Guidance for Writing the Research Proposal for the Blended

Master’s Application
This document provides you with basic guidance on writing the research proposal for the
Blended Master’s application. It draws on an example research project for a student who is in-
terested in studying the effect of a nutrition intervention to address stunting (defined as having a
height-for-age less than two standard deviations below the median height-for-age). Note that we do
not expect students to be able to complete an entire research project during the capstone experience
project. In this hypothetical example, the student would partner with a non-governmental organi-
zation (NGO) to undertake the project. During the capstone experience, however, they would only
work on a discrete part of the project, such as the research design or survey design.

Prompt: Present a research topic that you would like to pursue during your summer
capstone project. Describe the motivation, research question, your methodological
approach, and the data you would use to answer the question. Describe how the
study will contribute to the field of development economics. Note that you do not
need to complete a full research study during your summer capstone project.

*Please note that the research statement should not exceed two pages double spaced, 12pt font.

1. Motivation: Briefly summarize the problem that your research aims to address. For ex-
ample, the student may be interested in studying the effects of a nutrition intervention to
address stunting. In that case, the student would briefly describe stunting’s prevalence in his
/ her research context as well as how stunting impacts an individual’s livelihood and / or the
wider economy.

2. Research Question: Describe the problem that your research will address and your poten-
tial hypotheses. You can explain other research that has been conducted on this topic and
how it informs your research question. You should make clear why answering this question
is important for economic development.

Following the above example, the student would state that he / she will test whether provid-
ing pregnant women with nutrition supplements decreases stunting prevalence. That other
studies have found mixed results of nutrition supplements on stunting and that, working
in partnership with an NGO, they will replicate this intervention in another context. The
student would explain that there are significant, lifelong economic benefits from averting
stunting.

3. Methodological Approach: In this section, you would explain how you would test your hy-
pothesis. For example, you may wish to use a randomized control trial or a quasi-experimental
method to evaluate the impact of your intervention. You would explain the rationale for your
methodological approach.

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 In our example, the student might state that they would like to work with the NGO to design
a cluster randomized control trial testing the effect of the nutrition intervention given to
pregnant women, on the stunting levels of their children once they are two years old. He /
she would explain that they would like to cluster the intervention because they are concerned
about spillovers but that they would like to measure outcomes at the individual level.

4. Data: Explain the data sources that you will use to answer your research question. For
example, you may wish to conduct surveys or use administrative data. You may want to
consider the frequency of the data that you will use (e.g., baseline and annual for three years)
and what variables you may want to collect.

Since it would likely not be possible to collect stunting data at baseline, the student may
want to collect stunting data at birth and then at pre-specified intervals, such as one and two
years post-partum.