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Education: Research Plan, Case Study Example

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As part of your research plan, you must first draft a research question for your research paper that will guide the rest of your writing. A research question, which is more specific and focused than a general topic, is the question that your research paper will be answering.

For example, if your general area of interest is social security, a possible research question might ask, “How can low-income families save more money if the United States had a reformed social security plan that includes personal retirement accounts?”

As you develop a research question, keep in mind that you will need to research sources to support your topic. Do not pick a one-sided question that will limit your research. Instead, develop a research question that lends itself to further exploration and debate—a question you genuinely want to know the answer to.

Try to pick a research question that is neither too broad (covering too much) or too narrow (covering too little). It should be broad enough to be discussed in a short research paper.

Part 2: Complete the Research Plan

What is your general topic or area of interest?	Time Management
What is it about your general topic of interest that interests you?	Time management is a lifetime skill and something I don’t think a person can ever know too much about.
What questions do you have about the topic that you would like to investigate? List them.	Why is time management important? Does time management improve a person’s quality of life? Does having good time management skills reduce the amount of stress in a person’s life? Which time management techniques work best? Do different time management techniques work better for different personality types? What obstacles exist to time management?
Would any of the questions you listed make a good subject for a research paper? Pick or adapt one question and make it into a research question.	How can practicing good time management skills improve one’s quality of life as far as issues related to physical and emotional effects of stress?
Why do you think this research question will be appropriate for a research paper?	The question has a specific focus, so it is not too broad. It explores another aspect of the time management topic.
How is your research question significant or relevant to a wider community?	It combines time management and stress relief, two topics of interest to people in any stage of life, teenager through senior citizen.
What background information provides the preliminary grounds for your research?	Stress has negative physical and psychological effects. Good time management can aid in relieving stress.
What are some expert or authoritative sources of information on this research question?	Expert or authoritative sources of information include scholarly databases, medical journals, periodicals, trade magazines, peer-reviewed articles and reports published by medical researchers. Speaking with doctors who focus on treating stress for primary research.
What type of materials will you need to review for your research paper?	I will need to review scholarly databases, medical journals, periodicals, published books, and official websites.
What procedures will you follow to conduct your research?	Preliminary research, drafting a thesis, creating an outline and sub-questions, and planning a project time schedule.
What difficulties do you anticipate in conducting your research?	I might have to dig some to find information correlating time management to stress effects on the body.

Part 3: Summarize a Research Plan

The general topic I have chosen for my final research project and paper is that of time management. I chose time management because it is a topic with appeal to a wide audience. All ages from teenagers to senior citizens and everyone in between can benefit from acquiring good time management skills. It is also a topic that one can never learn too much about, as the opportunity to improve time management skills should generally be a welcome one. I narrowed my topic with the research question, “How can practicing good time management skills improve one’s quality of life as far as issues related to physical and emotional effects of stress? This research question gives my topic what I hope is a fresh and unexpected twist on the usual time management topic, while asking an interesting question.

I hope to be able to find enough relevant information to answer my research question. There are three parts I must answer with my research. First and foremost, if there is documented links between the level and frequency of stress in a person’s life and their personal level of time management skills. Second, does stress have negative health effects physically and emotionally on the body and mind? And the third part, is there any published research to suggest the theory that improving time management skills can have a direct health benefit to an individual, both physically and mentally?

The aspect of my topic I plan to focus on in my research and writing is the theory of improving one’s physical and mental health through the reduction of stress in daily life by developing better time management skills and using them on a daily basis. To develop this aspect, I plan to research credible sources and, if possible, find an expert to interview for a primary research source since I expect published information may be limited on this topic.