Research Proposal怎么写

research proposal要写得多详细，有两种方式：一个是挑一个研究的方向，写得很详细，展来现出现你有能力做深度的研究；另一个是挑两三个研究的主题，每一个都讨论一页左右，让学校觉得你是一个很有弹性，愿意自多方学习的人。
Research proposal通常还会包含一个literature review，也就百是把目前为止学者们做的研究做到哪里了写出来。那接下来你得说明，你赞成哪些，不赞成哪些，以及最重要的是，你未来的研究，跟前人的研究有什么不同，你的学术贡献在哪里！如果是你比较top priority想申请的学校度，建议博士班申请可以将自己的问研究想法，过去做过的研究成果，以及未来想走的方向写一封大约500字的email给你中意的教授。答甚至如果有时间的话，可以去参加conference，遇到教授时就直接上前跟他攀谈。如果没有conference可参加，那就直接寄信问教授是否有意愿跟你会面。

Project Design and Methods

Sample discussions of the methods

Sample 1:

2.Methods

Data collection

The data for the study were collected from 278 Internet users in the US and 347 Internet users in Korea over a 3-month period. In both places, student volunteers were instructed to obtain surveys from individuals in various age categories to allow greater generalizability of the findings. They were asked to make sure that the respondents had access to the Internet. The volunteers were also instructed to explain the research and the nature of participation to the respondents. This technique was chosen not only to increase response rates and minimize wasted questionnaires but also because researchers in Korea had found that the mail survey method was highly ineffective, frequently resulting in a very low response rate and/or a high rate of unusable responses (Shim and Cho, 2000). In order to increase the person's desire to participate in the study, a small gift was presented to all respondents.

The respondents were asked to visit the JCPenney website in their respective countries (jcpenney.com for the US and jcpenneykorea.com for Korea). They were then asked to browse the site for 15–e799bee5baa6e79fa5e98193e59b9ee7ad9433420 min, scrolling up and down the pages, clicking on links and using any features that interested them on the site. After reviewing the site, the participants were asked to fill out the questionnaire. JCPenney was chosen because it was one of a few International companies operating retail websites in both countries that were ideally parallel in format, design, amount and type of information provided, product categories offered and types of consumer services provided.1 Jcpenneykorea.com was launched in May 2001 by JCPenney International Catalog Korea, the US chain's exclusive marketing representative for Korea. The company also operates a mail-order catalogue business and an exhibition centre in Korea. The catalogues have been distributed to approximately 300 000 customers, out of whom an estimated 100 000 have made purchases from the catalogues (The Korea Economic Daily, 2001, p. 21).

The self-administered questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first section contained 36 questions from WebQual™ tapping 12 different dimensions of website quality. The second section included questions assessing the respondents' satisfaction with the site and their behavioural intention to purchase from the site. The final section consisted of questions about the respondents' demographic characteristics (i.e. age, education, gender, income and marital status). Additionally, they were asked how many years they had been using the Internet, how many times they had purchased from an online retailer in the past year, and whether or not they had previously purchased from the JCPenney website. For the US sample, respondents were also asked whether or not they had purchased from JCPenney catalogues and how often they had shopped at the company's conventional stores.

In order to preserve equivalence in cross-cultural adaptation of WebQual™ scale, the questionnaire, originally written in English, was translated into Korean by both researchers. It was then translated back into English by two bilingual Koreans. One of the researchers reviewed the back-translation and compared it to the original English version. As a result, modification was made in the wording of some of the questions in the Korean version of the questionnaire. Prior to the main survey, the questionnaire was also pre-tested in each country, using a small convenience sample, to ensure readability.

Sample characteristics

The age of the US sample ranged from 18 to 67 with an average age of 32 years, whereas the age of the Korean sample ranged from 20 to 48 with an average of 32 years. About 46% of the US respondents were older than 30 years, whereas 53% of the Koreans were above 30. Females represented 58% of the US sample (n = 162) and 48% of the Korean sample (n = 167). Fifty-nine per cent of the US sample and 50% of the Korean sample were single. Only 54% of the US respondents were employed whereas the majority of the Korean respondents (77%) were employed. Nearly half of the US sample reported an annual household income for 2001 of $50 000 or more. By contrast, only 4% of the Korean sample reported a similar household income. However, it is important to note that the average income of the Korean population in 2001 was $24 231 (Korea International Labor Foundation, 2005) compared with $42 228 for the US population (US Census Bureau, 2002). Thirty per cent of the Korean sample reported an income above the average income of the Korean population. With respect to education, however, 83% of the US sample and 84% of the Korean sample had a college degree. Although these percentages seem to suggest that our samples were skewed in a parallel pattern in terms of educational level, it should be noted that previous studies have shown that Internet users tend to be highly educated (Goldsmith and McGregor, 2000).

The US respondents had been using the Internet for an average of 6 years; the Korean respondents averaged 4 years of Internet usage. Seventy-seven per cent of the US sample had purchased from an e-retailer at least once in the past year with an average of six purchases. Surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the Korean sample (92%) had purchased from an e-retailer at least once and averaged no less than 13 purchases. Only a small percentage of either sample had purchased from JCPenney's website (9% for the US and 2% for the Korean). While JCPenney in Korea has just initiated its catalogue offering, it may be significant that in the US 40% of our sample had previously purchased from JCPenney catalogues. Furthermore, 26% of the US sample had shopped at JCPenney's conventional stores once every few months or more often while 74% had either rarely or never shopped at JCPenney stores.

Data analysis

The data were analysed in three phases. First, the dimensionality of each of the measures in each sample was examined by confirmatory factor analysis utilizing LISREL VIII (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1996). Alpha coefficients were calculated for each of the factors found in order to assess each factor's internal consistency. Then, regression analyses were used to assess the influences of shoppers' background information and perceptions of website quality dimensions on their satisfaction and purchase intention.

Sample 2:

2. Methods

2.1 Research Design

In the context of poor business results at Sunny Fitness Center due to recent decreases in customers, this exploratory study sought to conduct a market survey on local consumer behavior, in order to categorize the loyalty status of present customers. This would assist management in identifying potential marketing strategies that could be utilized to maintain customer loyalty to the center. The aims of the study were to expose and understand local consumer behavior in relation to their own background as well as to services they received from the center, to see how differences in gender, age, educational and occupational background, social and economic status may affect customers’ consumption of fitness services, and how the services offered at the center may affect loyalty status. The research questions will be defined as follows:

1. To what extent do differences in gender, age, educational and occupational background, social and economic status affect customers’ consumption of fitness services?
2. What importance does each type of customer attach to the fitness center’s environment, facilities, services, and prices?
3. Are these elements arranged to fully benefit from the businesses' marketing strategies and as a source of competitive advantage? And if not, what are the implications of any deficiencies?

To find answers to these questions, both a quantitative survey and qualitative research were conducted. Quantitative research methods such as questionnaires and front desk registration records were used to collect information on the subjects’ gender, age, educational and occupational background, social and economic status, frequency of visits to the center, as well as their attitude towards the fitness center’s environment, facilities, services, and prices. Qualitative research methods such as observation, face-to-face interviews, and focus groups were used to collect the subjects’ perceptions, opinions, complaints and suggestions on the center’s current situation. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used with the center’s management and employees to understand current marketing practices.

2.2 Sampling design

The setting of this exploratory study was the Sunny Fitness Center. The subjects of the research comprised two groups, visitors and the center’s staff. Since research was limited to the center, potential subjects would include all visitors and staff. Questionnaires were issued to all subjects, face-to-face interviews were conducted with all staff members and 50 visitors were randomly picked during the study, including about 10% of the center’s frequent visitors. Five focus groups were held with the center’s most frequent visitors, consisting of groups of males, females, families, youngsters, and middle-aged persons. There were 5-6 people in each group. Subjects for focus groups were chosen from the most frequent visitors because they were the potential loyal customers whom the center wanted to keep. Subjects for face-to-face interviews were randomly picked to include customers of differing loyalty status, so as to collect more objective data on the center’s weaknesses and opportunities.

2.3 Data Collection

The data for this exploratory study were mainly primary data collected by the researcher from the subjects and Sunny Fitness Center. Some secondary data were also collected from various sources for use in data analysis. The study was conducted in winter, which was a good time for the fitness center, and also a good time for the study to have many visitors as research subjects.

2.3.1 General introduction to the project implementation

Before the research project was designed, preliminary research data were gathered among the staff of Sunny Fitness Center, in order to understand their needs and wants. A questionnaire survey was designed to collect relevant data. (See Appendix X for the Preliminary Research Questionnaire.) The questionnaire had 7 questions, including 6 multiple-choice questions and 1 short answer question, covering all aspects of the research problem. The forms were distributed to all 45 staff of the Sunny Fitness Center through the front desk. In about two weeks, 40 available questionnaires were collected back. The return rate was above 88%. The results showed that the center would like to have information summarizing visitors’ age, gender, occupation, salary, health condition, current fitness plan, as well as visitors’ comments on the center’s facilities, services, and instructors. Based on the results of the preliminary research, a project was designed to address the main issue of concern. (See Appendix X for the Project Proposal.)

Upon approval from the management of Sunny Fitness Center, the project was implemented at the center during January 5th,, 2007--- February 16th, 2007. (See Appendix X for the Project Schedule.) In six weeks time, 5 focus groups were conducted (see Appendix X for the Focus Group Guideline) with the center’s most frequent visitors, 50 visitors were interviewed (see Appendix X for the Interview Guideline), and a questionnaire survey (see Appendix X for the Customer Survey Questionnaire) was distributed among 500 visitors. Eventually, 320 questionnaire forms were collected, with a return rate of 64%. Towards the end of the research project, another survey (see Appendix X for the Staff Survey Sheet) was done among the center’s staff to compare or verify data collected from visitors.

The two receptionists at the front desk helped a lot by giving out and collecting the questionnaire forms, as well as recording check-in and check-out information (see Appendix X for Visitors’ Log) for the visitors. The interviews and focus groups were all conducted by myself. I also made observations of visitors’ behavior, services offered by staff, and communications between visitors and instructors. My observations were recorded in the Project Manager’s Diary. (See Appendix X for the Project Manager’s Diary.) Most of the subjects were quite cooperative and contributed a lot to the study.

Proposal这里是开题报告的意思,其完成的基本步骤如下：

1。先找导师，要几个他推荐的方向，因为就算自己写出来一个很nb的proposal，他不能supervise，也是白搭。
2。在这几个方向上面广泛阅读，找自己的兴趣；
3。在感兴趣的方向上深入阅读，读主要数据库的2年来的论文，别读书；
4。开始写proposal，篇幅不限，自己能看懂就行；
5。论证这个proposed 题目没有人研究copy过，而且没有人正在研究，如果有人正在研究了，研究他的下一步工作（future work），如果找不到这样的方向，跳会第二步；
6。开始缩减篇幅，修改无数次，同时找领域里面的大牛帮看看，提提意见；
7。找外行看，如果他们能看懂60％以上，写的就是成功的；
8。挑zd最干的，最有价值的，整理成150字（我最后写了149个字）

这个过程基本上花4周的精力。

成功的proposal的衡量标准（以下几条尽量占全）：
1。能把要研究的内容、目标说清楚
2。能在有限篇幅内说清楚（我当时150字）
3。能把研究的现状说清楚，并说明这个work以前和现在都没人在做
4。能把研究的方法说清楚
5。能把研究的value说清楚