DIFFICULTIES IN RESEARCH PROPOSAL WRITING

Background: Medical students face difficulties during research proposal development. This study aimed to identify proposal writing difficulties among medical students to provide better targeted research education.

Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Science using a self-administered questionnaire, which included 21 items assessing the difficulty of proposal segments. A content validity was done and piloted. Cronbachs alpha and exploratory factor analysis were used to assess the reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire.

Results: Two-hundred seventy-six participants responded with a response rate of 55%, 196 of which were males. The most common difficulty was in the statistical analysis section (70%) followed by finding full text articles (49%) then determining sample size (46%). The least common were writing ethical consideration (14%), objectives (17%) and describing study subjects (19%). Difficulty mean was significantly lower among students who have completed their research projects compared to those who have not (mean + SD) 2.91+0.45 vs 3.2 +0.43 with a p-value of < 0.001, respectively. GPA nor gender had an effect on the level of difficulty.

Conclusion: Students face difficulties in proposal writing particularly sections related to analysis plan and finding related articles. Further research is needed to support and improve studentsability to write good research proposals.