ASSIGNMENT: COMING UP WITH A TOPIC FOR YOUR GRANT PROPOSAL Background It is expe

ASSIGNMENT: COMING UP WITH A TOPIC FOR YOUR GRANT PROPOSAL
Background
It is expected that someone who has earned a Master’s degree will possess superior knowledge of their subject and will display more advanced writing and critical thinking skills than someone who has earned a Bachelor’s degree in their subject. Furthermore, it is expected that someone with a Master’s degree will have the ability (and hopefully the passion) to contribute to knowledge in their field by being able to conduct research. This is why you are learning to put together a grant proposal. Having knowledge of research methods, being able to critically read and assess the quality of information in the media and professional journals, being able to identify areas for research, and being able to put together a grant proposal are fundamental skills expected of someone who will possess a Master’s degree in health education or nutrition.
The process of coming up with a suitable topic
Okay, now that we have cleared this up, let’s move on to the task at hand: coming up with a topic for your grant proposal. It is strongly recommended that you begin thinking about a topic for your proposal early in the semester. Coming up with an appropriate topic takes time and effort. I do not want to see any topics that deal with physical activity or physical education or interventions targeting physical activity. Since no-one is pursuing a Masters degree in Physical Education, I would much prefer that students not focus on this area. Yes, I recognize that physical activity is an important area of health and I understand that a number of you taking this course are physical education teachers but I want you to develop expertise in other areas of health besides physical education. Also, I do not want to see simplistic topics that look at the relationship between factor X and students’ test scores or GPA. I get this type of topic several times every semester, looking at how something impacts or is related to academic performance or GPA. This is unimaginative and usually difficult to prove. Make sure your topic is focused and concrete and reflects that you have done your background reading of the professional literature (i.e., peer-review articles) and shows some degree of originality and sophistication.
Tips for coming up with a topic
• Be creative! Don’t just settle for a bland topic. It must have some originality and the more specific your topic, the better. Statements like “I am going to write a proposal on obesity in schools” or “I am thinking about a proposal on alcohol use among college students” or “I am going to look at the relationship between cafeteria food in schools and students academic performance” are not going to cut it.
• I will be able to tell if you have properly read up on your idea for a topic, so please make sure you put in the necessary time and effort identifying a topic. Remember it is not my role to come up with a topic for you. When you submit your completed proposal, one important aspect that you will be evaluated on is your choice of topic.
• When searching for a topic as well as when writing up your grant proposal, make sure that you do a proper search of the professional literature. This means that you need to locate peer-reviewed articles in professional scientific journals. I do not want to see web documents, websites, or articles that you obtained from a google or yahoo search or through wikipedia. You need to learn how to properly search for full-text journal articles from the Lehman College website.
Instructions for this assignment
Your task is to write a brief report describing your choice of topic for your grant proposal. Please use Times New Roman, 12pt font, double-spaced in a Microsoft Word file. In your report please write each question number followed by your response. There is no minimum or maximum page limit but the more detail you provide the better. Students who have spent a lot of time working on their Grant Topic and who write a comprehensive, well-researched, and carefully thought out Topic paper usually do well when it comes to writing the Grant Proposal since they already have a lot of the work for the Topic assignment.
1) Title of your topic?
Write the title for your topic. Make it concrete, specific and practical. Try to not go over more than 13-15 words. The longer the title the more confusing it becomes. Your title should perfectly encapsulate the content of your paper. When readers look at your title, they should not have to guess what your study will be about or be confused.
2) What specifically are you looking to find out?
Briefly, what do you intend to find out?
What is your hypothesis?
What are your independent and dependent variables? Make sure your IVs and DVs are concrete and measurable.
3) Why are you interested in this particular topic?
Describe your reasons for choosing this topic. Try to pick a topic that you feel passionate about. Think about a health problem that really interests you. Don’t just pick a topic because you feel it is important and/or well-known (e.g. obesity). The more interested you are in a topic, the more likely that you will read up on it and the more likely you will be to come up with something original to investigate. What do you hope to get out of studying this particular health problem? Would it benefit you, your family, or your community in some way? Would it help you at the place where you work? Could you implement this study at your workplace? Or could this study help further your career goals?
4) Will you have the resources to conduct this study if you choose to do this study next semester?
Your choice of topic is going to be guided by how much time and money you have at your disposal as well as whether you have access to a specific sample. If you an interesting, original topic but you do not have access to the sample and the study is going to take one or more years and cost thousands of dollars – well then you don’t have a viable topic. Treat this assignment as if you intend to do the study next semester. You have only one year to do the study (including data analysis and writing up the results) and a maximum of $5000 at your disposal. Think about how many people will need to be involved in this study. Who is going to help you, if any? What kinds of things are you going to need to do your study (money, office supplies, testing instruments, consent from a school, etc.)? All these factors are crucial when deciding who and what to study. Explain how you think your study will be doable.
5) Is your topic relevant to health educators, nutritionists and/or other health professionals?
Explain how so. Topics like obesity, steroids amongst athletes, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy are all important topics but there are tons of studies on these topics as well as on other well-known health problems. Try to identify something specific about a health problem – see what is not well known about it – so that your intended study will make a dent in current knowledge or practice, even if it is in a very small way. In other words, how will your study be different from other studies in this area and how will it help health educators and allied health professionals?
6) Is it original or does it have an angle?
Explain how your topic is original or has an interesting angle. Make sure you provide evidence from the professional literature that your topic will be filling a gap in our knowledge. I am aware that it is extremely hard to come up with a question or topic that is totally original and that no-one has thought of to date. I don’t expect you to! But what I am looking for is for you to identify an angle or hole in current knowledge about a health problem. For example, a past student wanted to do her proposal on obesity which of course is very broad. Because she worked in a home care agency, she did a review of the research on obesity among certain occupational groups and she found that not much was known about home health care aides. So she decided to do a small study in her agency among home health aides looking at their nutrition knowledge, attitudes and practices. She also decided to give them a burnout survey to see if home health aides who had poorer nutrition were also more likely to display signs of burnout. So she ended up with an interesting, relevant, doable topic!
7) Does your topic focus on knowledge, attitudes or behavior (KAB)?
Explain how so. Make sure your topic focuses on surveying knowledge, attitudes and/or behavior as opposed to things that would require blood analysis or anything medical. If you are not a physician or physiologist, stick with measuring KAB. No epidemiological studies either, since you are not training to become an epidemiologist and that requires another skill set.
8) Is your topic too broad?
This is the number one weakness of many proposals. The only solution to this is to read, read, read current research studies about the health problem that interests you. The only way that you are going to be able to come up with something appropriate is if you have a decent grasp of the literature about this health problem. You should have been reading up on this health problem since the beginning of the course. If you leave it for a few weeks before your proposal is due, that does not leave you with much time to read, research and explore ideas and to refine them. Coming up with a topic for your proposal is a PROCESS. It cannot be done overnight. Proposals that reflect broad, generic topics shout out that the student did not do his/her homework in advance. Explain how your topic is not too broad. Don’t just say that you believe it is not too broad.
9) Is there too much or too little literature already on this topic?
The only way you are going to know that is by reading as much as you can about the topic. If you find that there is a lot written about your topic, then start looking for ways to narrow it and then search the literature again using this narrower focus. So instead of looking at all articles that deal with teenage pregnancy, now only look at articles that deal with teenage pregnancy and drug use. You can keep on narrowing your search. Next, you can look at only studies that involve interventions to help prevent alcohol use among pregnant teens. And so on. Provide an informed assessment of how much or how little is known about your topic. Don’t just say you don’t believe there is not much written about your topic. Nine times out of 10 you will probably be wrong.
10) What have been the major trends in the literature about your topic in terms of what further research needs to be done?
You will know this by reading, reading and reading articles. There is also another much easier way to know where there are gaps in research by focusing your reading on the ‘Discussion” section of articles. Most articles will contain statements about what weaknesses were in their study and they recommend what future research should do. You can get great tips and ideas for a topic by reading this section of articles. The authors are telling you what to focus on!!! Provide a list of trends from the professional literature and make sure you cite all your sources (using APA style).
11) Does your final choice of the research problem truly reflect that you have acquainted yourself thoroughly with peer-review journal articles relating to this subject?
Don’t just say ‘Yes’. You need to put in the time and effort required to obtain a good grasp of trends about your selected topic. Look at articles within the past five years only so you know that the studies you are reading are current and up to date. Provide a list of journal articles that you have used in coming up with your topic (using APA style). You should have at least 20 journal articles that are specific to your topic. Please do not just list references to impress me. Make sure you only list references that you have used and cited for this report. I want to see that your topic and responses to the questions for coming up with a topic are clearly based on the references you have cited.