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Cited by 54Doctoral Education Challenges and SolutionsEducational Research and MethodsAcademic Writing and Publishing

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Essential Ingredients of a Good Research Proposal for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students in the Social Sciences

Open access
Abdulai, Raymond Talinbe, Owusu-Ansah, Anthony·2014·Sage Open
DOI 10.1177/2158244014548178
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Abstract

As part of the requirements for the award of degrees in higher education institutions, students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels normally carry out research, which they report in the form of dissertations or theses. The research journey commences with the selection of a research topic and the preparation of a proposal on the selected topic. Experience has shown that students tend to encounter difficulties in writing research proposals for their supervisors because they do not fully comprehend what constitutes a research proposal. The purpose of this article is to take students through a step-by-step process of writing good research proposals by discussing the essential ingredients of a good research proposal. Thus, it is not a didactic piece—the aim is to guide students in research proposal writing. In discussing these ingredients, relevant examples are provided where necessary for ease of understanding. It is expected that on reading this article, students should be able to: (a) demonstrate knowledge and understanding of what research is all about and its challenging nature; (b) display an enlarged comprehension of research gap(s), problem or question(s), aim, objectives, and hypotheses as well as their distinguishing characteristics; (c) demonstrate a good understanding of the relevant elements to be considered in the constituent sections of a good research proposal; and (d) comprehend the elements of a research proposal that should feature in the final written dissertation or thesis.

Overview

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Crossref · 10.1177/2158244014548178

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53 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Citations

Cites

Show all 55 references

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. Abdulai R. T., 2010, Traditional landholding institutions in sub-Saharan Africa—The operation of traditional landholding institutions in sub-Saharan Africa: A case study of Ghana
  2. Blaikie N., 1993, Approaches to social inquiry
  3. Bryman A., 1998, Knowing the social world, 138
  4. Clandinin D. J., 2000, Narrative enquiry: Experience and story qualitative research
  5. Holt G., 1998, A guide to successful dissertation study for students of the built environment
  6. Kerlinger F. N., 1986, Foundations of behavioural research
  7. Kinnear P. R., 1994, SPSS for Windows made wimple
  8. Mertens D. M., 2003, Handbook of mixed methods in the social and behavioural sciences, 100
  9. Naoum S. G., 2006, Dissertation research & writing for construction students
  10. Research Assessment Exercise, 2005, Rae 2008: Research Assessment Exercise—Guidance on submissions

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Metadata

Authors
Abdulai, R. T., & Owusu-Ansah, A.
Affiliations
  • Liverpool John Moores University (GB)
  • Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, Ghana
Corresponding author
Abdulai, Raymond Talinbe
ORCID
Abdulai, Raymond Talinbe
Venue
Sage Open
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2014-07-01
Volume
4
Issue
3
ISSN
2158-2440 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1177/2158244014548178
OpenAlex
W2140992244
Cited by
53
References
55
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
FWCI
2.42
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • SAGE Open (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity) (cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions
  • Social Sciences › Education › Educational Research and Methods
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Writing and Publishing
Keywords
research proposal writing, research proposal structure, research gaps, research hypotheses, undergraduate research, graduate research, social science research

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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

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Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.