod size of beluga whales visiting the Churchill River in northern Manitoba, Canada. With a bit of training, volunteers can learn how to differentiate between a calf, a subadult (grey) or an adult (white)—and even identify individuals using scars or unique pigmentation—in underwater videos and images. Beluga Bits uses a “ beluga boat ,” which travels around the Churchill River estuary with a camera underneath it, to capture the footage and collect GPS data about the whales’ locations.

Many of these online projects are visual, but Manatee Chat needs citizen scientists who can train their ear to decipher manatee vocalizations. Researchers are hoping to learn what calls the marine mammals make and when—with enough practice you might even be able to recognize the distinct calls of individual animals.

Several groups are using drone footage to monitor seal populations. Seals spend most of their time in the water, but come ashore to breed. One group, Seal Watch , is analyzing time-lapse photography and drone images of seals in the British territory of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. A team in Antarctica captured images of Weddell seals every ten minutes while the seals were on land in spring to have their pups. The Weddell Seal Count project aims to find out what threats—like fishing and climate change—the seals face by monitoring changes in their population size. Likewise, the Año Nuevo Island - Animal Count asks volunteers to count elephant seals, sea lions, cormorants and more species on a remote research island off the coast of California.

With Floating Forests , you’ll sift through 40 years of satellite images of the ocean surface identifying kelp forests, which are foundational for marine ecosystems, providing shelter for shrimp, fish and sea urchins. A project based in southwest England, Seagrass Explorer , is investigating the decline of seagrass beds. Researchers are using baited cameras to spot commercial fish in these habitats as well as looking out for algae to study the health of these threatened ecosystems. Search for large sponges, starfish and cold-water corals on the deep seafloor in Sweden’s first marine park with the Koster seafloor observatory project.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center needs your help spotting invasive species with Invader ID . Train your eye to spot groups of organisms, known as fouling communities, that live under docks and ship hulls, in an effort to clean up marine ecosystems.

If art history is more your speed, two Dutch art museums need volunteers to start “ fishing in the past ” by analyzing a collection of paintings dating from 1500 to 1700. Each painting features at least one fish, and an interdisciplinary research team of biologists and art historians wants you to identify the species of fish to make a clearer picture of the “role of ichthyology in the past.”

Interesting Insects

Notes from Nature is a digitization effort to make the vast resources in museums’ archives of plants and insects more accessible. Similarly, page through the University of California Berkeley’s butterfly collection on CalBug to help researchers classify these beautiful critters. The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology has already digitized about 300,000 records, but their collection exceeds 4 million bugs. You can hop in now and transcribe their grasshopper archives from the last century . Parasitic arthropods, like mosquitos and ticks, are known disease vectors; to better locate these critters, the Terrestrial Parasite Tracker project is working with 22 collections and institutions to digitize over 1.2 million specimens—and they’re 95 percent done . If you can tolerate mosquito buzzing for a prolonged period of time, the HumBug project needs volunteers to train its algorithm and develop real-time mosquito detection using acoustic monitoring devices. It’s for the greater good!

For the Birders

Birdwatching is one of the most common forms of citizen science . Seeing birds in the wilderness is certainly awe-inspiring, but you can birdwatch from your backyard or while walking down the sidewalk in big cities, too. With Cornell University’s eBird app , you can contribute to bird science at any time, anywhere. (Just be sure to remain a safe distance from wildlife—and other humans, while we social distance ). If you have safe access to outdoor space—a backyard, perhaps—Cornell also has a NestWatch program for people to report observations of bird nests. Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center has a similar Neighborhood Nest Watch program as well.

Birdwatching is easy enough to do from any window, if you’re sheltering at home, but in case you lack a clear view, consider these online-only projects. Nest Quest currently has a robin database that needs volunteer transcribers to digitize their nest record cards.

You can also pitch in on a variety of efforts to categorize wildlife camera images of burrowing owls , pelicans , penguins (new data coming soon!), and sea birds . Watch nest cam footage of the northern bald ibis or greylag geese on NestCams to help researchers learn about breeding behavior.

Or record the coloration of gorgeous feathers across bird species for researchers at London’s Natural History Museum with Project Plumage .

Pretty Plants

If you’re out on a walk wondering what kind of plants are around you, consider downloading Leafsnap , an electronic field guide app developed by Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution. The app has several functions. First, it can be used to identify plants with its visual recognition software. Secondly, scientists can learn about the “ the ebb and flow of flora ” from geotagged images taken by app users.

What is older than the dinosaurs, survived three mass extinctions and still has a living relative today? Ginko trees! Researchers at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History are studying ginko trees and fossils to understand millions of years of plant evolution and climate change with the Fossil Atmospheres project . Using Zooniverse, volunteers will be trained to identify and count stomata, which are holes on a leaf’s surface where carbon dioxide passes through. By counting these holes, or quantifying the stomatal index, scientists can learn how the plants adapted to changing levels of carbon dioxide. These results will inform a field experiment conducted on living trees in which a scientist is adjusting the level of carbon dioxide for different groups.

Help digitize and categorize millions of botanical specimens from natural history museums, research institutions and herbaria across the country with the Notes from Nature Project . Did you know North America is home to a variety of beautiful orchid species? Lend botanists a handby typing handwritten labels on pressed specimens or recording their geographic and historic origins for the New York Botanical Garden’s archives. Likewise, the Southeastern U.S. Biodiversity project needs assistance labeling pressed poppies, sedums, valerians, violets and more. Groups in California , Arkansas , Florida , Texas and Oklahoma all invite citizen scientists to partake in similar tasks.

Historic Women in Astronomy

Become a transcriber for Project PHaEDRA and help researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics preserve the work of Harvard’s women “computers” who revolutionized astronomy in the 20th century. These women contributed more than 130 years of work documenting the night sky, cataloging stars, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring distances in space, according to the project description .

More than 2,500 notebooks need transcription on Project PhaEDRA - Star Notes . You could start with Annie Jump Cannon , for example. In 1901, Cannon designed a stellar classification system that astronomers still use today. Cecilia Payne discovered that stars are made primarily of hydrogen and helium and can be categorized by temperature. Two notebooks from Henrietta Swan Leavitt are currently in need of transcription. Leavitt, who was deaf, discovered the link between period and luminosity in Cepheid variables, or pulsating stars, which “led directly to the discovery that the Universe is expanding,” according to her bio on Star Notes .

Volunteers are also needed to transcribe some of these women computers’ notebooks that contain references to photographic glass plates . These plates were used to study space from the 1880s to the 1990s. For example, in 1890, Williamina Flemming discovered the Horsehead Nebula on one of these plates . With Star Notes, you can help bridge the gap between “modern scientific literature and 100 years of astronomical observations,” according to the project description . Star Notes also features the work of Cannon, Leavitt and Dorrit Hoffleit , who authored the fifth edition of the Bright Star Catalog, which features 9,110 of the brightest stars in the sky.

Microscopic Musings

Electron microscopes have super-high resolution and magnification powers—and now, many can process images automatically, allowing teams to collect an immense amount of data. Francis Crick Institute’s Etch A Cell - Powerhouse Hunt project trains volunteers to spot and trace each cell’s mitochondria, a process called manual segmentation. Manual segmentation is a major bottleneck to completing biological research because using computer systems to complete the work is still fraught with errors and, without enough volunteers, doing this work takes a really long time.

For the Monkey Health Explorer project, researchers studying the social behavior of rhesus monkeys on the tiny island Cayo Santiago off the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico need volunteers to analyze the monkeys’ blood samples. Doing so will help the team understand which monkeys are sick and which are healthy, and how the animals’ health influences behavioral changes.

Using the Zooniverse’s app on a phone or tablet, you can become a “ Science Scribbler ” and assist researchers studying how Huntington disease may change a cell’s organelles. The team at the United Kingdom's national synchrotron , which is essentially a giant microscope that harnesses the power of electrons, has taken highly detailed X-ray images of the cells of Huntington’s patients and needs help identifying organelles, in an effort to see how the disease changes their structure.

Oxford University’s Comprehensive Resistance Prediction for Tuberculosis: an International Consortium—or CRyPTIC Project , for short, is seeking the aid of citizen scientists to study over 20,000 TB infection samples from around the world. CRyPTIC’s citizen science platform is called Bash the Bug . On the platform, volunteers will be trained to evaluate the effectiveness of antibiotics on a given sample. Each evaluation will be checked by a scientist for accuracy and then used to train a computer program, which may one day make this process much faster and less labor intensive.

Out of This World

If you’re interested in contributing to astronomy research from the comfort and safety of your sidewalk or backyard, check out Globe at Night . The project monitors light pollution by asking users to try spotting constellations in the night sky at designated times of the year . (For example, Northern Hemisphere dwellers should look for the Bootes and Hercules constellations from June 13 through June 22 and record the visibility in Globe at Night’s app or desktop report page .)

For the amateur astrophysicists out there, the opportunities to contribute to science are vast. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission is asking for volunteers to search for new objects at the edges of our solar system with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project .

Galaxy Zoo on Zooniverse and its mobile app has operated online citizen science projects for the past decade. According to the project description, there are roughly one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. Surprisingly, identifying different types of galaxies by their shape is rather easy. “If you're quick, you may even be the first person to see the galaxies you're asked to classify,” the team writes.

With Radio Galaxy Zoo: LOFAR , volunteers can help identify supermassive blackholes and star-forming galaxies. Galaxy Zoo: Clump Scout asks users to look for young, “clumpy” looking galaxies, which help astronomers understand galaxy evolution.

If current events on Earth have you looking to Mars, perhaps you’d be interested in checking out Planet Four and Planet Four: Terrains —both of which task users with searching and categorizing landscape formations on Mars’ southern hemisphere. You’ll scroll through images of the Martian surface looking for terrain types informally called “spiders,” “baby spiders,” “channel networks” and “swiss cheese.”

Gravitational waves are telltale ripples in spacetime, but they are notoriously difficult to measure. With Gravity Spy , citizen scientists sift through data from Laser Interferometer Gravitational­-Wave Observatory, or LIGO , detectors. When lasers beamed down 2.5-mile-long “arms” at these facilities in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington are interrupted, a gravitational wave is detected. But the detectors are sensitive to “glitches” that, in models, look similar to the astrophysical signals scientists are looking for. Gravity Spy teaches citizen scientists how to identify fakes so researchers can get a better view of the real deal. This work will, in turn, train computer algorithms to do the same.

Similarly, the project Supernova Hunters needs volunteers to clear out the “bogus detections of supernovae,” allowing researchers to track the progression of actual supernovae. In Hubble Space Telescope images, you can search for asteroid tails with Hubble Asteroid Hunter . And with Planet Hunters TESS , which teaches users to identify planetary formations, you just “might be the first person to discover a planet around a nearby star in the Milky Way,” according to the project description.

Help astronomers refine prediction models for solar storms, which kick up dust that impacts spacecraft orbiting the sun, with Solar Stormwatch II. Thanks to the first iteration of the project, astronomers were able to publish seven papers with their findings.

With Mapping Historic Skies , identify constellations on gorgeous celestial maps of the sky covering a span of 600 years from the Adler Planetarium collection in Chicago. Similarly, help fill in the gaps of historic astronomy with Astronomy Rewind , a project that aims to “make a holistic map of images of the sky.”

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Rachael Lallensack | READ MORE

Rachael Lallensack is the former assistant web editor for science and innovation at Smithsonian .

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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Home » Scope of the Research – Writing Guide and Examples

Scope of the Research – Writing Guide and Examples

Table of Contents

Scope of the Research

Scope of research refers to the range of topics, areas, and subjects that a research project intends to cover. It is the extent and limitations of the study, defining what is included and excluded in the research.

The scope of a research project depends on various factors, such as the research questions , objectives , methodology, and available resources. It is essential to define the scope of the research project clearly to avoid confusion and ensure that the study addresses the intended research questions.

How to Write Scope of the Research

Writing the scope of the research involves identifying the specific boundaries and limitations of the study. Here are some steps you can follow to write a clear and concise scope of the research:

• Identify the research question: Start by identifying the specific question that you want to answer through your research . This will help you focus your research and define the scope more clearly.
• Define the objectives: Once you have identified the research question, define the objectives of your study. What specific goals do you want to achieve through your research?
• Determine the population and sample: Identify the population or group of people that you will be studying, as well as the sample size and selection criteria. This will help you narrow down the scope of your research and ensure that your findings are applicable to the intended audience.
• Identify the variables: Determine the variables that will be measured or analyzed in your research. This could include demographic variables, independent variables , dependent variables , or any other relevant factors.
• Define the timeframe: Determine the timeframe for your study, including the start and end date, as well as any specific time intervals that will be measured.
• Determine the geographical scope: If your research is location-specific, define the geographical scope of your study. This could include specific regions, cities, or neighborhoods that you will be focusing on.
• Outline the limitations: Finally, outline any limitations or constraints of your research, such as time, resources, or access to data. This will help readers understand the scope and applicability of your research findings.

Examples of the Scope of the Research

Some Examples of the Scope of the Research are as follows:

Title : “Investigating the impact of artificial intelligence on job automation in the IT industry”

Scope of Research:

This study aims to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on job automation in the IT industry. The research will involve a qualitative analysis of job postings, identifying tasks that can be automated using AI. The study will also assess the potential implications of job automation on the workforce, including job displacement, job creation, and changes in job requirements.

Title : “Developing a machine learning model for predicting cyberattacks on corporate networks”

This study will develop a machine learning model for predicting cyberattacks on corporate networks. The research will involve collecting and analyzing network traffic data, identifying patterns and trends that are indicative of cyberattacks. The study aims to build an accurate and reliable predictive model that can help organizations identify and prevent cyberattacks before they occur.

Title: “Assessing the usability of a mobile app for managing personal finances”

This study will assess the usability of a mobile app for managing personal finances. The research will involve conducting a usability test with a group of participants, evaluating the app’s ease of use, efficiency, and user satisfaction. The study aims to identify areas of the app that need improvement, and to provide recommendations for enhancing its usability and user experience.

Title : “Exploring the effects of mindfulness meditation on stress reduction among college students”

This study aims to investigate the impact of mindfulness meditation on reducing stress levels among college students. The research will involve a randomized controlled trial with two groups: a treatment group that receives mindfulness meditation training and a control group that receives no intervention. The study will examine changes in stress levels, as measured by self-report questionnaires, before and after the intervention.

Title: “Investigating the impact of social media on body image dissatisfaction among young adults”

This study will explore the relationship between social media use and body image dissatisfaction among young adults. The research will involve a cross-sectional survey of participants aged 18-25, assessing their social media use, body image perceptions, and self-esteem. The study aims to identify any correlations between social media use and body image dissatisfaction, and to determine if certain social media platforms or types of content are particularly harmful.

When to Write Scope of the Research

Here is a guide on When to Write the Scope of the Research:

• Before starting your research project, it’s important to clearly define the scope of your study. This will help you stay focused on your research question and avoid getting sidetracked by irrelevant information.
• The scope of the research should be determined by the research question or problem statement. It should outline what you intend to investigate and what you will not be investigating.
• The scope should also take into consideration any limitations of the study, such as time, resources, or access to data. This will help you realistically plan and execute your research.
• Writing the scope of the research early in the research process can also help you refine your research question and identify any gaps in the existing literature that your study can address.
• It’s important to revisit the scope of the research throughout the research process to ensure that you stay on track and make any necessary adjustments.
• The scope of the research should be clearly communicated in the research proposal or study protocol to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the research objectives and limitations.
• The scope of the research should also be reflected in the research design, methods, and analysis plan. This will ensure that the research is conducted in a systematic and rigorous manner that is aligned with the research objectives.
• The scope of the research should be written in a clear and concise manner, using language that is accessible to all stakeholders, including those who may not be familiar with the research topic or methodology.
• When writing the scope of the research, it’s important to be transparent about any assumptions or biases that may influence the research findings. This will help ensure that the research is conducted in an ethical and responsible manner.
• The scope of the research should be reviewed and approved by the research supervisor, committee members, or other relevant stakeholders. This will ensure that the research is feasible, relevant, and contributes to the field of study.
• Finally, the scope of the research should be clearly stated in the research report or dissertation to provide context for the research findings and conclusions. This will help readers understand the significance of the research and its contribution to the field of study.

Purpose of Scope of the Research

Purposes of Scope of the Research are as follows:

• Defines the boundaries and extent of the study.
• Determines the specific objectives and research questions to be addressed.
• Provides direction and focus for the research.
• Helps to identify the relevant theories, concepts, and variables to be studied.
• Enables the researcher to select the appropriate research methodology and techniques.
• Allows for the allocation of resources (time, money, personnel) to the research.
• Establishes the criteria for the selection of the sample and data collection methods.
• Facilitates the interpretation and generalization of the results.
• Ensures the ethical considerations and constraints are addressed.
• Provides a framework for the presentation and dissemination of the research findings.

Advantages of Scope of the Research

Here are some advantages of having a well-defined scope of research:

• Provides clarity and focus: Defining the scope of research helps to provide clarity and focus to the study. This ensures that the research stays on track and does not deviate from its intended purpose.
• Helps to manage resources: Knowing the scope of research allows researchers to allocate resources effectively. This includes managing time, budget, and personnel required to conduct the study.
• Improves the quality of research: A well-defined scope of research helps to ensure that the study is designed to achieve specific objectives. This helps to improve the quality of the research by reducing the likelihood of errors or bias.
• Facilitates communication: A clear scope of research enables researchers to communicate the goals and objectives of the study to stakeholders, such as funding agencies or participants. This facilitates understanding and enhances cooperation.
• Enables replication : A well-defined scope of research makes it easier to replicate the study in the future. This allows other researchers to validate the findings and build upon them, leading to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Increases the relevance of research: Defining the scope of research helps to ensure that the study is relevant to the problem or issue being investigated. This increases the likelihood that the findings will be useful and applicable to real-world situations.
• Reduces the risk of scope creep : Scope creep occurs when the research expands beyond the original scope, leading to an increase in the time, cost, and resources required to complete the study. A clear definition of the scope of research helps to reduce the risk of scope creep by establishing boundaries and limitations.
• Enhances the credibility of research: A well-defined scope of research helps to enhance the credibility of the study by ensuring that it is designed to achieve specific objectives and answer specific research questions. This makes it easier for others to assess the validity and reliability of the study.
• Provides a framework for decision-making : A clear scope of research provides a framework for decision-making throughout the research process. This includes decisions related to data collection, analysis, and interpretation.

Scope of the Research Vs Scope of the Project

About the author.

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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2 2. Starting your research project

Chapter outline.

• Choosing a research topic (10 minute read time)
• Your research proposal (14 minute read time)
• Practical and ethical considerations (14 minute read time)
• Raw data (10 minute read time)
• Critical considerations (5 minute read time)

Content warning: Examples in this chapter discuss substance use disorders, mental health disorders and therapies, obesity, poverty, gun violence, gang violence, school discipline, racism and hate groups, domestic violence, trauma and triggers, incarceration, child neglect and abuse, bullying, self-harm and suicide, racial discrimination in housing, burnout in helping professions, and sex trafficking of indigenous women.

2.1 Choosing a research topic

Learning Objectives

Learners will be able to…

• Brainstorm topics you may want to investigate as part of a research project
• Explore your feelings and existing knowledge about the topic
• Develop a working question

Research methods is a unique class in that you get to decide what you want to learn about. Perhaps you came to your MSW program with a specific issue you were passionate about. In my MSW program, I wanted to learn about the best interventions to use with people who have substance use disorders. This was in line with my future career plans, which included working in a clinical setting with clients with co-occurring mental health and substance use issues.  I suggest you start by thinking about your future practice goals and create a research project that addresses a topic that represents an area of social work you are passionate about.

For those of you without a specific direction, don’t worry. Many people enter their MSW program without an exact topic in mind they want to study.  Throughout the program, you will be exposed to different populations, theories, practice interventions, and policies that will spark your interest. Think back to papers you enjoyed researching and writing in other classes. You may want to continue studying the same topic.  Research methods will enable you to gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of a topic or issue. If you haven’t found an interesting topic yet, here are some other suggestions for seeking inspiration for a research project:

• If you already have practice experience in social work through employment, an internship, or volunteer work, think about practice issues you noticed in the placement.  Do you have any idea of how to better address client needs?  Do you need to learn more about existing interventions or the programs that fund your agency?  Use this class as an opportunity to engage with your previous field experience in greater detail.  Begin with “what” and “why” questions and then expand on those. For example, what are the most effective methods of treating severe depression among a specific population? Or why are people receiving food assistance more likely to be obese?  
• You could also a sk a professor at your school about possible topics.  Read departmental information on faculty research interests, which may surprise you.  Most departmental websites post the curriculum vitae (CV) of faculty, which lists their publications, credentials, and interests.  For those of you interested in doctoral study, this process is particularly important.  Students often pick schools based on professors they want to learn from or research programs they want to join.  

Once you have a potential idea, start reading!  A simple Google search should bring you some basic information about your topic.  News articles can reveal new or controversial information.  You may also want to identify and browse journals related to your research interests. Faculty and librarians can help you identify relevant journals in your field and specific areas of interest.  We’ll also review more detailed strategies for searching the literature in Chapter 3.  As you read, look for what’s missing. These may be “gaps in the literature” that you might explore in your own study.

It’s a good idea to keep it simple when you’re starting your project. Choose a topic that can be easily defined and explored. Your study cannot focus on everything that is important about your topic. A study on gun violence might address only one system, for example schools, while only briefly mentioning other systems that impact gun violence. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad study! The sooner you can arrive at something specific and clear that you want to study, the better off your project will be.

Writing a working question

There are lots of great research topics. Perhaps your topic is a client population—for example, youth who identify as LGBTQ+ or visitors to a local health clinic. In other cases, your topic may be a social problem, such as gang violence, or a social policy or program, such as zero-tolerance policies in schools. Alternately, maybe there are interventions such as dialectical behavioral therapy or applied behavior analysis that interest you.

Whatever your topic idea, begin to think about it in terms of a question. What do you really want to know about the topic? As a warm-up exercise, try dropping a possible topic idea into one of the blank spaces below. The questions may help bring your subject into sharper focus and bring you closer towards developing your topic.

• What does ___ mean?
• What are the causes of ___?
• What are the consequences of ___?
• What are the component parts of ___?
• How does ___ impact ___?
• What is it like to experience ___?
• What is the relationship between _____ and the outcome of ____?
• What case can be made for or against ___?
• What are the risk/protective factors for ___?
• How do people think about ___?

Take a minute right now and write down a question you want to answer. Even if it doesn’t seem perfect, it is important to start somewhere. Make sure your research topic is relevant to social work. You’d be surprised how much of the world that encompasses. It’s not just research on mental health treatment or child welfare services. Social workers can study things like the pollution of irrigation systems and entrepreneurship in women, among other topics. The only requirement is your research must inform action to fight social problems faced by target populations.

Because research is an iterative process , one that you will revise over and over, your question will continue to evolve.  As you progress through this textbook, you’ll learn how to refine your question and include the necessary components for proper qualitative and quantitative research questions. Your question will also likely change as you engage with the literature on your topic. You will learn new and important concepts that may shift your focus or clarify your original ideas.  Trust that a strong question will emerge from this process. A good researcher must be comfortable with altering their question as a result of scientific inquiry.

Very often, our students will email me in the first few weeks of class and ask if they have a good research topic. We love student emails! But just to reassure you if you’re about to send a panicked email to your professor, as long as you are interested in dedicating a semester or two learning about your topic, it will make a good research topic. That’s why we would advise you to focus on how much you like this topic, so that three months from now you are still motivated to complete your project.

How do you feel about your topic?

Now that you have an idea of what you might want to study, it’s time to consider what you think and feel about that topic. Your motivation for choosing a topic does not have to be objective. Because social work is a value-based profession, scholars often find themselves motivated to conduct research that furthers social justice or fights oppression. Just because you think a policy is wrong or a group is being marginalized, for example, does not mean that your research will be biased. It means you must understand what you feel, why you feel that way, and what would cause you to feel differently about your topic.

Start by asking yourself how you feel about your topic.  Sometimes the best topics to research are those about which you feel strongly. What better way to stay engaged with your research project than to study something you are passionate about? However, you must be able to accept that people may have a different perspective, and you must represent their viewpoints fairly in the research report you produce. If you feel prepared to accept all findings, even those that may be unflattering or distinct from your personal perspective, then perhaps you should begin your research project by intentionally studying a topic about which you have strong feelings.

Kathleen Blee (2002) [1] has taken this route in her research. Blee studies groups whose racist ideologies may be different than her own. You can listen to her lecture Women in Organized Racism that details some of her findings. Her scientific research is so impactful because she was willing to report her findings and observations honestly, even those contrary to her beliefs and feelings. If you believe that you may have personal difficulty sharing findings with which you disagree, then you may want to study a different topic. Knowing your own hot-button issues is an important part of self-knowledge and reflection in social work, and there is nothing wrong with avoiding topics that are likely to cause you unnecessary stress.

Social workers often use personal experience as a starting point to identify topics of interest. As we’ve discussed here, personal experience can be a powerful motivator to learn more about a topic. However, social work researchers should be mindful of their own mental health during the research process. A social worker who has experienced a mental health crisis or traumatic event should approach researching related topics cautiously. There is no need to trigger yourself or jeopardize your mental health for a research project. For example, a student who has just experienced domestic violence may want to know about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. While the student might gain some knowledge about potential treatments for domestic violence, they will likely have to read through many stories and reports about domestic violence as part of the research process. Unless the student’s trauma has been processed in therapy, conducting a research project on this topic may negatively impact the student’s mental health.

What do you think about your topic?

Once you figure out what you feel about your topic, consider what you think about it. There are many ways we know what we know. Perhaps your mother told you something is so. Perhaps it came to you in a dream. Perhaps you took a class last semester and learned something about your topic there. Or you may have read something about your topic in your local newspaper. We discussed the strengths and weaknesses associated with some of these different sources of knowledge in Chapter 1, and we’ll talk about other scientific sources of knowledge in Chapter 3 and 4. For now, take some time to think of everything you know about your topic. Thinking about what you already know will help you identify any biases you may have, and it will help as you begin to frame a question about your topic.

You might consider creating a concept map, just to get your thoughts and ideas on paper and beginning to organize them. Consider this video from the University of Guelph Library (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Key Takeaways

• You should pick a topic for your research proposal that you are interested in, since you will be working with it for several months.
• Investigate your own feelings and thoughts about a topic, and make sure you can be objective and fair in your investigation.
• Research projects are guided by a working question that develops and changes as you learn more about your topic.

Just as a reminder, exercises are designed to help you create your individual research proposal. We designed these activities to break down your proposal into small but manageable chunks. We suggest completing each exercise so you can apply what you are learning to your individual research project, as the exercises in each section and each chapter build on one another.

If you haven’t done so already, you can download this chapter’s exercises or the entire workbook in Google Drive. You might also create a document in a word processor on your computer or in a written notebook with your answers to each exercise.

Brainstorm at least 4-5 topics of interest to you and pick the one you think is the most promising for a research project.

• For your chosen topic, outline what you currently know about the topic and your feelings towards the topic. Make sure you are able to be objective and fair in your research.
• Formulate at least one working question to guide your inquiry.  It is common for topics to change and develop over the first few weeks of a project, but think of your working question as a place to start.

2.2 Your research proposal

• Describe the stages of a research project
• Define your target population and describe how your study will impact that population
• Identify the aim of your study
• Classify your project as descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, or evaluative

Most research methods courses are designed to help students propose a research project. But what is a research project? Figure 2.1 indicates the steps of the research project. Right now, we are in the top right corner, using your informal observations from your practice experience and lived experience to form a working draft of your research question. In the next two chapters, you’ll learn how to find and evaluate scholarly literature on your topic. After thoroughly evaluating the literature, you’ll conceptualize an empirical study based on a research question you create. In many courses, students will have to carry out these designs, and in so doing, their conclusions make a contribution to the research literature in their topic area.

The subtitle of this book is “a project-based approach” because the authors’ courses use this approach. In an introductory research methods course, students often have to create a research proposal followed by a more advanced research class in which they conduct quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The research proposal , is a document produced by researchers that reviews the literature relevant to their topic and describes the methods they will use to conduct their study. Part 1 of this textbook is designed to help you with your literature review. Parts 2-4 are designed to help you figure out which methods you will use in your study.

Parts 3 and 4 should also help you conduct the study you propose to do, analyze your data (though you will probably need additional resources for that), and share it as part of the body of social science literature on your topic. Check with your professor on whether you are required to carry out the project you propose to do in your research proposal. Some of you may be off the hook! But for many of you, this book is designed to help you find a reasonable and practical project for you to complete, moving through all of the steps in Figure 2.1.

A research proposal is focused on a question. Right now, this is your working question from Section 2.1. If you haven’t created one yet, this is a good time to pause and complete the exercises from section 2.1. [2] It is likely you will revise your working question many times as you read more literature about your topic. Consider yourself in the cycle between (re)creating your research question and reviewing the research literature for Part 1 of the textbook.

Student research proposals

Student research projects are a big undertaking, but they are well within your capability as a graduate student.  Let’s start with the research proposal.  Think about the research proposal as a communication device.  You are telling the reader (your professor, usually) everything they need to know in order to understand your topic and the study you plan to do. You are also demonstrating to the reader that you are competent and informed enough to conduct the study.

You can think of a research proposal like creating a recipe.  If you are a chef trying to cook a new dish from scratch, you would probably start by looking at other recipes.  You might cook a few of them and come up with ideas about how to create your own version of the dish.  Writing your recipe is a process of trial and error, and you will likely revise your proposal many times over the course of the semester.  This textbook and workbook are designed to get you working on your project little by little, so that by the time you turn in your final research proposal, you’ll be confident it represents the best way to answer your question. Of course, like with any time I cook, you never quite know how it will turn out.

Is writing a research proposal a useful skill for a social worker? On one hand, you probably won’t be writing research proposals for a living. But the same structure of a research proposal (literature review + methods) is used in grant applications. Writing proposals is often a part of practice, particularly in agency-based and policy practice.  Instead of finding a gap in the literature to study, practitioners write grant proposals describing a program they will use to address an issue in their community, as well as the research methods they will use to evaluate whether it worked (see Chapter 23 for more details).  Similarly, a policy advocate or public administrator might sketch out a proposed program and its evaluation as part of a proposal.  Proposal writing may differ somewhat in practice, but the general idea is the same.

Focusing your project

Based on your work in Section 2.1, you should have a working question—a place to start.  Think about what you hope to accomplish with your study.  This is the aim of your research project.  Often, social work researchers begin with a target population in mind.  As you will recall from section 1.4, social work research is research  for action .  Social workers engage in research to help people.  Think about your working question.  Why do you want to answer it?  What impact would answering your question have?

In my MSW program, I began my research by looking at ways to intervene with people who have substance use disorders.  My foundation year placement was in an inpatient drug treatment facility that used 12-step facilitation as its primary treatment modality.  I observed that this approach differed significantly from others I had been exposed to, especially the idea of powerlessness over drugs and drug use.  My working question started as “what are the alternatives to 12-step treatment for people with substance use issues and are they more effective?”  The aim of my project was to determine whether different treatment approaches might be more effective, and I suspected that self-determination and powerlessness were important.

It’s important to note that my working question contained a target population —people with substance use disorders.  A target population is the group of people that will benefit the most.  I envisioned I would help the field of social work to think through how to better meet clients where they were at, specific to the problem of substance use.  I was studying to be a clinical social worker, so naturally, I formulated a micro-level question.  Yet, the question also has implications for meso- and macro-level practice.  If other treatment methods are more effective than 12-step facilitation, then we should direct more public money towards providing more effective therapies for people who use substances. We may also need to train the substance use professionals to use new treatment methodologies.

• Is it more oriented towards micro, meso, or macro-level practice?
• What implications would answering your question have at each level of the ecosystem?

Asking yourself whether your project is more micro, meso, or macro is a good check to see if your project is well-focused. A project that seems like it could be all of those might have too many components or try to study too much. Consider identifying one ecosystemic level your project will focus on, and you can interpret and contextualize your findings at the other levels of analysis.

Exploration, description, and explanation

Social science is a big place. Looking at the various empirical studies in the literature, there is a lot of diversity—from focus groups with clients and families to multivariate statistical analysis of large population surveys conducted online. Ultimately, all of social science can be described as one of three basic types of research studies. As you develop your research question, consider which of the following types of research studies fits best with what you want to learn about your topic. In subsequent chapters, we will use these broad frameworks to help craft your study’s final research question and choose quantitative and qualitative research methods to answer it.

Exploratory research

Researchers conducting  exploratory research are typically at the early stages of examining their topics. Exploratory research projects are carried out to test the feasibility of conducting a more extensive study and to figure out the “lay of the land” with respect to the particular topic. Usually, very little prior research has been conducted on this topic. For this reason, a researcher may wish to do some exploratory work to learn what method to use in collecting data, how best to approach research subjects, or even what sorts of questions are reasonable to ask.

Often, student projects begin as exploratory research.  Because students don’t know as much about the topic area yet, their working questions can be general and vague.  That’s a great place to start!  An exploratory question is great for delving into the literature and learning more about your topic.  For example, the question “what are common social work interventions for parents who neglect their children?” is a good place to start when looking at articles and textbooks to understand what interventions are commonly used with this population.  However, it is important for a student research project to progress beyond exploration unless the topic truly has very little existing research. 

In my classes, I often read papers where students say there is not a lot of literature on a topic, but a quick search of library databases shows a deep body of literature on the topic. The skills you develop in Chapter 3 and 4 should assist you with finding relevant research, and working with a librarian can definitely help with finding information for your research project. That said, there are a few students each year who pick a topic for which there is in fact little existing research. Perhaps, if you were looking at child neglect interventions for parents who identify as transgender or parents who are refugees from the Syrian civil war, less would be known about child neglect for those specific populations. In that case, an exploratory design would make sense as there is little, if any, literature about your specific topic.

Descriptive research

Another purpose of a research project is to describe or define a particular phenomenon. This is called descriptive research . For example, researchers at the Princeton Review conduct descriptive research each year when they set out to provide students and their parents with information about colleges and universities around the United States. They describe the social life at a school, the cost of admission, and student-to-faculty ratios (to name just a few of the categories reported).  If our topic were child neglect, we might seek to know the number of people arrested for child neglect in our community and whether they are more likely to have other problems, such as poverty, mental health issues, or substance use.

Social workers often rely on descriptive research to tell them about their service area. Keeping track of the number of parents receiving child neglect interventions, their demographic makeup (e.g., race, sex, age), and length of time in care are excellent examples of descriptive research. On a more macro-level, the Centers for Disease Control provides a remarkable amount of descriptive research on mental and physical health conditions. In fact, descriptive research has many useful applications, and you probably rely on such findings without realizing you are reading descriptive research.

Explanatory research

Lastly, social work researchers often aim to explain why particular phenomena operate in the way that they do. Research that answers “why” questions is referred to as explanatory research . Asking “why” means the researcher is trying to identify cause-and-effect relationships in their topic.  For example, explanatory research may try to identify risk and protective factors for parents who neglect their children.  Explanatory research may attempt to understand how religious affiliation impacts views on immigration, for example. All explanatory research tries to study cause-and-effect relationships between two or more variables. A specific offshoot of explanatory research that comes up often is evaluation research , which investigates the impact of an intervention, program, or policy on a group of people.  Evaluation research is commonly practiced in agency-based social work settings, and Chapter 23 discusses some of the basics for conducting a program evaluation.

There are numerous examples of explanatory social scientific investigations. For example, Dominique Simons and Sandy Wurtele (2010) [3] sought to understand whether receiving corporal punishment from parents led children to turn to violence in solving their interpersonal conflicts with other children. In their study of 102 families with children between the ages of 3 and 7, the authors found that experiencing frequent spanking did in fact result in children being more likely to accept aggressive problem-solving techniques. Another example of explanatory research can be seen in Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee’s (2011) [4] research study on the connections between popularity and bullying. From their study of 8th, 9th, and 10th graders in nineteen North Carolina schools, they found that aggression increased as adolescents’ popularity increased. [5]

• Think back to your working question from section 2.1. Which type of research—exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory—best describes your working question?
• Try writing a question about your topic that fits with each type of research.

Important things are more rewarding to do

Another consideration in starting a research project is whether the question is important enough to answer. For the researcher, answering the question should be important enough to put in the effort and time required to complete a research project. As we discussed in section 2.1, you should choose a topic that is important to you—one you wouldn’t mind learning about for at least a few months, if not a few years. Time is your most precious resource as a student. Make sure you dedicate it to topics and projects you consider genuinely important.

Your research question should also be contribute to the larger expanse of research in that area. For example, if your research question is “does cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) effectively treat depression?” you are a few decades late to be asking that question. Hundreds of scientists have published articles demonstrating its effectiveness in treating depression. However, a student interested in learning more about CBT can still find new areas to research. Perhaps there is a new population—for example, older adults in a nursing home—or a new problem—like mobile phone addiction—for which there is little research on the impact of CBT.

Your project contribute something new to social science.  It should address a gap in what we know and what is written in the literature. This can seem intimidating for students whose projects involve learning a totally new topic. How could I add something new when other researchers have studied this for decades? Trust us, by thoroughly reviewing the existing literature, you can find new and unresolved research questions to answer.  Google Scholar’s motto at the bottom of their search page is “stand on the shoulders of giants.” Social science research rests on the work of previous scholars, and builds off of what they discovered to learn more about the social world. Ensure that your question will bring our scientific understanding of your topic to new heights.

Finally, your research question should be of import to the social world. Social workers conduct research on behalf of individuals, groups, and communities to promote change as part of their mission to advance human rights and further social and economic justice. Your research should matter to the people you are trying to help.  Your research project should aim to improve the lives of people in your target population by helping the world understand their needs more holistically.

Research projects, obviously, do not need to address all aspects of a problem. As social workers, our goal in enacting social justice isn’t to accomplish it all in one semester (or even one lifetime). Our goal is to move the world in the right direction and make small, incremental progress.  I encourage all students to think about how they will make their work accessible and relevant to the broader public and use their results to promote change.  

• Research exists in a cycle. Your research project will follow this cycle, beginning from reading literature (where you are now), to proposing a study, to completing a research project, and finally, to publishing the results.
• Social work researchers should identify a target population and understand how their project will impact them.
• Research projects can be exploratory, descriptive, evaluative, or a combination therein. While you are likely still exploring your topic, you may settle on another type of research, particularly if your topic has been previously addressed extensively in the literature.
• Your research project should be important to you, fill a gap or address a controversy in the scientific literature, and make a difference for your target population and broader society.
• State why your working question is an important one to answer, keeping in mind that your statement should address the scientific literature, target population, and the social world.

2.3 Practical and ethical considerations

• Identify potential stakeholders and gatekeepers
• Differentiate between raw data and the results of scientific studies
• Evaluate whether you can feasibly complete your project

Are you interested in better understanding the day-to-day experiences of maximum security prisoners? This sounds fascinating, but unless you plan to commit a crime that lands you in a maximum security prison, gaining access to that particular population would be difficult for a graduate student project. While the topics about which social work questions can be asked may seem limitless, there are limits to which aspects of topics we can study or at least to the ways we can study them.  This is particularly true for student research projects.

Feasibility refers to whether you can practically conduct the study you plan to do, given the resources and ethical obligations you have. In this section, we assume that you will have to actually conduct the research project that you write about in your research proposal. It’s a good time to check with your professor about your program’s expectations for student research projects. For students who do not have to carry out their projects, feasibility is less of a concern because, well, you don’t actually have to carry out your project. Instead, you’ll propose a project that could work in theory. However, for students who have to carry out the projects in their research proposals, feasibility is incredibly important. There are important practical and ethical considerations student researchers should start thinking about from the beginning of a research project.

Access, consent, and ethical obligations

One of the most important feasibility issues is gaining access to your target population. For example, let’s say you wanted to better understand middle-school students who engaged in self-harm behaviors.  That is a topic of social importance, so why might it make for a difficult student project?  Let’s say you proposed to identify students from a local middle school and interview them about self-harm.  Methodologically, that sounds great.  But practically, that sounds challenging. Think about the ethical obligations a social worker has to practice with adolescents who are engaging in self-harm (e.g., competence, respect). In research, we are concerned mostly with the benefits and harms of what you propose to do as well as the openness and honesty you

Gatekeepers

If you were the principal at your local middle school, would you allow an MSW student to interview kids in your schools about self-harm? What if the results of the study showed that self-harm was a big problem that your school was not addressing?  What if the researcher’s interviews led to an increase in self-harming behaviors among the children?  The principal in this situation is a gatekeeper .  Gatekeepers are the individuals or organizations who control access to the population you want to study.  The school board would also likely need to give consent for the research to take place at their institution. Gatekeepers must weigh these ethical questions because they have a responsibility to protect the safety of the people at their organization, just as you have an ethical obligation to protect the people in your research study.

For student projects, it can be a challenge to get consent from gatekeepers to conduct your research project. As a result, students often conduct research projects at their place of employment or field work, as they have established trust with gatekeepers in those locations.  I’m still doubtful an MSW student interning at the middle school would be able to get consent for this study, but they probably have a better chance than a researcher with no relationship to the school.  In the case where the population (children who self-harm) are too vulnerable, student researchers may collect data from people who have secondary knowledge about the topic.  For example, the principal may be more willing to let you talk to teachers, rather than children.  I commonly see student projects that focus on studying practitioners rather than clients for this reason.

Stakeholders

In some cases, researchers and gatekeepers partner on a research project.  When this happens, the gatekeepers become stakeholders .  Stakeholders are individuals or groups who have an interest in the outcome of the study you conduct. As you think about your project, consider whether there are formal advisory groups or boards (like a school board) or advocacy organizations who already serve or work with your target population.  Approach them as experts an ask for their review of your study to see if there are any perspectives or details you missed that would make your project stronger.

There are many advantages to partner your research with stakeholders. As an example, in order to obtain access to interview children at this middle school, you will have to consider other stakeholders’ goals. School administrators also want to help students struggling with self-harm, so they may want to use the results to form new programs. But they may also need to avoid scandal and panic if the results show high levels of self-harm. Most likely, they want to provide support to students without making the problem worse.  By bringing in school administrators as stakeholders, you can better understand what the school is currently doing to address the issue and get an informed perspective on your project’s questions.  Negotiating the boundaries of a stakeholder relationship requires strong meso-level practice skills.

Of course, partnering with administrators probably sounds quite a bit easier than bringing on board the next group of stakeholders—parents.  It’s not ethical to ask children to participate in a study without their parents’ consent.  We will review the parameters of parental and child consent in Chapter 8.  Parents may be understandably skeptical of a researcher who wants to talk to their child about self-harm, and they may fear potential harms to the child and family from your study. Would you let a researcher you didn’t know interview your children about a very sensitive issue?

Social work research must often satisfy multiple stakeholders.  This is especially true if a researcher receives a grant to support the project, as the funder has goals it wants to accomplish by funding the research project.  Your MSW program and university are also stakeholders in your project.  When you conduct research, it reflects on your school.  If you discover something of great importance, your school looks good.  If you harm someone, they may be liable.  Your school also provides you with support through instruction and access to resources like the library and data analysis software.

Target population

So far, we’ve talked about access in terms of gatekeepers and stakeholders.  Let’s assume all of those people agree that your study should proceed.  But what about the people in the target population?  They are the most important stakeholder of all!  Think about the children in your proposed study on self-harm.  How open do you think they would be to talking to you about such a sensitive issue?  Would they consent to talk to you at all?

Maybe you are thinking about simply asking clients on your caseload. As we talked about before, leveraging existing relationships created through field work can help with accessing your target population.  However, they introduce other ethical issues for researchers.  Asking clients on your caseload or at your agency to participate in your project creates a dual relationship between you and your client.  What if you learn something in the research project that you want to share with your clinical team?  More importantly, would your client feel uncomfortable if they do not consent to your study?  Social workers have power over clients, and any dual relationship would require strict supervision in the rare case it was allowed.

Resources and scope

Let’s assume everyone consented to your project and you have adequately addressed any ethical issues with gatekeepers, stakeholders, and your target population. That means everything is ready to go, right? Not quite yet. As a researcher, you will need to carry out the study you propose to do. Depending on how big or how small your proposed project is, you’ll need a little or a lot of resources. Generally, student projects should err on the side of small and simple. We will discuss the limitations of this advice in section 2.5.

One thing that all projects need is raw data . It’s extremely important to note that raw data is not just the information you read in journal articles and books. Every year, I get at least one student research proposal that simply proposes to read articles. It’s a very understandable mistake to make. Most graduate school assignments are simply to read about a topic and write a paper. A research project involves doing the same kind of research that the authors of journal articles do when they conduct quantitative or qualitative studies. The raw data that is often a part of student projects are the results of a survey they give to participants or transcripts of interviews and focus groups.

Some social work researchers do not collect raw data of their own, but instead use secondary data analysis to analyze raw data that has been shared by other researchers. One common source of raw data in student projects from their internship or employer. By looking at client charts or data from previous grant reports or program evaluations, you can use raw data already collected by your agency to answer your research question. Whether a researcher should use secondary data or collect their own raw data is an important choice which we will discuss in greater detail in section 2.4. Nevertheless, without raw data there can be no research project. Reading the literature about your topic is only the first step in a research project.

Time is a student’s most precious resource.  MSW students are overworked and underpaid, so it is important to be upfront with yourself about the time needed to answer your question.  Every hour spent on your research project is not spent doing other things.  Make sure that your proposal won’t require you to spend years collecting and analyzing data.  Think realistically about the timeline for this research project. If you propose to interview fifty mental health professionals in their offices in your community about your topic, make sure you can dedicate fifty hours to conduct those interviews, account for travel time, and think about how long it will take to transcribe and analyze those interviews.

• What is reasonable for you to do over this semester and potentially another semester of advanced research methods?
• How many hours each week can you dedicate to this project considering what you have to do for other MSW courses, your internship and job, as well as family or social responsibilities?

In many cases, focusing your working question on something simple, specific, and clear can help avoid time issues in research projects. Another thing that can delay a research project is receiving approval from the i nstitutional review board (IRB), the research ethics committee at your university. If your study exposes people who participate to potential harm, you may have to formally propose your study to the IRB and get their approval before gathering your data. A well-prepared study is likely to gain IRB approval with minimal revisions needed, but the process can take weeks to complete and must be done before data collection can begin. We will address the ethical obligations of researchers in greater detail in Chapter 8.

Most research projects cost some amount of money, but for student projects, most of that money is already paid.  You paid for access to a university library that provides you with all of the journals, books, and other sources you might need.  You paid for a computer for homework and may use your car to drive to go to class or collect your data.  You paid for this class.  You are not expected to spend any additional money on your student research project.

However, it is always worth looking to see if there are grant opportunities to support student research in your school or program.  Often, these will cover small expenses like travel or incentives for people who participate in the study. Alternately, you could use university grant funds to travel to academic conferences to present on your findings and network with other students, practitioners, and researchers. Chapter 24 reviews academic conferences relevant to social work practice and education with a focus on the United States.

Knowledge, competence, and skills

Another student resource is knowledge. By engaging with the literature on your topic and learning the content in your research methods class, you will learn how to study your topic using social scientific research methods.  The core social work value of competence is key here.  Here’s an example from my work on one of my former university’s research ethics board.  A student from the design department wanted to study suicide by talking to college students in a suicide prevention campus group.  While meeting with the student researcher, someone on the board asked what she would do if one of the students in her study disclosed that they were currently suicidal.  The researcher responded that she never considered that possibility, and that she envisioned a more “fun” discussion.  I hope this example set off alarm bells for you, as it did for the review board.

Clearly, researchers need to know enough about their target population in order to conduct ethical research. Because students usually have little experience in the research world, their projects should pose fewer potential risks to participants. That means posing few, if any, questions about sensitive issues, such as trauma.  A common way around this challenge is by collecting data from less vulnerable populations such as practitioners or administrators who have second-hand knowledge of target populations based on professional relationships.

Knowledge and the social work value of ethical competence go hand in hand.  I see the issue of competence often in student projects if their question is about whether an intervention, for example dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), is effective.  A student would have to be certified in DBT in order to gather raw data by practicing it with clients and tracking their progress.  That’s well outside the scope of practice competency for an MSW student and better suited to a licensed practitioner. It would be more ethical and feasible for a student researcher to analyze secondary data from a practitioner certified to use DBT or analyze raw data from another researcher’s study.

If your working question asks about which interventions are effective for a problem, don’t panic.  Often questions about effectiveness are good places to start, but the project will have to shift in order be workable for a student.  Perhaps the student would like to learn more about the cost of getting trained in DBT, which aspects of it practitioners find the most useful, whether insurance companies will reimburse for it, or other topics that require fewer resources to answer.  In the process of investigating a smaller project like this, you will learn about the effectiveness of DBT by reading the scholarly literature but the actual research project will be smaller and more feasible to conduct as a student.

Another idea to keep in mind is the level of data collection and analysis skills you will gain during your MSW program.  Most MSW programs will seek to give you the basics of quantitative and qualitative research. However, there are limits to what your courses will cover just as there are limits to what we could include in this textbook.  If you feel your project may require specific education on data collection or analysis techniques, it’s important to reach out to your professor to see if it is feasible for you to gain that knowledge before conducting your study.  For example, you may need to take an advanced statistics course or an independent study on community-engaged research in order to competently complete your project.

In summary, here are a few questions you should ask yourself about your project to make sure it’s feasible.  While we present them early on in the research process (we’re only in Chapter 2), these are certainly questions you should ask yourself throughout the proposal writing process. We will revisit feasibility again in Chapter 7 when we work on finalizing your research question.

• Do you have access to the data you need or can you collect the data you need?
• Will you be able to get consent from stakeholders, gatekeepers, and your target population?
• Does your project pose risk to individuals through direct harm, dual relationships, or breaches in confidentiality?
• Are you competent enough to complete the study?
• Do you have the resources and time needed to carry out the project?
• People will have to say “yes” to your research project. Evaluate whether your project might have gatekeepers or potential stakeholders. They may control access to data or potential participants.
• Researchers need raw data, which may include raw bits of information such as survey responses, interview transcripts, or client charts. Your research project must involve more than looking at the analyses conducted by other researchers, as the literature review is only the first step of a research project.
• Make sure you have enough resources (time, money, and knowledge) to complete your research project during your MSW program.
• Identify any gatekeepers and stakeholders.
• Do you think it is likely you will get access to the people or records you need for your study?
• Would the benefits of your study outweigh the risks?

2.4 Raw data

• Identify potential sources of available data
• Weigh the challenges and benefits of collecting your own data

In our previous section, we addressed some of the challenges researchers face in collecting and analyzing raw data. Just as a reminder, raw data are unprocessed, unanalyzed data that researchers analyze using social science research methods. It is not just the statistics or qualitative themes provided in journal articles, but the actual data from which those statistics or themes are derived (e.g., interview transcripts or survey responses).

There are two approaches to getting raw data. First, students can analyze data that are publicly available or from agency records. Using secondary data like this can make projects more feasible, but you may not find existing data that are useful for answering your working question. For that reason, many students gather their own raw data. As we discussed in the previous section, potential harms that come from addressing sensitive topics mean that surveys and interviews of practitioners or other less-vulnerable populations may be the most feasible and ethical way to approach data collection.

Using secondary data

Within the agency setting, there are two main sources of raw data.  One option is to examine client charts.  For example, if you wanted to know if substance use was related to parental reunification for youth in foster care, you could look at client files and compare how long it took for families with differing levels of substance use to be reunified.  You will have to negotiate with the agency the degree to which your analysis can be public. Agencies may be okay with you using client files for a class project but less comfortable with you presenting your findings at a city council meeting. When analyzing data from your agency, you will have to manage a stakeholder relationship.

Another great example from my class this year was a student who used existing program evaluations at their agency as raw data in her student research project.  If you are practicing at a grant funded agency, administrators and clinicians are likely producing data for grant reporting.  Your agency may consent to have you look at the raw data and run your own analysis.  Larger agencies may also conduct internal research—for example, surveying employees or clients about new initiatives.  These, too, can be good sources of available data.  Generally, if your agency has already collected the data, you can ask to use them.  Again, it is important to be clear on the boundaries and expectations of your agency.  And don’t be angry if they say no!

Some agencies, usually government agencies, publish their data in formal reports.  You could take a look at some of the websites for county or state agencies to see if there are any publicly available data relevant to your research topic. As an example, perhaps there are annual reports from the state department of education that show how seclusion and restraint is disproportionately applied to black children with disabilities, as students found in Virginia .  In my class last year, one student matched public data from our city’s map of criminal incidents with historically redlined neighborhoods.  For this project, she is using publicly available data from Mapping Inequality , which digitized historical records of redlined housing communities and the Roanoke, VA crime mapping webpage .  By matching historical data on housing redlining with current crime records, she is testing whether redlining still impacts crime to this day.

Not all public data are easily accessible, though.  The student in the previous example was lucky that scholars had digitized the records of how Virginia cities were redlined by race. Sources of historical data are often located in physical archives, rather than digital archives. If your project uses historical data in an archive, it would require you to physically go to the archive in order to review the data.  Unless you have a travel budget, you may be limited to the archival data in your local libraries and government offices.  Similarly, government data may have to be requested from an agency, which can take time.  If the data are particularly sensitive or if the department would have to dedicate a lot of time to your request, you may have to file a Freedom of Information Act request.  This process can be time-consuming, and in some cases, it will add financial cost to your study.

Another source of secondary data is shared by researchers as part of the publication and review process.  There is a growing trend in research to publicly share data so others can verify your results and attempt to replicate your study.  In more recent articles, you may notice links to data provided by the researcher.  Often, these have been de-identified by eliminating some information that could lead to violations of confidentiality.  You can browse through the data repositories in Table 2.1 to find raw data to analyze.  Make sure that you pick a data set with thorough and easy to understand documentation.

Ultimately, you will have to weigh the strengths and limitations of using secondary data on your own. Engel and Schutt (2016, p. 327) [6] propose six questions to ask before using secondary data:

• What were the agency’s or researcher’s goals in collecting the data?
• What data were collected, and what were they intended to measure?
• When was the information collected?
• What methods were used for data collection? Who was responsible for data collection, and what were their qualifications? Are they available to answer questions about the data?
• How is the information organized (by date, individual, family, event, etc.)? Are identifiers used to indicate different types of data available?
• What is known about the success of the data collection effort? How are missing data indicated and treated? What kind of documentation is available? How consistent are the data with data available from other sources?

In this section, we’ve talked about data as though it is always collected by scientists and professionals.  But that’s definitely not the case!  Think more broadly about sources of data that are already out there in the world.  Perhaps you want to examine the different topics mentioned in the past 10 State of the Union addresses by the President.  One of my students this past semester is examining whether the websites and public information about local health and mental health agencies use gender-inclusive language.  People share their experiences through blogs, social media posts, videos, performances, among countless other sources of data.  When you think broadly about data, you’ll be surprised how much you can answer with available data.

Collecting your own raw data

The primary benefit of collecting your own data is that it allows you to collect and analyze the specific data you are looking for, rather than relying on what other people have shared.  You can make sure the right questions are asked to the right people. For a student project, data collection is going to look a little different than what you read in most journal articles.  Established researchers probably have access to more resources than you do, and as a result, are able to conduct more complicated studies.  Student projects tend to be smaller in scope.  This isn’t necessarily a limitation.  Student projects are often the first step in a long research trajectory in which the same topic is studied in increasing detail and sophistication over time.

Students in my class often propose to survey or interview practitioners.  The focus of these projects should be about the practice of social work and the study will uncover how practitioners understand what they do.  Surveys of practitioners often test whether responses to questions are related to each other.  For example, you could propose to examine whether someone’s length of time in practice was related to the type of therapy they use or their level of burnout.  Interviews or focus groups can also illuminate areas of practice.  A student in my class proposed to conduct focus groups of individuals in different helping professions in order to understand how they viewed the process of leaving an abusive partner.  She suspected that people from different disciplines would make unique assumptions about the survivor’s choices.

It’s worth remembering here that you need to have access to practitioners, as we discussed in the previous section. Resourceful students will look at publicly available databases of practitioners, draw from agency and personal contacts, or post in public forums like Facebook groups.  Consent from gatekeepers is important, and as we described earlier, you and your agency may be interested in collaborating on a project.  Bringing your agency on board as a stakeholder in your project may allow you access to company email lists or time at staff meetings as well as access to practitioners.  One of our students last year partnered with her internship placement at a local hospital to measure the burnout of that nurses experienced in their department.  Her project helped the agency identify which departments may need additional support.

Another possible way you could collect data is by partnering with your agency on evaluating an existing program.  Perhaps they want you to evaluate the early stage of a program to see if it’s going as planned and if any changes need to be made.  Maybe there is an aspect of the program they haven’t measured but would like to, and you can fill that gap for them.  Collaborating with agency partners in this way can be a challenge, as you must negotiate roles, get stakeholder buy-in, and manage the conflicting time schedules of field work and research work.  At the same time, it allows you to make your work immediately relevant to your specific practice and client population.

In summary, many student projects fall into one of the following categories. These aren’t your only options!  But they may be helpful in thinking about what students projects can look like.

• Analyzing chart or program evaluations at an agency
• Analyzing existing data from an agency, government body, or other public source
• Analyzing popular media or cultural artifacts
• Surveying or interviewing practitioners, administrators, or other less-vulnerable groups
• Conducting a program evaluation in collaboration with an agency
• All research projects require analyzing raw data.
• Student projects often analyze available data from agencies, government, or public sources. Doing so allows students to avoid the process of recruiting people to participate in their study.  This makes projects more feasible but comes with some limitations based on the data that are available.
• Student projects should avoid potentially harmful or sensitive topics when surveying or interviewing clients and other vulnerable populations. Since many social work topics are sensitive, students often elect to collect data from less-vulnerable populations such as practitioners and administrators.
• Describe the difference between raw data and the results of research articles.
• Consider browsing around the data repositories in Table 2.1.
• Identify one of the common types of student projects (e.g., surveys of practitioners) and how that might help you answer your working question.

2.5 Critical considerations

• Critique the traditional role of researchers and identify how action research addresses these issues

So far in this chapter, we have presented the steps of student research projects as follows:

• Find a topic that is important to you and read about it.
• Pose a question that is important to the literature and to your community.
• Propose to use specific research methods to answer your question.
• Carry out your project and report the results.

These were depicted in Figure 2.1 earlier in this chapter. There are important limitations to this approach, and this section examines those problems and how to address them.

Whose knowledge is privileged?

First, let’s critically examine your role as the researcher.  Following along with the steps in a research project, you start studying the literature your topic, find a place where you can add to scientific knowledge, and conduct your study.  But why are you the person who gets to decide what is important?  Just as clients are the experts on their lives, members of your target population are the experts on their lives. What does it mean for a group of people to be researched on, rather than researched with?  How can we better respect the knowledge and self-determination of our community members?

A different way of approaching your research project is to start by talking with members of the target population and those who are knowledgeable about that community.  Perhaps there is a community organization you can partner with on a research project.  The researcher’s role in this case would be more similar to a consultant, someone with specialized knowledge about research who can help communities study problems they consider to be important.  The social worker is a co-investigator, and community members are equal partners in the research project.  Each has a type of knowledge—scientific expertise vs. lived experience—that should inform the research process.

The community focus highlights something important about student projects: they are localized.  Student projects can dedicate themselves to issues at a single agency or within a service area.  With a local scope, student researchers can bring about change in their community.  This is the purpose behind action research.

Action research

Action research   is research that is conducted for the purpose of creating social change. When engaging in action research, scholars collaborate with community stakeholders to conduct research that will be relevant to the community. Social workers who engage in action research don’t just go it alone; instead, they collaborate with the people who are affected by the research at each stage in the process. Stakeholders, particularly those with the least power, should be consulted on the purpose of the research project, research questions, design, and reporting of results.

Action research also distinguishes itself from other research in that its purpose is to create change on an individual and community level. Kristin Esterberg puts it quite eloquently when she says, “At heart, all action researchers are concerned that research not simply contribute to knowledge but also lead to positive changes in people’s lives” (2002, p. 137). [7] Action research has multiple origins across the globe, including Kurt Lewin’s psychological experiments in the US and Paulo Friere’s literacy and education programs (Adelman, 1993; Reason, 1994). [8] Over the years, action research has become increasingly popular among scholars who wish for their work to have tangible outcomes that benefit the groups they study.

A traditional scientist might look at the literature or use their practice wisdom to formulate a question for quantitative or qualitative research, as we suggested earlier in this chapter. An action researcher, on the other hand, would consult with people in target population and community to see what they believe the most pressing issues are and what their proposed solutions may be. In this way, action research flips traditional research on its head. Scientists are not the experts on the research topic. Instead, they are more like consultants who provide the tools and resources necessary for a target population to achieve their goals and to address social problems using social science research.

According to Healy (2001), [9] the assumptions of participatory-action research are that (a) oppression is caused by macro-level structures such as patriarchy and capitalism; (b) research should expose and confront the powerful; (c) researcher and participant relationships should be equal, with equitable distribution of research tasks and roles; and (d) research should result in consciousness-raising and collective action. Consistent with social work values, action research supports the self-determination of oppressed groups and privileges their voice and understanding through the conceptualization, design, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination processes of research. We will return to similar ideas in Part 4 of the textbook when we discuss qualitative research methods, though action research can certainly be used with quantitative research methods, as well.

Student projects can make a difference!

One last thing. We’ve told you all to think small and simple with your projects.  The adage that “a good project is a done project” is true.  At the same time, this advice might unnecessarily limit an ambitious and diligent student who wanted to investigate something more complex.  For example, here is a Vice News article about MSW student Christine Stark’s work on sex trafficking of indigenous women.  Student projects have the potential to address sensitive and politically charged topics.  With support from faculty and community partners, student projects can become more comprehensive.  The results of your project should accomplish something.  Social work research is about creating change, and you will find the work of completing a research project more rewarding and engaging if you can envision the change your project will create.

In addition to broader community and agency impacts, student research projects can have an impact on a university or academic program. Consider this resource on how to research your institution by Rine Vieth. As a student, you are one of the groups on campus with the least power (others include custodial staff, administrative staff, contingent and adjunct faculty). It is often necessary that you organize within your cohort of MSW students for change within the program. Not only is it an excellent learning opportunity to practice your advocacy skills, you can use raw data that is publicly available (such as those linked in the guide) or create your own raw data to inform change. The collaborative and transformative focus of student research projects like these can be impactful learning experiences, and students should consider projects that will lead to some small change in both themselves and their communities.

• Traditionally, researchers did not consult target populations and communities prior to formulating a research question. Action research proposes a more community-engaged model in which researchers are consultants that help communities research topics of import to them.
• Just because we’ve advised you to keep your project simple and small doesn’t mean you must do so! There are excellent examples of student research projects that have created real change in the world.
• Apply the key concepts of action research to your project.  How might you incorporate the perspectives and expertise of community members in your project?
• Blee, K. (2002).  Inside organized racism: Women and men of the hate movement . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; Blee, K. (1991).  Women of the Klan: Racism and gender in the 1920s . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ↵
• The exercises we created for this textbook are designed to break down the research proposal into bite-sized chunks. Completing the exercises as you read the textbook helps you apply the knowledge you've gained right away and remember what you thought about concepts you read about a few weeks ago. ↵
• Simons, D. A., & Wurtele, S. K. (2010). Relationships between parents’ use of corporal punishment and their children’s endorsement of spanking and hitting other children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34 , 639–646. ↵
• Faris, R., & Felmlee, D. (2011). Status struggles: Network centrality and gender segregation in same- and cross-gender aggression. American Sociological Review, 76 , 48–73. The study has also been covered by several media outlets: Pappas, S. (2011). Popularity increases aggression in kids, study finds. Retrieved from:  http://www.livescience.com/11737-popularity-increases-aggression-kids-study-finds.html ↵
• This pattern was found until adolescents reached the top 2% in the popularity ranks. After that, aggression declined. ↵
• Engel, R. J. & Schutt, R. K. (2016). The practice of research in social work (4th ed.). Washington, DC: SAGE Publishing. ↵
• Esterberg, K. G. (2002).  Qualitative methods in social research . Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. ↵
• Adelman, C. (1993). Kurt Lewin and the origins of action research.  Educational Action Research, 1,  7-24.; Reason, P. (1994).  Participation in human inquiry . London, UK: Sage. ↵
• Healy, K. (2001). Participatory action research and social work: A critical appraisal.  International Social Work, 44 , 93-105. ↵

a nonlinear process in which the original product is revised over and over again to improve it

a document produced by researchers that reviews the literature relevant to their topic and describes the methods they will use to conduct their study

what a researcher hopes to accomplish with their study

the group of people whose needs your study addresses

conducted during the early stages of a project, usually when a researcher wants to test the feasibility of conducting a more extensive study or if the topic has not been studied in the past

research that describes or defines a particular phenomenon

explains why particular phenomena work in the way that they do; answers “why” questions

research that evaluates the outcomes of a policy or program

whether you can practically and ethically complete the research project you propose

whether you can actually reach people or documents needed to complete your project

the people or organizations who control access to the population you want to study

individuals or groups who have an interest in the outcome of the study you conduct

study publicly available information or data that has been collected by another person

research that is conducted for the purpose of creating social change

Graduate research methods in social work Copyright © 2020 by Matthew DeCarlo, Cory Cummings, Kate Agnelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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4-2 Working Collaboratively: Building a Research Team

Yusuf Yilmaz and Sandra Monteiro

Collaboration is critical to conducting good research and designing good education or innovations. In any discipline, it is a rare situation where an individual has all the knowledge, skills and perspectives required to identify a good idea and develop it to completion and dissemination (1,2). An individual cannot manage all tasks in an efficient or short amount of time.

Critically, health professions education is a rich, multidisciplinary environment that requires collaboration across diverse professions, epistemologies and identities. A scientist may not be able to appreciate the nuances of clinical practice if they do not collaborate to understand the key issues. A clinician educator may not have the capacity to translate all aspects of education science without the support of a researcher. Simply put, we all have gaps in our ability to understand the unique education challenges that we are interested in exploring and can rely on various kinds of experts to supplement our knowledge.

This form of collaboration can create a richer, more complete understanding, but can also be more efficient as experts are much faster than novices at handling tasks within their scope.

Key Points of the Chapter

By the end of this chapter the learner should be able to:

• Describe the importance of teamwork for research
• Identify the priorities when setting up a new research team
• Recognize the challenges for collaboration with novel research teams or team members

Samir decided to talk to his supervisor about the challenge he perceived regarding getting such a diverse team to successfully coordinate their schedules and write together. She suggested that he apply his expert organizational skills to create the writing plan, but then involve the others on the team to complete some of the tasks. She also suggested that he take advantage of available online applications, like Google Docs and Microsoft Teams to create shared space for idea generation, without the need for synchronous meetings.

Deeper Dive into this Concept

Organization and clarity are key to the collaborative writing process. Whether you are writing collaboratively to produce an academic manuscript, or to design new learning objectives and activities for a new curriculum, there are some key principles that can help keep you on track.

First, it helps to identify a leader – not everyone can steer a ship all at the same time – so pick a captain who will be responsible for keeping everyone on task. It is also the leader’s responsibility to make sure there is a shared model of the goal, that everyone on the team understands how they can contribute to the goal and that everyone agrees on the key timeline and checkpoints. Although it can be a challenge managing multiple busy schedules, attempt to start with one synchronous group meeting to create a shared model of the goal. Online applications like Doodle (3) polls or When2meet (4) can be useful in achieving this goal. Also consider holding the meeting online in Zoom (5) or Microsoft Teams (6) as this will allow you to easily record the meeting discussion, which can be transcribed for future review by the group or individuals who could not attend.

Second, be clear on roles and authorship. Review the ICMJE authorship criteria so everyone understands the standards for authorship (7). For academic manuscripts, it is conventional to list all contributors’ names in the order of their level of contribution. The key author positions that are often important for those who write in academic medicine are: first author (the team leader), second (the second-in-command), and senior (the supervisor and/or mentor of the first author and/or the person responsible for a broader program of research). It helps to be clear on these positions at the start of a project, although circumstances may require flexibility over time. The first author is most likely to create the first draft or outline. Ideally, the first author is also the team leader, however this may not be the case for every team. Sometimes, the person elected to manage timelines and expectations is someone in the middle or the senior author.

Third, explain the writing process to everyone on the team and assign roles accordingly. It may seem like common sense, but all writing starts with the first and worst draft. The team members take turns editing it to a better version. Ideally, one person is responsible for the final edit in a consistent voice and style. Moreover, supplementary roles that may be required are a content expert – perhaps someone leading the field who can offer consultation. This person may already be on the team, or can be invited at a later stage of writing to consult. Because this consultant would not meet authorship criteria ( see ICMJE criteria ), they can be mentioned in the acknowledgments.

Fourth, collaborative writing can be highly efficient with the support of various online applications. A common application is Google Docs (8) which allows multiple team members to log in simultaneously, or asynchronously, to edit a single document. It is worth your time to learn how to track edits using the version history and make suggestions (i.e., tracking changes style of annotated suggestions). Google Docs also allow using third party citation managers. Zotero is one free and open source tool that fully integrates with Google Docs and provides citation management in a document (9). The table (4.2.1) below, taken from Yilmaz et al. identifies several online resources that can be used in an asynchronous fashion to facilitate collaborative writing, without having to schedule group meetings to write together (10).

Key Takeaways

In summary, when approaching a collaborative activity, whether research design, curriculum design or innovation, always be clear about individual and group expectations.

• Sharing – Create shared accessible material that helps everyone track progress and understand their role.
• Be Explicit – Identify key tasks and connect them explicitly with individuals and deadlines.
• Structure – Ensure that there is a transparent structure to your project. Whether you are building a research team or writing a paper, it is vital to spend time and effort making sure everyone on the team understands the goals, deadlines and their role within the team.
• Support – Encourage psychological safety within your team so that when team members encounter barriers or challenges they can ask for help. Establish checkpoints to make sure everyone can celebrate their progress or can ask for help with their tasks
• Flexibility – Be prepared to change the plan when necessary. As clear as the plan is at the beginning, there is always a chance that new data will lead you to reconsider your original goals or research questions.
• Walker DHT, Davis PR, Stevenson A. Coping with uncertainty and ambiguity through team collaboration in infrastructure projects. Int J Proj Manag. 2017;35(2):180-190. doi: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.11.001
• Bennett LM, Gadlin H. Collaboration and Team Science: From Theory to Practice. J Investig Med. 2012;60(5):768-775. doi:10.2310/JIM.0b013e318250871d
• Doodle. Doodle: Explore features for the world’s favorite scheduling tool. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://doodle.com/en/features/
• When2meet. When2meet. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://www.when2meet.com/
• Zoom. Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing. Zoom Video. Accessed March 31, 2020. https://zoom.us/
• Video Conferencing, Meetings, Calling | Microsoft Teams. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. ICMJE | Recommendations | Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. Accessed March 25, 2021. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
• Google Docs: Free Online Document Editor | Google Workspace. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://www.google.ca/docs/about/
• Zotero | Your personal research assistant. Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.zotero.org/
• Yilmaz Y, Gottlieb M, Calderone Haas MR, Thoma B, Chan TM. Remote Collaborative Writing A Guide to Writing within a Virtual Community of Practice.  Manuscript submitted.

Other suggested resources

1. MacPFD Google Docs Template for Academic Writing

The above hyperlink leads you to a template that you can use to kickstart your team’s writing. It has the ICMJE criteria listed as well as a grid for scaffolding your initial co-authorship discussions as well.

2. MacPFD Scholarly Secrets – Collaborative Writing – Part 1: Overview of Google docs & Zotero (38 mins)

2. MacPFD Scholarly Secrets – Collaborative Writing – Part 2: The Benefits of Collaborative Writing & Tips (35 mins)

3. MacPFD Scholarly Secrets – Collaborative Writing – Part 3: Timelines, Coordination & Outlines (15 mins)

About the authors

name: Yusuf Yilmaz

institution: McMaster University / Ege University

website: https://yilmazyusuf.com

Yusuf Yilmaz is a postdoctoral fellow ithin the Office of Continuing Professional Development and the McMaster Education Research, Innovation, and Theory (MERIT) program, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. He is a researcher-lecturer in the Department of Medical Education at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey.

name: Sandra Monteiro

institution: McMaster University

Sandra Monteiro is an Associate Professor within the Department of Medicine, Division of Education and Innovation, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. She holds a joint appointment within the Department of   Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact ,  Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University.

4-2 Working Collaboratively: Building a Research Team Copyright © 2022 by Yusuf Yilmaz and Sandra Monteiro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division Contracts Email [email protected] Phone (800) 242-4450

I. Objective

The primary goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive set of Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) for building materials. This will involve identifying specific abatement actions and technologies that can be applied to major building and construction material manufacturing, use, or installation processes to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Results of this project will help inform the financial implications of reducing embodied carbon, identify opportunities that manufacturers might take to lower GHG emissions, and also help identify effective material substitution choices that are likely to significantly reduce emissions associated with building materials.

II. Background

The building sector is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with a substantial portion of emissions stemming from the production, use, or installation of building materials. Efforts to decarbonize this sector are critical in the fight against climate change. CARB has been tasked under Health and Safety Code sections 38561.3 & 38561.6 with developing a framework and strategy to reduce GHG emissions associated with building materials by 40% relative to an established baseline (not yet established) by 2035. The development of MACCs for building materials is a strategic approach to help identify cost-effective opportunities for emissions reductions. This project aligns with the broader goals of reducing embodied carbon and enhancing the sustainability of the construction industry.

Policymakers and regulatory bodies, including the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and other state agencies, are increasingly focusing on embodied carbon as a target for regulation and incentivization. The establishment of MACCs is expected to inform policy decisions by providing a clear understanding of the costs and benefits associated with various abatement strategies, and the lowest-cost opportunities that might be available for decarbonizing building materials. This project will support regulatory and other actions that will facilitate the use of lower-carbon building materials and practices.

The outcomes of this project will not only assist CARB in understanding and identifying costs of potential regulatory actions but will also help the industry gain higher visibility into different interventions they might consider for reducing GHG emissions, potentially leading to innovation in material production and construction practices. The findings will also be valuable for educational purposes, enhancing the knowledge base of professionals and stakeholders involved in sustainable construction.

III. Scope of Work

Task 1 - material and product identification.

In Task 1, the contractor will prepare a methodology document and will work with CARB to ensure that the methodology being outlined is adequate to ensure success of this project.  The contractor will use existing literature and conduct additional review of installed building materials if necessary to identify the set of building materials and building products that account for a significant portion of embodied carbon emissions for new buildings. Using the list of identified products, the contractor will also develop a product substitution hierarchy to map and cluster products and materials together that may partially or completely substitute for one another, and identify under what conditions product substitutions are feasible. The contractor will select a set of materials and products for a comprehensive intervention analysis (Task 2), such that the materials and products selected are responsible for at least 80 percent of attributable embodied carbon emissions in new buildings.

Task 2 -  Comprehensive Literature Review and Construction Coordination for Intervention Analysis

The contractor will conduct a comprehensive literature review of manufacturing processes for the identified building materials to catalog process interventions and process changes that can result in significant reductions in emissions for the selected building products and building materials.

In addition to the literature review, the contractor will establish relationships to coordinate with and interview construction firms and developers to determine product installation costs and to understand barriers affiliated with product substitution or changes to installation practices that could significantly reduce GHG emissions associated with the selected building products. The contractor will ensure that the literature and data that are collected and reviewed in this phase of the project will be sufficient to:

• Scrutinize and classify specific manufacturing process changes and interventions to determine if each intervention will significantly reduce GHG emissions affiliated with the specific material.  
• Scrutinize and classify specific product substitution interventions to determine if those interventions will significantly reduce GHG emissions.
• Quantify the magnitude of emissions reductions that may be achieved due to each identified process intervention and product substitution.
• Assess and document the availability of relevant building materials for different regions/areas in California.
• Identify the most promising interventions to reduce GHG emissions associated with a material or product manufacture or use.
• Estimate costs affiliated with the interventions identified for the material or products.
• Identify possible product substitutions, product substitution costs, and product substitution elasticities that may achieve significant GHG emissions reductions for buildings.

Task 3 - Data Normalization and Cost Assessment

The contractor will synthesize the gathered information from the literature review and coordination with construction firms and developers and develop a normalized database to hold these results. Due to the variability across literature relevant to building material and building product manufacturing and installations, the collected data associated with the literature review will need to be normalized and tabulated in a way to allow for the creation of marginal abatement cost curves in task 4, and also to facilitate direct comparison of materials and the cost and magnitude of emissions reductions achievable with various intervention strategies.

Task 4 -  Abatement Cost Curve Development

The contractor will analyze the gathered data and information to establish marginal abatement cost curves for each identified material in Task 1. Additionally, the contractor will aggregate marginal abatement cost curves to provide a comprehensive MACC detailing the total cost and abatement potential relevant to reducing embodied carbon for buildings.

These marginal abatement cost curves should provide sufficiently accurate estimates to understand the relative cost of different building material and building product emissions reduction strategies while providing a visual and analytical tool for policy development.

Task 5 -  Reports and Data Dissemination

The contractor will prepare a final report that presents all results and findings, and that thoroughly details the literature review and methodologies encompassing inclusion and exclusion criteria and breadth, as well as the methodology to normalize collected data and to develop the marginal abatement cost curves.

The contractor will prepare an interim report, to be completed prior to conclusion of the literature review. The interim report will provide a summary of high-level results, conclusions affiliated with coordination with construction firms and developers, and will clearly identify data or methodological gaps. The interim report should also detail the established literature review methodology. The interim report will be presented to CARB staff to help guide further material selection or methodological refinement to address potential data gaps or deficiencies.

In addition to the final report, the contractor will include underlying data in a well-organized, accessible database. The database should include all relevant data (underlying data must be available for CARB to control and own) and references that were used to construct the marginal abatement cost curves.

During Active Contract Period

• Work with CARB staff at the beginning of the project to create a 1-page plain-language outreach deliverable for the public describing the project’s goals, process, and planned deliverables (available in multiple languages, template will be provided).
• Quarterly Progress Reports including public-facing updates to be posted to CARB’s website
• Quarterly Progress Meetings.
• Informal monthly progress update meetings with CARB contract manager (if applicable).

Prior to Contract Close

• Draft Methodology
• Final Methodology
• Draft Material Inclusion and Product Substitution Assessment
• Final Material Inclusion and Product Substitution Assessment
• Draft Interim and Gap Analysis Report
• Final Interim and Gap Analysis Report
• Completed Literature Review and Product Substitution Assessment
• Normalized Literature Review and Cost Assessment Database
• Draft Final report
• Final Report
• Finalized Database
• Presentation summarizing findings at seminar or public meeting(s) (if applicable)

​​ NOTE: contractor will be responsible for ensuring their documents comply with the American with Disabilities Act.

Additional deliverables to be determined in consultation with CARB staff.

V. Timeline

It is anticipated this project will be completed in 18 months from the start date (start date is estimated to be in Early 2025). The estimated budget for this project is up to $500,000.

Scoring Criteria

1. responsiveness to the goals and objectives outlined in the proposal solicitation (20 points).

The proposal should explain—in adequate detail and clear, understandable language—how the proposed project satisfies the project objectives.  The contract should establish a set of interventions and associated costs for reducing GHG emissions associated with specific building materials and building products.    

2. WORK EXPERIENCE AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE (20 POINTS)

The proposal should demonstrate that the proposers have the work experience or subject matter expertise required to successfully carry out the proposed project as described. Additionally, the proposal should describe how the project will build upon previous relevant work that was funded by CARB, other regional, state, and federal agencies. The proposers should have knowledge of techno-economic modeling and econometrics, as well as material and product manufacturing processes to credibly identify interventions and suitability for reducing emissions associated with building materials and products. Expertise in construction and development to aid in identifying relevant materials for intervention analysis will be necessary.

3. EXPANDING EXPERTISE (10 POINTS)

The proposal should explain how the project team expands expertise such as by incorporating multidisciplinary expertise or perspectives, including members from various public universities, non-academic institutions, or community-based organizations, or providing opportunities to build skills and expertise for individuals from underrepresented groups. Reviewers will consider if key personnel contributing significantly to the project (i.e., a principal investigator, co-principal investigator or co-investigator, contributing 25 percent or more of their time to the project) have not worked with CARB in the past five years.   

4. EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL OR METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH (20 POINTS)

The proposal should clearly explain the logic and feasibility of the project’s methodology, spell out the sequence and relationships of major tasks, and explain methods for performing the work. The proposal should include a clear description and plan for how each task will be completed, and how the proposer will approach collecting information that may not be readily available, and how the proposer will identify and engage with specific manufacturing firms or building design or construction entities to ensure accuracy of the analysis and of assumptions made to complete the analysis.

5. LEVEL AND QUALITY OF EFFORT AND COST EFFECTIVENESS (15 POINTS)

The proposal should describe how time and resources will be allocated and demonstrate how this allocation ensures the project’s success. Proposal reviewers will evaluate, for example: if the objectives of the project can be met given this allocation, if there is adequate supervision and oversight to ensure that the project will remain on schedule, if time and cost are appropriately divvied up across different project tasks and stages.