Developing an outline of the research report

Before you start writing your report, it is good practice to develop an outline (‘chapterisa- tion’). This means deciding how you are going to divide your report into different chapters and planning what will be written in each one. In developing chapterisation, the subobjectives of your study or the major significant themes that emerged from content analysis can provide immense guidance. Develop the chapters around the significant subobjectives or themes of your study. Depending upon the importance of a theme or a subobjective, either devote a complete chapter to it or combine it with related themes to form one chapter. The title of each chapter should be descriptive of the main theme, communicate its main thrust and be clear and concise. This is applicable to both types of research.

The following approach is applicable to both qualitative and quantitative types of research but keep in mind that it is merely suggestive and may be of help if you have no idea where to start. Feel free to change the suggested format in any way you like or if you prefer a different one, follow that.

The first chapter of your report, possibly entitled ‘Introduction’, should be a general introduction to the study, covering most of your project proposal and pointing out the deviations, if any, from the original plan. This chapter covers all the preparatory tasks undertaken prior to conducting the study, such as the literature review, the theoretical frame­work, the objectives of the study, study design, the sampling strategy and the measurement procedures.

To illustrate this, two examples are provided below for projects referred to previously in this book: the study on foster-care payments and the Family Engagement model. The first chapters of these reports could be written around the subheadings below. The subsequent structure of these reports is quite different. Keeping in view the purpose for which Family Engagement evaluation was commissioned, the report was divided into three parts: the Introduction, the perceived model, and conclusions and recommendation.

Attitudes towards foster-care payments: suggested contents of chapter 1

Chapter I Introduction

  • introduction
  • the development of foster care
  • Foster care in australia
  • Foster care in Western australia
  • the Department of Community services
  • the out-of-home and community care programme
  • Current trends in foster-care placement in Western australia
  • Becoming a foster carer
  • Foster-care subsidies
  • issues regarding foster-care payment
  • Rationale for the study
  • objectives of the study
  • study design
  • sampling
  • Measurement procedure
  • problems and limitations
  • Working definitions

The Family Engagement – A service delivery model: suggested contents of chapter 1

Part One: Introduction

  • Background: the origin of the Family engagement idea
  • Historical perspective
  • the perceived model
  • Conceptual framework
  • Philosophical perspective underpinning the model
  • Indented outcomes
  • Objectives of the evaluation
  • Evaluation methodology

(Note: In this section, the conceptual framework of the model, its philosophical basis, perceived outcomes as identified by the person(s) responsible for initiating the idea, and what was available in the literature, were included. It also included details about evaluation objectives and evaluation methodology.)

The second chapter in quantitative research reports should provide information about the study population. Here, the relevant social, economic and demographic characteristics of the study population should be described. This chapter serves two purposes:

  1. It provides readers with some background information about the population from which you collected the information so they can relate the findings to the type of population studied.
  2. It helps to identify the variance within a group; for example, you may want to examine how the level of satisfaction of the consumers of a service changes with their age, gender or education.

The second chapter in a quantitative research report, therefore, could be entitled ‘Socioeconomic-demographic characteristics of the study population’ or just ‘The study pop­ulation’. This chapter could be written around the subheadings below which are illustrated by taking the example of the foster-care payment study.

As qualitative studies are mostly based upon a limited number of in-depth interviews or observations, you may find it very difficult to write about the study population.

Attitude towards foster-care payments: suggested contents of chapter II

The title and contents of subsequent chapters depend upon what you have attempted to describe, explore, examine, establish or prove in your study. As the content of each project is different, these chapters will be different. As indicated earlier, the title of each chapter should reflect the main thrust of its contents.

The outline should specify the subsections of the chapter. These subsections should be developed around the different aspects of the theme being discussed in the chapter. If you plan to correlate the information obtained from one variable with another, specify the variables. Plan the sequence for discussion of the variables. In deciding this, keep in mind the linkage and logical progression between the sections. This does not mean that the proposed outline cannot be changed when writing the report — it is possible for it to be significantly changed. However, an outline, even if extremely rough, will be of immense help to you. Again, let us take the study on foster-care payment and the Family Engagement model as examples:

Attitudes towards foster-care payments: suggested contents of chapter III

Chapter iii attitudes towards the present level of payment for foster care

  • introduction
  • attitudes towards adequacy of payment for foster care (Responses to questions on the adequacy of foster-care payment should be presented here.)
  • adequacy by age (Cross-tabulation, i.e. responses to the question on adequacy of foster-care payment, is examined in relation to the responses to questions on age.)
  • adequacy by marital status (Cross-tabulation, i.e. responses to the question on ade­quacy of foster-care payment, is examined in relation to the responses to questions on marital status.)
  • adequacy by income of the family (Cross-tabulation, i.e. responses to the question on adequacy of foster-care payment, is examined in relation to the responses to ques­tions on income.)
  • aspects of foster care not covered by the payment
  • Major costs borne by foster carers
  • effects of the current level of payment on the family
  • Reasons for increasing the payment
  • proposed level of payment
  • proposed level by income of the family
  • Conclusions

(Note: Cross-tabulations can be included for any variable where appropriate.)

This type of outline provides direction in your writing. As mentioned earlier, as you start writing you will certainly change it, but nevertheless you will find it very helpful in your write-up.

Source: Kumar Ranjit (2012), Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners, SAGE Publications Ltd; Third edition.

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