Week 12

Tuesday, 29^th March 2011

            The research proposal presentation was scheduled to be today. All of my classmates were ready to present since Dr. Izaham said he would chose randomly. Before the class started, I heard some of my friends said that they were not very sure of their research; and so do I. The presentation today was like the second outline for us in doing our research proposal. We do hope that Dr. Izaham would correct our mistakes to improve the proposal.

            After several people had presented, I voluntarily went forward to present mine. I followed what Dr. Izaham advised me to do during the first consultation in class and had made necessary correction according to all the lectures given. Before I came up with the proposal, I looked back and read the lectures again to have a firm understanding of all the elements in a research proposal. My topic is Readiness of Part 8 TESL Undergraduates to the Teaching Profession: A Case Study. After I had presented, Dr. Izaham commented on my proposal on the sample I planned to do. Since the population was 200, he suggested that I took all population as the sample in my study, instead of taking only 50. Other than that, Dr. Izaham said it was okay.

            Based on all research proposal presented by my classmates, I could see that many of us made mistakes in writing problem statement and research questions. For the problem statement, Dr. Izaham has mentioned during his lecture that the problem investigated must have support from other research or newspaper reports. The problem would not be valid based on our own observation only. Many presenters forgot to do that. As for the research questions, I observed that the common mistake in writing research questions was they were not written specifically to what they want to investigate in the study. The questions did not reflect their purpose of the study and the questions were formulated in ineffective ways. However, I could understand because most of us in this class do not have any experience in writing and doing research. I am sure that with time and gradual guidance given to us, we will improve and gain knowledge in how to write research proposal.