The central learning objective of this course is to develop an understanding of research methods and apply that learning to real world problems. Hence the assignment involves developing a practical research proposal related to an area of student’s interest.
Based on the given instructions and the research materials you have received; formulate a quantitative research proposal of approximately 3000 words that will deploy a questionnaire survey. Total marks for the research report is 90.
- The field of Healthcare Management includes making policy decisions, overseeing patient care, and budgeting and accounting. Depending on your personal area of interest, develop a research problem with a handful of variables from the above-mentioned broad topics, and formulate it into a set of interesting research questions (of your choice). [top tip – keep this quite simple. For example, what type of processes will create improved delivery of patient care?]
- Conduct a focused review of the literature concerning the topic, in line with these research questions, and use it to produce a visual model that could be tested.
- As discussed in the session, clearly stipulate what your hypotheses might be. You only need to state the ‘alternative’ hypotheses.
- With your topic and model in mind, identify and then justify your chosen research methodology (i.e. qualitative versus quantitative, but also experiments versus questionnaires).
- Design an appropriate questionnaire (approx. two sides) to address the research questions and discuss the factors that have been deliberately considered while designing the questionnaire to ensure that reliability and validity are the best they can be.
- There is no data collection required, however, the student might wish to suggest (briefly) some of the steps that will be taken once the data is collected.
- Describe any of the possible limitations of your study.
- Outline any possible ethical concerns that will be managed throughout the research.
- Cite the full bibliographic references that you have cited in your research proposal using APA 6th edition and order them alphabetically.