a. What situation is to be analyzed?
b. What are the major questions to which answers are sought?
c. What hypotheses, if any, are to be tested?
Relevance of Project
a. Why is it important?
b. In what way will it advance social work knowledge or practice?
Literature review (original or edited from last assignment)
Frame of Reference
a. Develop the frame of reference within which you are exploring the problem.
b. What is the state of existing theory? Who has done what with what results?
c. How has current theory affected your specific topic and areas you plan to consider?
d. What are the principal variables/terms you will be using?
e. What are the limitations of the study?
II. METHODOLOGY
What is the study design – exploratory, descriptive or experimental (approach to studying the problem)?
What will be your sources of data?
What is the “population” you will sample?
1. Define the universe.
2. How will the sample be drawn?
3. How representative of the universe is it and what level of generalization will be permitted by the study?
4. How will you collect your data? – Questionnaire, interview, observation, non-obtrusive measures, available records, etc.
1. What are the advantages of this method?
2. What topics are covered by the instrument?
3. How are topics operationalized and why?
5. What is the reliability of your data and will it be tested?
6. What is the validity of your data and how will it be determined?
7. Limitations of data collected.
III, FINDINGS
a. What are the characteristics of your sample?
b. What statistical methods did you use and why?
c. Present and analyze your findings
