Over the past 3 decades, I have taught, mentored and supervised several research endeavors ranging from Master’s theses and PhD dissertations to undergraduate research projects to practitioner program evaluation projects (Plan | Do | Study | Act) to Research Methods course projects to high school student science projects. And of course, completed my own research and program evaluation projects.
I am again in the midst of this process with undergraduate and graduate students, and wanted to share some fundamental underpinnings and tips to hopefully help those undertaking a project and especially those who are struggling with the writing process.
The Starting Point
It all starts with a problem/question/hypothesis. You may have gotten this idea through observation - a typical starting point of science - or maybe you have been assigned a project by a supervising (“we need to know if XYZ is working”) or you just have some curiosity after reading or hearing something.
It is important that you make sure that your question is clear and specific. Over last past few weeks, I have been going back-and-forth with students about getting clarity in the research question. For example, what is the association of lower body strength with vertical jump performance in high school female athletes?
Study Conceptualization vs. Writing
Study conceptualization - or how you will do the research - can be relatively easy (at least in your head)..... compared to writing the specifics of the background and related research (the INTRODUCTION) and the recipe book for data collection and analysis (the METHODS).
Side bar: Before we move on, let’s not forget that more than likely others have published research related to your question. So pull up to the keyboard and do a PUBMED or Google Scholar search and find some related research. This will help you better understand the topic of inquiry, provide you with some insight into the methods, and also aid in your writing.
The Introduction
Actually, the first thing you should do is write the purpose of your study at the bottom of the page. The Introduction then needs to start broadly about the topic in general and then weave in what we know (related literature) about this topic ... ultimately posing a gap in our understanding which leads to the final statement of the Intro -- "the purpose of this study is to ................"
The Methods - the recipe book
This section needs to outline in good detail how you will test the purpose/hypothesis. Who (subjects or participants) is being studied? What are the key variables and how they will be measured?
A good methods section should serve as a recipe book. If you were to give the methods section to someone else, could they replicate your study?
In addition, how will you analyse the data to test the purpose/hypothesis. Here you will need to draw upon your stats background. This statistical decision making tree is a good resource. And most basic statistics can be computed in EXCEL or Google Sheets. There are also freely available statistical softwares as well.
Pro Tip: find an original research paper (not a review paper or meta-analysis) most similar to your idea/project. Read it and see how they follow these guidelines provided above. Pay close attention to the writing, the rhythm of the paper, etc.