Locke, Spirduso & Silverman, 1993

Locke, L. F., Spirduso, W. W., & Silverman, S. J. (1993). Proposals that work: A guide for planning dissertations and grant proposals, 3rd ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Chapter 1: The function of the proposal

• Introducing the study
• Stating the question
• Providing a rationale
• Formulating questions or hypotheses
• Delimitations and limitations
• Providing definitions
• Discussing the background of the problem
• Explaining procedures
• Providing supplementary materials

Specimen Proposal 3:

Introduction
What reading is
Not all people read

Purpose of Study
To examine an intervention for reading
Without reading interventions

Rationale for Study, Supports Purpose
Importance of reading
Importance of reading improvement

Need for Study
Societal examples of reading interventions
Interventions seem to work
Little known of effectiveness of reading interventions
Assessing effectiveness lies in certain behaviors

Background of Study
History of assessments and their reliability
Assessments improved
Background to the proposed assessment

Lit Review

Statement of Problem
Situation that needs intervention
Theory-based intervention
Intervention stable enough to ask following questions:
Can students with adequate vocab skills be trained to generate good questions?
Will improvement in question-asking result in improved reading comprehension and reading recall when told to use intervention?
Description of intervention
Previous research on this intervention
Critique of those studies
Evidence that supports current design of proposed intervention
Justifying a research design choice

Restate Question
State Hypotheses
Method
Overview of Research Design
etc..