GUIDELINES ON PROPOSAL AND REPORT/DISSERTATION

WRITING
Preliminary Pages for the Proposal
The Cover Page
The cover page should have the following: Title/topic of the study, students
names and registration number centred below the names, names and tittles
of supervisors, statement about the proposal as being in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the Bachelors/masters degree
(specialisation), and month and year the proposal is submitted.
Title/Topic
The title/topic should accurately reflect the scope and content of the study. It
should be between 15-20 words. It should be descriptive yet discrete. The
key word in the topic should be the key variables. It has two main parts:
main title and sub-title.
Table of Contents page
The words TABLE OF CONTENTS are in capital letters and bold print and
centred on top of the page. The word page is justified to the right. The
content page(s) lists all headings and sub-headings and the pages where
they appear.
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1Introduction (summary of what to be included in this chapter)
1.2Background to the study (should give historical, theoretical, conceptual, and
contextual background (Amin, 2005).

1.3Statement of the problem

1.4Objectives of the study
1.4.1 General/major objective of the study
1.4.2 Specific objectives of the study (use phrases such as; To find out, To
investigate, To determine, To evaluate etc.)
1.5Research hypotheses/ Questions (The number of research
hypotheses/questions should correspond with that of specific objectives in
all cases)
1.6Conceptual framework .The conceptual framework is a diagrammatic
representation of the relationship between variables and how they are
operationalized for the purpose of research. It should indicate the independent
and dependent variables (cause/ effect relationship) or vice versa, moderating
(intervening) variables (where applicable).

1.7Significance/Justification of the study (i.e. relevance of the study in terms

of academic and policy contribution. who will benefit from the findings
and how)
1.8Justification of the study (i.e. rationale of the study whether
methodological or problem justification)
1.9Scope (coverage) of the study (i.e. content, geographical, and time scope
)
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1.10
Limitations of the study (i.e. anticipated constraints and potential
sources of bias in the proposed study and how you plan to overcome
them)
1.11
Operational definitions of key terms/concepts. The definition
should be operational and not a dictionary definition.

1.12 Organization of the study (i.e. summary of all the chapters in the study.
The introduction, literature review, methodology, presentation and
discussion of findings, conclusions and recommendations)
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction (i.e. summary of the themes on which literature is reviewed
and organized)
2.2 Theoretical literature review (any theories about the study)
2.3 Empirical literature review i.e. actual literature about the study. This
should be done objective by objective. Objectives should form themes on
which literature is reviewed. Citations and quotations should be based on
the Harvard style. The review should be critical and use of current journal
articles rather than textbooks is recommended
2.4 Summary of literature review (i.e. key lessons learnt and highlights of gap(s)
that have been identified in the literature review)

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction (summary of what is contained in this chapter and how it is
arranged)
3.2 Research design. This is a structural arrangement within which research will
be undertaken e.g. whether it is longitudinal or cross-sectional, descriptive,
explanatory or experimental, case based or representative. The choice of a
particular design needs to be justified and the candidate must state in precise
terms which approach will be used among qualitative and quantitative or
whether both will be used.
3.3 Study/ targeted population (i.e. the researcher must state the exact
population from which the sample will be selected).

3.4 Sample size and sampling procedure

3.4.1 Sample size (I.e. description of the actual sample and how it will be selected
/calculated.
3.4.2. Sampling techniques and procedure (i.e. the procedure of the sampling
techniques that will be used in selecting the sample to be studied e.g.
probability or non-probability based sampling. Probability based
sampling include simple random, systematic random, stratified, cluster
etc. Non-probability sampling includes purposive, maximum variation,
homogenous, quota, convenient or accidental etc). It describes in
detail the procedure and design of the sampling frame.
3.5 Data types and Collection methods
3.5.1 Data types (i.e. whether the research will use primary or secondary
data)
3.5.2 Data collection methods. Methods of collecting primary data could include
face-to-face interviews, key informants interviews, focus group discussions,
questionnaire, observation, etc. while secondary data sources include
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background to the budget, ministerial reports, central bank reports, UBOS,

Local government reports etc.

3.6

3.7

Validity and Reliability of data collection instruments (i.e. through the use
of pilot studies). The researcher should briefly describe and explain how the
pre-test/pilot study will be carried out, the findings of the pilot study and s/he
will use them to re-design and improve the data collection instruments.
Ethical considerations (The student should show how the issues of
trustworthiness, credibility and confidentiality will be addressed/adhered to.

3.8 Data analysis (i.e. how data will be captured, processed and summarized.
It should indicate the statistical package to be used in capturing and
analyzing data e.g. EXCEL, SPSS, STATA, E-VIEWS, MATLAB etc.). Where
both qualitative and quantitative data is expected, the student should
describe in a detailed way in which the data will be analysed
3.8.1 Univariate/ Descriptive analysis (i.e. analyzing the individual
characteristics of each variable/ factor using descriptive statistics,
frequency tables, graphs, measures of central tendency and dispersion)
3.8.2 Bivariate analysis (analyzing the relationship between two variables
using plots, correlations, Chi-square tests, ANOVA tests depending on
whether the variables are categorical or continuous)
CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
4.1 Introduction (i.e. summary of what the discussions are all about)
4.2 Univariate (descriptive) analysis (i.e. considering the attributes of each
variable in relation to the study including the background information
using frequencies, pie charts, graphs etc.)
4.3 Bivariate analysis (i.e. performing various tests for example correlations,
chi-square tests and ANOVA tests to determine the significance of the
relationship between each of the independent variables and the
dependent variable. This depends on whether the variables are
continuous or categorical)
NOTE: Interpretation and discussion of results should be in relation to other
researched work)
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction. (i.e. summary of the chapter)
5.2 Conclusions (This should be in relation to the objectives of the study
basing on the findings)
5.3 Recommendations (This should be in relation to the objectives of the
study basing on the findings)
5.4 Areas of future research
REFERENCES (i.e. List of all works cited in the proposal and should be written
according to the Harvard format)

APPENDICES (i.e. research instruments used, work plan and time frame,
letters of introduction, photographs if any, maps etc)
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NOTE:

The research proposal covers the first THREE chapters and it is written in
future tense. It should not exceed 20 double spaced pages of the main
text body (excluding title page, table of contents, list of tables and figures, list
of abbreviations, list of references and appendices)

The research report/dissertation covers all the FIVE chapters and it is

written in past tense.
Use font size 12 and one and half spacing when writing a research
proposal/report

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