Writing Research Proposals in the Health Sciences

A Step-by-step Guide

Zevia Schneider, Jeffrey Fuller

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526448439
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Sanità, amministrazione e assistenza pubblica

This is your step-by-step guide on how to write successful research proposals in the health sciences, whether it is for a thesis or dissertation review committee, an ethical review committee or a grant funding committee. Using quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research approaches, follow the journey of Liang and Natasha, two fictional researchers who will help you complete your proposal alongside reading the chapters. This practical guide includes top tips from the authors, read-reflect-respond activities and examples of project plans to equip you with all the tools you need to succeed with your research proposal.

Step Two Background and Justification for the Study

Content

• What is background and justification?
• Selective use of the research literature
• Reviewing the literature

Key terms/concepts

• Justification
• Topic gap
• Method gap
• Theoretical or conceptual framework
• Concept mapping
• PICO question
• Key search terms
• Grey literature
• Black literature

What is Background and Justification?

This chapter will guide you on how to write a careful and economical literature review to provide a background to the research topic/problem and a justification for the study. The background of a study provides a review of the specific topic being investigated, and importantly includes relevant research studies about this topic. The purpose of the background is to indicate your familiarity with the research field of your topic. This will include the identification and critique of the different methodologies in the studies you have quoted in order to provide evidence of what previous studies have achieved and where gaps exist.

These gaps are the basis and justification for your research study, in other words, why you believe it is important to conduct your study. By justification we mean the need to relate your proposed study to what is already known about the topic and then put forward an argument about what needs further investigation.

In research, it is the literature that is considered as the evidence for this background and justification. A critical analysis of this literature is needed in order to provide a background to the problem and also as justification for the proposed study.

A critical analysis of the literature will establish the following:

1. The extent and impact of the problem. This is the background.
2. What is known and what is not known about the problem. This is the topic gap.
3. The methods used in previous studies including the strengths and limitations of these methods and also what insights might be gained through the use of different methods. This is the method gap.

By describing the extent and impact of the problem, you are establishing sufficient background for the reader to see the relative importance of the problem, such as the proportion of population affected (extent is large or small), and the degree to which the problem has an impact on the lives of those affected (high or low). A committee that is considering the approval of a study will want to know that the problem being investigated is of sufficient importance to justify the effort required to conduct the study. For instance, a study into vaginal thrush may be considered important because it affects a large proportion of women (around 75% over a lifetime), rather than because of the impact on a woman’s life, where the uncomplicated symptoms can be easily treated. Here the extent of the problem is relatively high but the impact may be considered as relatively low. A study into chronic childhood leukaemia may be considered important, not because of the proportion of children affected, as this is a rare disease, but because it can be debilitating to individuals over the long term and can lead to death in 20% to 40% of those affected. Here the extent of the problem is relatively low, but the impact is relatively high.

Establishing the importance of a problem is, however, not sufficient justification for a study to proceed. A study needs to add some new knowledge and so address one of the gaps. A study can address a topic gap by asking a new research question, or even by asking a follow-on question, for example this occurs when a large study is proposed based on the findings of a previous pilot study. A study can address a method gap by using different methods to research the same problem in order to overcome limitations or omissions in the previous methods. For instance, an ethnographic qualitative study of illicit drug use by teenagers could explore their drug use influences and motivations in a way that would not be possible through a large population-based survey that was designed to establish prevalence of use.

When analysing the literature on previous research studies, there will be variation regarding aims and objectives, and sample and data collection and analysis, even within the same type of studies. These differences should be carefully considered because they will have an effect on the previous findings and, consequently, what can be said about what is already known, and what is not known. Sometimes it is simply that the findings from previous studies are inconclusive, and this therefore warrants further studies to see if more conclusive findings can be ascertained. For example, Harrison and Gibbons (2013, p 396) justified their study about student perceptions of concept maps on the basis that the literature revealed only ‘partial glimpses of what students experience when they learn to use concept maps’. The authors argued that a study was needed to obtain a more comprehensive picture before they felt they could fully implement concept maps into their nursing programme.

Selective Use of the Research Literature

It is likely that a large body of literature relevant to your topic will be identified. While you should read extensively, a careful, focused search and a critical reading of the literature will be needed for your proposal, so that you can argue the need for your study. The space allocated in a proposal template for the background and justification may allow only a few pages for this, and so this section needs to be focused, concise and clear in making the argument.

Establishing the gaps

Your reading of the literature should be carefully planned and ordered in relation to the specific concepts you wish to explore. Above all, a literature review is an evaluative report of your sources of information. An analysis of the literature requires critical reading and critical analysis to ensure that a cogent argument can be made about why it is important to conduct your study. It is important to identify studies with research designs similar to yours (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) and also studies that have different research designs. A critical analysi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Authors’ Acknowledgements
• Publisher’s Acknowledgements
• About the Book
• Step One Proposal Preparation
• Step Two Background and Justification for the Study
• Step Three Research Approach and Design
• Step Four Capturing Attention – Abstract, Title and Significance
• Step Five Feasibility, Track Record and Teams
• Step Six Writing an Ethics Proposal
• Step Seven Writing a Funding Proposal
• Appendices
• Index