sydney.edu.au/mekong/documents/current_projects/mli_partnerinit_nuolkkuexchange_proposal_jan06.pdf

This research proposal is called Enhancing community based forest resource management vital to local livelihoods in the Lower part of Mekong Basin and was conducted by Somsy Gnophanxay, Lamphoun Phanvongsa, and Dr. Buapun Promphakping.

These researchers planned to establish more efficient ways for professors in Laos and Thailand to conduct research and fieldwork with students to improve the Mekong Learning Initiative. They planned to do this to improve forest health in Laos and Thailand because forest degradation in both countries is a large concern.

The research proposal is set up in an odd way, the researchers didn’t have a question, but rather objectives and expected results. Although they called this a research proposal, and they went through with this plan, it’s not a traditional research proposal because it’s missing so many things. With the lack of their research question, they don’t have a specific type of data they set out to collect, and from there the entire project gets disorganized. The first thing the do in the proposal is define where the data collection site will be, Step 5 in the design to data analysis. After this they set up their structure for methods and implementation, which again is not as clear as it should be. The writers of this proposal spend a lot of time discussing the background of forest degradation in Thailand and Laos for how uncentered their project is. Reading the background made me think there was going to be a lot more focus on environmental issues rather than researching how people can better understand this through collaborative learning. Although it can be inferred from reading the entire proposal, the data type or collection method is not outlined in any clear way. This proposal clearly has a lot of room for improvement and hopefully this example of a not so thorough research proposal can help students to design much clearer versions of their own research in the future.