The proposal titled “An Investigation of Guns, Masculinity, and Nationalism” is written by Professor Bill Rocque of the University of Redlands staff. The purpose of this study is to examine gun enthusiasm and gun culture and their relationship to masculinity and nationalism in the United States. Professor Rocque also aims to better understand the ways in which guns are important in the lives of the people who own and use them, the meanings people make from guns and shooting, as well as the ways in which guns function in discourses at the center on freedom, democracy, and citizenship. Professor Rocque also examines gun violence and the regulative attempts that raise important sociopolitical issues. The research on gun ownership and gun shooting provides an exploration of this largely male practice. The topic of this research is connecting guns, masculinity, and nationalism to the political, legal, and social debate. Professor Rocque provides several research questions, such as “How do boys and men use guns to construct themselves as men, and what social, emotional, and psychological payoffs are there for them in the process?”, “What are the narratives that circulate in American culture about guns, freedom, manhood, safety, and power?”, “How do these narratives contribute to the construction of a national manhood?”, among a few others about gun violence, gender, and gun regulations.

The type of data needed to answer these research questions are acts/behaviors/events, reports of acts/behavior/events, deeply held opinions and attitudes, and cultural knowledge. These data types show that qualitative methods are employed to assess the symbolic and material relationships between guns, masculinity, and nationalism in the United States. The data collection methods that are essential for this research are in-depth interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis. Professor Rocque attends gun shows, shoots at ranges, enrolls in gun training courses, and discusses guns with owners of gun related businesses. He engages in the gun culture in the most common ways that gun enthusiasts in America do today. Since he aims to describe a particular population of people, namely males and gun owners, the research requires a non-random sample. To recruit participants, he utilizes snowball sampling methods, internet, email, telephone, and in-person solicitation. The data analysis method employed in this research is coding. Professor Rocque aims to internally code the interview transcripts to identify patterns that the interviewees describe as pertinent. Along with internal coding, Professor Rocque analyzes cultural texts such as social media, films, magazine articles, and websites to contextualize the interview data.

I think this research is well-thought out and successfully utilizes various data types to provide extensive background on the topic of guns, masculinity, and nationalism. Since Professor Rocque is using multiple data types and data collection methods, the research may take a significant amount of time to complete. I think it is interesting that his goal is to help gender theorists better understand the processes of masculinity, role of guns and media in these processes, and the connection between masculinity and violence. If we can improve understanding about gender construction of boys and men who engage in gun violence, then we might eventually reduce it.

This proposal was made to the National Science Foundation Dissertation Development Grant Competition in 2002. This proposal seeks to learn about people’s reactions to levels of water scarcity in a community in Bolivia called Villa Israel. This proposal outlines five main research objectives: the first being to document the influence on this society in general which would involve the development and testing of a scale to measure water consumption, as well as conducting interviews to document the difference of water use in households. The second was to find out how a lack of water influences interactions in the same sample of homes over a nine-month period. The third research goal was to determine the amount of social exchanges between house holds, and if there is some kind of community norm for dealing with someone withdrawing from more frequent interactions. And the last goal was to determine if the withdrawals of the households from exchanges and social relationships because of the norms (if they are present).

The data types that would be used in this research are: cultural knowledge, behavior or reports of behavior,  and hidden social patterns, as well as some observational type data to measure the water levels. The data collection methods that would have been used to find the necessary data are sampling and choosing key informants so that the researcher can be sure that the sample households are being honest and not putting up a front that would prevent the study from getting necessary data. The researcher would conduct a measurement of water availability for each of the selected households being used in the study and for the community in general. In order to gain the opinion and knowledge based information she (the researcher) would conduct household interviews with each of the families. And the last data collection method proposed was an experimental game where,

“The game is an anonymous, one-time interaction between two people that uses real money. The player A is given a sum equal to one day’s labor, and the option to keep the money or send some of it to the player B. If the money is sent to player B, it triples and player B determines how much of the money should be returned to player A. The amount of money offered by player A indicates how much A trusts B, and the amount B returns to A is a measure of reciprocation”  (7, Wutich).

The analysis of this data would determine when and how social ties are effected when a vital recourse becomes scarce and how the people in the society have learned to cope with the challenges brought up. Three analysis methods used to compile and sort the data were : Data entry and coding, Inferential statistics and analysis of ethnographic data.

Wutich, Amber. “The Effects of Water Scarcity on Reciprocity and Sociability in Bolivia.”

This research proposal was written by Stacy Philpott  from the University of Toledo in the United States, Ohio. The purpose of this research is to bring new ideas and concepts to the table of ecological studies by introducing a more practical approach of studying agroecosystems. As stated in the proposal this will be done by studying twig nesting ants in a coffee field the reason behind using twig nesting ants as the focus organism is that they are relatively easy to manipulate and monitor compared to other congregating organisms. The main purpose for these studies to make the field of agroecology more accessible by explored the driving forces behind community assembly in tropical twig-nesting ant communities. Since this is a research proposal based around testing hypotheses  there are multiple research question that could used for this study, such as “examine changes in relative abundance of ants in years following a large-scale disturbance and correlate any observed changes with life history traits of individual species in the twig-nesting ant community”. To answer most of the research questions offered in this proposal one would need acts, behavior, or events as the data main type of data a couple other type of data that are helpful but not necessarily mandatory would be expert knowledge because the history of the twig-nesting ants helps in determining any significant changes to the twig-nesting ants behaviors. The method of analysis for the collected data would be a quantitative analysis due to monitoring nest size and how the other factors influence the total size of a colony or if those factors cause the colony to move or reduce its size. Overall this research proposal is well put together in part due to having a range of good research questions so different groups can potentially be interested in the research in some way or another. As well as the inclusion of well thought out explanation of the logical structure which at first I was confused by because the proposal in almost a two part proposal in the way of the research is suppose to open up the field of agroecology as well as being an study on twig-nesting ants. I think there is plenty of information on this research proposal that most of my classmates could find something interesting because it combines ecology and agriculture together so there is quite a bit variety in this proposal.

Link to proposal PDF: www.utoledo.edu/research/pdfs/Philpott-NSF-AntsAndAgroecosystem.pdf

The research proposal was made to the National Welfare Grants, Health and Welfare Canada. The study aims to shed light on people with HIV/AIDS and how they navigate social service agencies. So much of people’s lives with HIV/AIDS is based on their access to health care, in the proposal referring it  as their “lifework.” The study is unique in that it’s from the perspective of the people receiving the services and their interactions with social service workers. The study would like to explore the “legislation, regulation, policy directives, and standard paperwork practices that organize the interface between people with HIV/AIDS and social agencies from the institutional side.” The questions they ask are: “What characteristic problems emerge? How are such problems generated by the interplay between the HIV/AIDS configuration of life problems and the institutional structure within which social service agency employees work? How do the conditions of the everyday work of living with HIV/AIDS, the organization of that work, and its relation to social service agencies vary with different social locations (e.g class, gender, injection drug use, ethnicity, race..) of these people? And lastly what effect does the stage of someone’s illness have on this organizational matrix?”

The data that would be used for the study are: focus groups, in depth interviews, archival research, and textual analysis. The form of the study is an institutional ethnography because it would explore how the social service agencies operate in relation to HIV/AID patients. Overall interviews would be conducted from major community based AID organizations,  organizational data would include general welfare assistance to housing agencies etc, and documents would include legislation, agency applications, and other bureaucratic forms. The analysis used for this study would examine the “social relations” as an “investigational technique for locating and describing the social form of people’s activities over time.” The researcher would examine “empirically how people’s activities are reflexively/recursively knitted together into particular forms of organization” The research proposal was clear with its focus. It also offers a new discussion on recipients of social service agencies. However, the proposal is from 1990 and thus the treatment and social services of HIV/AIDS has changed since then so if we were to carry out the study today it would produce differing results.

Smith, Dorothy E. Institutional ethnography as practice. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

The project proposal I came across was one that answered the question: From finishing school to feminist academy: the impact of changing social constructions of gender on education in a private girls school in western Australia 1945-97. This proposal was published on the University of Western Australia’s website under their graduate school of education and is written by a women named Karen Marais. The aim of this particular project is to investigate the way that the social construction of gender changed over time and how it effected the experience offered by an independent Christian girls school. She describes in her abstract how this study is set against a background of significant change in western Australian education, and that the main focus of this study is to examine the impact of gender on the education given to girls enrolled in private school. She proceeds her abstract with a section called her rational for the study in which she integrates, background, a statement of purpose, her central question along with 9 sub questions, and the significance of the study. She discloses to us that the reason this study is significant is because it will make a theoretical contribution to the study of gender in schools in western Australia and that The significance of the study is that “it should provide the richness of a case study scenario to underpin the impact of the social construction of gender and class on the type of education offered to girls from 1945 to 1990.”

From that we learn that the format of this study is a case study taking place in a historical context, with a postmodern conceptual framework. Her data gathering methods were the studying of documents, of archived material on this subject and of semi structured in-depth interviews, all quantitative data, all with the intent of broadening the knowledge of the changing gendered expectations in and after schooling. After thoroughly describing her conceptual framework, Ms. Marais reviews all of the literature, which relates to her topic. Though there is lots of literature published surrounding this topic, she specifies that the framework of this project is premised on the social construction of gender and how it effects the education which girls receive. Because this study deals with qualitative data instead of quantitative data, the data analysis method is interpretivist. This means the researcher is no longer a neutral bystander to the data like with quantitative data, but rather becomes an observer and interpreter of human condition. If completed this study will provide “a multi- vocal and multi-generational representation of “lived” experiences of girls and women”

Throughout the last half of the proposal she delves deeper into each on of the sections. She describes her research methods, her data collection methods, how she will recruit people to participate in her study, the interview questions she will ask, and how she will analyze each piece of data. She also makes sure to discuss the limitations to her study, the ethical concerns connected, a time line for her study and lastly the budget she will need to complete it. She includes 4 pages of references as well, bringing the grand total page count to 30 pages.

This is a very well put together and thought out proposal, which I think would be a very successful project if attempted. She was very through and detailed, especially in her literature review, making sure to address all of the different related literature and how it related to her topic. There was nothing to my knowledge that was left unsaid regarding this topic.

http://www.education.uwa.edu.au/students/research/?a=75328

I selected a research proposal titled The Impact of Climatic Change on the Decline of the Black French Truffle. Black truffles are both unique and expensive and over the past 40 years there has been a steady decline of this rare species in both quantity and quality. The objective of this project aims to use quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection to better understand the decline in black truffles from France. The qualitative method involves interview to collect textual data. In regards to the quantitative phase, a cross-sectional survey comprised of multiple choice questions, yes/no questions, self-evaluation items as well as open ended questions will be used. The target sample is roughly 1,200 environmentalists and hoteliers in France. Qualitative Software and Research N6 will be used to code an analyze the data collected from the interviews. Descriptive statistics will also be used to determine the validity of the survey questions. The methods proposed to answer the research question seem to be appropriate and in depth enough to gather reliable data to be analyzed.

The Impact of Climatic Change on the Decline of the Black French Truffle, writepass.com, 10 December, 2016

The proposal example that I have chosen was written by Charles Ming Kheng from the graduate school of education at the University of Western Australia. The research proposed is a study to find whether or not an infusion of biology demonstrations within a physics course had any effects on the achievement or attitudes of junior standing college students in Singapore. To gather data, Kheng randomly assigned 120 students (60 male and 60 female) into control and experiment groups. Both groups were to learn the same level and course of physics, except the experimental group were to have biology-infused physics demonstrations within the course. After two weeks, the two groups were to be compared to see the impact the biology had on their achievement and attitudes.

As mentioned above, the topic of the research was effects of biology-infused demonstrations on achievement and attitudes in junior college physics. The research question was “What are the effects of infusing biology examples into physics demonstrations that are based on a constructivist teaching approach?” Kheng also added the following specific research questions: (1) What are the effects of using such demonstrations on physics achievement? (2) What are the effects of using such demonstrations on physics attitudes? (3) Do the effects of using such demonstrations on achievement and attitudes differ across males and females? (4) Do the effects of using such demonstrations on achievement and attitudes differ across ability levels? The type of data needed to answer this question would be reports of acts and behavior since the main goal is to find out if the biology affected their personal achievements and attitudes. To gather this data, the researcher used a modified version from an existing attitudes questionnaire to compare attitudes, and then used a Physics Achievement Test (PAT) to determine if their achievements differed. To then analyze this data, the statistical methods of Pearson r and Rasch were used for the PAT to see if there was any relationship between the students’ achievements when infused or not with biology.

Overall, I thought this research proposal was well written. It had language that was easy to understand, had visuals to represents the way data would be organized, and transitioned nicely from each step to the next.

This research proposal, collected from missionstudies.org, proposes to take a look into postcolonial theory and new research on women and feminist theology as applied to the practice of mission work. The author of the piece has taken this on because of the increase in studies about missions, and particularly the role of women. However, with this “new world order” there are changing events, thoughts, and movements; many of which applying to the mission work women have done. The author claims, “Women still face differences and ‘otherness’ to such an extent that the little we share, is diminished and overshadowed by these differences.” Since the effects of difference throughout the world can be so detrimental, what can be done to break down the barriers? This piece seems to assume that women are the perfect catalysts, being in both an insider and outsider position. A lot of this research proposal is spent explaining the background knowledge and plethora of ideas about this subject, which makes it much easier to understand than if only a simple explanation had been provided. There are 5 or 6 proposed questions in the “Research Areas” section that I assume will all contribute to the overarching project’s aim. Some of the questions are “How do we understand and re-interpret mission in the light of postcolonial theory and hermeneutics?”, “How can mission scholars through their theological work contribute to a positive valuation of difference in church and society?”, and “How do we read the Bible and other religious texts by means of a postcolonial, hermeneutics?” After this section, two different research aims are identified. One is to develop new paradigms of mission from the diverse female perspective in a post colonial world. The other is to encourage women to listen to each other about their experiences and challenges. This proposal, if accepted, will call on participants from missiological and theological institutions to take part in. This is assumed to be a very diverse group of people. For data collection, the author states, “In order to gather the material which is needed to carry out the research project, a call for papers and material which have not yet been published shall be released immediately.” I am not quite sure what papers or material is being referred to, but I am assuming this type of data will be organization (perhaps coming from the churches) or shallow opinions and beliefs if the people discussed above are being interviewed. There is a workshop mentioned, which I could see being similar to a focus group, working well with the latter data type.

Overall, the most impressive thing about this proposal is the preliminary information offered to the reader. However, I find myself knowing much more about the background details than the actual research study itself, which, in a way, seems to defeat the purpose of a proposal. This made is difficult to evaluate just what type of study was to be carried out. Nevertheless, it was an interesting read.

Heidemanns, K., & Van Schalkwyk, A. (n.d.). How to deal with difference? Creating new paradigms of mission from the perspective of women in a postcolonial world. Missionstudies.org . Retrieved March 11, 2017, from http://missionstudies.org/archive/4groups/women/project_description.htm

I found this research proposal on a site called academia.edu because it was hard to find any research proposals at all on my subject, and I did not really have any previous knowledge to build on. This proposal is from a student at UC San Diego, and as the title implies the topic is food deserts. This research project would answer several questions. How many households in southeast San Diego have moderate, low, an extremely low access to affordable healthy foods? What do residents report would improve their communities’ food situations? And, are people of color disproportionately living in low access neighborhoods? The proposal consists of an abstract, background information from previous studies on food deserts, the significance of the research, the research design, and appendices including interview questions that would be asked. There are several types of data that need to be gathered, and the proposal suggests gathering reports from the USDA data on food insecurity as well as from store owners/managers and residents via surveys and interviews. It would also require census data for southeast San Diego to learn about racial and ethnic diversity. The responses and results from these sources will be analyzed based on distribution of responses to surveys and how closely these are related to the racial makeup of communities.

The proposal also suggests sharing interview responses and the end results with decision-makers in the city of San Diego in order to have information to be able to improve food security in this area. I think it is important that the researcher proposes to ask residents what they think would improve their community rather than trying to shape policy from only an outside perspective. If carried out, this research would be a step towards giving people of this community a voice in important issues, and if not that, it would at least get participants thinking about these issues.

This sample proposal can be found at: http://www.academia.edu/1479455/Research_Proposal_SAMPLE_Assessing_Food_Insecurity_Food-Access_Inequality_In_Southeast_San_Diego_Households

As college students we may often find ourselves going through the motions of reading assignments, and at times may not be conceptualizing the material that we are reading. This is an issue that research David Arias a high school science teacher began to notice in his students. Arias argues, that many students are not capable of accessing content through their reading material. In his past classes he noticed his students did not have the knowledge of how to search through a book, however they knew how to decipher good information for the junk.

In his research titled, Action Research Proposal: The effect of conceptual change and literacy strategies on students in high school science classes, California State University, Northridge. In his research Arias was curious to explore the idea of conceptual change, and to find out how students who are consistently being exposed to ideas, and concepts, are still unable to grasp the information. In his proposal Arias states the purpose of his paper is to, “determine how conceptual change that uses literacy strategies affects students’ achievement in a science class. ” In order to receive the data Arias asks the following research questions: Which strategies help students access the content in a biology class or integrated coordinated science class? Can conceptual change affect students’ success in a biology class? Which literacy strategies in conjunction with conceptual change affect students’ prior knowledge? For the purpose of the study conceptual change refers to a teaching strategy that requires students to reorganize the conceptual framework in order to learn something.

The potential participant in the study will be Arias’ current students for the upcoming school year. Arias would potentially be observing three biology classes (38, 10th grade), as well as two integrated coordinated classes (40, 9th grade). The potential participants backgrounds is stated to be diverse, ranging from mixed socioeconomic statuses, race, and gender, with a wide variety of abilities. Class period run for and hour and fifty minutes, except for Tuesdays.

The proposed research will take part over 16 weeks. Arias states in his proposal that the data collection will be scaffold dependent on the data. for each unit studied the students will be given a pre and post test. Questions on the test would vary from true/false, multiple choice, and free response. Survey’s will also be a part of the study, and collected on a bi-weekly basis.

Data collected for the study will be analyzed with regards to the data collected. The students survey results will be coded and reviewed for factors. Inferential statistics will be used only if Arias’ class schedule changes in the upcoming school semester. Any field notes made by Arias will be coded.

Arias’ proposed research seems to be clearly laid out, and he seems to have a good understanding of how his students minds work, and is looking for a way to help them better understand the material. Reading through the proposal he clearly stated his methods, as well as questions he hoped to answer at the end of his study.