QUALITATIVE RESEARCH MODULE

The detailed argument of research proposal

Research Question; The viewpoint of directors toward Sustainability in Small to Medium 

Enterprises in Africa

• Present the main essential points and to organize these so there is a clear logic that leads to a justification for the study. They should provide the essence of the latter, and should form a coherent sequence. After developing an outline of argument, you can then assess where the holes are in the logic and evidence, and what is needed to do to fill them in.
• Address all of the issues listed below in order;

1. Research goals. What intellectual, practical, and personal goals will this study accomplish, or attempt to accomplish? What problem/s will the study address, and why is it important to address this?
2. Conceptual framework. What are the most important theories, ideas, and knowledge that inform this study? How have these shaped the study? What is your conceptual framework for the study, and how does it use and incorporate these? What do we not know that your study will address?
3. Research questions. What do you want to learn by doing this study? How will answering these questions address the study's goals? How are the questions connected to your conceptual framework?
4. Research relationships. What sorts of research relationships do you plan to establish with the participants in your study or setting, or with those controlling access to your setting or data, and why? How will you go about this, and how will this be influenced by any existing relationships you have with them?
5. Site and participant selection. What setting/s will you study, and/or what individuals will you include in your study? What theoretical and practical considerations have influenced these choices? How are these choices connected to your research questions?
6. Data collection. How do you plan to collect your data, and what data will you collect? Why have you chosen these methods, rather than other possible alternatives? How will these data enable you to answer your research questions?
7. Data analysis. What strategies and techniques will you use to make sense of your data? Why have you chosen these? Indicate how you will use these analyses to answer your research questions; don't just give boilerplate descriptions of analysis strategies.
8. Validity. What do you see as the most important potential threats to the validity of your conclusions? What will you do to address these? What limitations on the generalizability of your results do you see?