Dr.

Codruta Gosa
codrutagosa@yahoo.co.uk
codruta.gosa@e-uvt.ro
 1. Topic (the ‘What’ factor)
 2. Rationale (the ‘Why’ factor)
 3. Methodology (the ‘How’ factor)
 4. Working Plan (the ‘When’
factor)
 5. Ethical Issues
 Anexpansion of the title, by
elaborating briefly on the key
words referring to the
topic/overarching research
questions driving your research
 Why you consider your
research is worth doing and its
place in the currently existing
international and local
context(s).
 What approach(es), paradigm(s),
methodology(ies) you are going to
employ
e.g. ‘the bird’s eye view’ or/and
‘the worm’s eye view’ (i.e.
qualitative or/and quantitative
paradigms).
 What methods of data collection and data
analysis will you use.
e.g.
◦ questionnaires, structured interviews,
experiments, structured observations,
text/document analyses
◦ Unstructured interviews, focus-groups,
diary studies, ethnographic observations,
text/document analyses
 The stages of your research (i.e.
the reading around the topic
process, your data collection
process, the analysis process, the
writing up process).
 The timeline (the periods of time
when you will deal with the stages
mentioned above).
 Theethical issues you expect
to have to deal with and what
you intend to do about it.
 Think of your own BA dissertation
project and design a proposal
according to the format discussed
so far.
The research I propose to do for my
paper is a case study which will be
conducted in an upper secondary school.
The focus will be on the writing skills in
English that secondary school students
are expected to have at a lower to
intermediate level. The study will deal
with the students’ performances in, as
well as their attitudes to writing skills
tests. The study will consist in an
experiment on a 9th grade class. The
experiment will rely on various
instruments and analytical tools drawing
on both qualitative and quantitative
research paradigms.
Testing has major impact on the students’ and their teachers’
lives. Judgments on the students’ future studies as well as
their careers are made by almost exclusively taking into
account the student’s scores in various tests. Foreign
languages (particularly the English language) competencies
and testing them have an increasing role in a student’s life in
the context of Romania’s integration into the European Union
and the increased study and job mobility it entails.
Unfortunately, in Romania there has been little interest in the
theory and practice of language testing. More often than not,
for a long time, subjectivity has been the only approach in the
design and marking of classroom tests (and not only). Only
recently there seems to be a growing interest (though timidly
manifested) in this very important area. This study, modest as
it may be, seeks to join this trend. The ultimate purpose of
this study is to make the students understand in depth what
writing skills involve at this level and hopefully to lead to an
improvement of competencies in and attitudes towards writing
skills.
Thus, from my own observation and talks with
fellow English and language teachers, I noticed
that the Romanian students in general are very
reticent when asked to study for and produce
written work. They seem to find writing skills
difficult to achieve and manifest a negative
attitude towards them. Consequently, with my
experiment, not only do I set out to improve
and reliably assess my student-respondents’
writing skills but also to promote a positive
attitude towards writing skills and encourage
further development.
Due to its nature, my case study will be
mainly of a qualitative nature, seeking to
explore and define problems connected to
student perceptions of writing skills and
eventually try to find solutions to remedy
these problems. However quantitative data
analyses will also be employed when
dealing with test results and error analysis
The case study will be based on the following
instruments of data collection:

◦ An initial focus group (for eliciting student’s opinions

and attitudes toward the testing of writing skills)
which will be recorded, transcribed and analysed
qualitatively
◦ Design, administration, marking and analysis of
various tests of writing skills, plus extensive feedback
given to the students, for one semester (taking into
account good practice in language testing according
to the theory)
◦ Monitoring progress through error analysis
◦ Correlation of students’ marks
◦ A final focus group with the same students (to check
changing of opinions and attitudes towards writing
skills and tests of writing skills at the end of the
experiment)
The following stages and timelines will be observed in
my study:
 Searching for and reading the relevant literature on
my topic: March – July 2010
 Planning and organizing my research stages: -
August 2010
 Data collection and on-going analysis of the data:-
September 2010 – February 2011
 Final analysis, organization of findings, producing
first draft: March – April 2011
 Writing up and revising the paper: April – June 2011

 Submitting the final version of the paper:

One of the major ethical issue this research might
pose is related to consent. The respondents
population might become afflicted with the ‘captive
audience’ syndrome. As McDonough and McDonough
(1997: 127) observe, if respondents are somehow
forced into accepting to take part in a research
process (due to the unequal power relations within
the classroom environment, for example), the data is
likely to become 'unhelpful because it will probably
be skewed merely towards expressing their
unwillingness to keep a diary at all' Consequently,
the voluntary-based full and informed consent will
be vital for my investigation. Additionally, I will do
the best that I can to preserve the school's and the
teachers' anonymity as some aspects of this study
could prove damaging both to the teachers and the
school.