Prospectus: Nature of the Study

The prospectus section - Nature of the Study, is where you should describe your study methodology.  The Prospectus Guidebooks states:

Using one of the following terms as a subheading, provide a concise paragraph that discusses the approach that will be used to address the research question(s) and how this approach aligns with the problem statement. The subheadings and examples of study design are:

• Quantitative—for experimental, quasiexperimental, or nonexperimental designs; treatment-control; repeated measures; causal-comparative; single-subject; or predictive studies.

• Qualitative—for ethnography, case study, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, phenomenological research, or policy analysis.

• Mixed Methods, primarily quantitative—for sequential, concurrent, or transformative studies, with the main focus on quantitative methods

• Mixed Methods, primarily qualitative—for sequential, concurrent, or transformative studies, with the main focus on qualitative methods.

• Other—for other designs, to be specified with a justification provided for its use. 

The reader of this section is expecting to see specifics of how you will conduct your study. If you are using surveys, which one(s) will you use? How many participants are you planning to have? How did you arrive at this number? How will you recruit your participants? The more information that you can provide, the better the reader can see you understand the research methods you are proposing to use. 

Next time we take a look at the Prospectus: Possible Types and Sources of Information or Data. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu