The authors have collated a list of free journal articles to deepen your understanding of the key topics outlined in each chapter. Some articles are supported by helpful abstracts and critical thinking questions.

Article 1: Abdulai, R.T. and Owusu-Ansah, A. (2014) ‘Essential ingredients of a good research proposal for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences’, SAGE Open, 4(3): 1–11. 

This article is a comprehensive guide to writing research proposals. It is recommended that you read Chapters 1 and 2 in the textbook before you read this article as the article looks at both research proposals and research design. You will discover that terminology is not fixed. Different authors will use different terms to describe the same thing. For example, in this article the research question is called the research objective. Your institution may expect you to use specific terminology, but as long as you define your terms and use them consistently then these differences are of no account.

Article 2: Wharewera-Mika, J., Cooper, E., Kool, B., Pereira, S. and Kelly, P. (2015) ‘Caregivers’ voices: The experiences of caregivers of children who sustained serious accidental and non-accidental head injury in early childhood’, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 21(2): 268–86. 

This article looks at parents’ experiences of caring for children who received a head injury before the age of 5. It is a New Zealand study. Imagine you were the researchers at the beginning of the research process. They were required to present a research proposal to one of New Zealand Health and Disability Ethics Committees. Outline what their proposal might look like (minus the literature review).