R‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍esearch question(s) Your (feasible) research question is a

R‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍esearch question(s) Your (feasible) research question is a question that you could address in your Masters dissertation. Your question must be narrow enough for you to be able to engage with it convincingly using the methods you propose within the time frame available and the 10,000 Dissertation word limit. Research questions may be exploratory or confirmatory, descriptive or explanatory, or may not tidily correspond to any of these categories. Regardless of which of these they are, they need to be clearly and explicitly stated. And make sure that they are actually questions (rather than statements or assumptions)! Background literature Briefly describe the broader research topic within which your (feasible) research question is embedded. In particular, what are the main key pieces of theory and/or evidence from the academic literature that describe the evolution of knowledge on your topic and from which your research question emerges? This section should not simply list and describe a series of papers on the subject; in a high-quality research proposal, the research question should emerge quite organically as the ‘point of departure’ from what has already been published (. the background topic literature). The Research Question should be clearly stated at the end of the literature review. Research Design The research design is a feasible analytical strategy to address your research question. This will include the decisions about what kind of data or evidence will be used, and how this evidence will be analyzed. For example, common types of evidence include secondary studies, key informant interviews, surveys, ethnographies, secondary data, or other types of data/information and/or a combination thereof. Common analytical frameworks include comparative case studies, quantitative or qualitative causal analysis (., difference-in-difference estimation), discourse analysis, thematic analysis, a critique of a body of literature from a particular theoretical perspective, or a c‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍ritical exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of existing theory and evidence. Your analytical strategy may combine several approaches and/or may not even have a formal name – but you should be clear about what your sources of evidence are, how you have selected them, how you have analysed your evidence in order to answer your research question. You should outline a research design that is feasible as an MSc dissertation and make clear how the elements of your research design (., the selection of evidence, the analysis, the choice of location or population, the theoretical tools) help you to provide an answer to your research question. You do not need to go into technical depth, nor do you need to actually collect any evidence. You should show awareness that you could have made different design choices and justify the approach you decided to take. You should also show awareness that your chosen approach allows you to make some claims but not others. The bulk of the word count should be given over to the Research Design section. Limitations and critical considerations In this section you should discuss the feasibility and limitations of your proposed research design. You should consider how aspects of your research design (and/or the designs of key studies you draw on) limit what you can know, or claim, as part of your outcomes/conclusions. If you propose to do a critical exploration of the existing (secondary) theory and evidence, the trade-offs and limitations of your own dissertation will include the trade-offs and limitations in the key studies you draw on, and how the research design choices of these source studies in turn may limit your own analysis and conclusions. References Please include proper in-text citations and a reference list, consistently using a standard reference format (., the Harvard referencing system). Key details: Word limit: 1500 words (excluding title/contents page and bibliography, but including text in tables and foot‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍notes.)