APA current edition, current edition format is required.

Project should include approximately 30-45 pages of content

A minimum of 18 scholarly references is required, 7 of which must be related to current leadership scholarship.

Chapter 1:

Introduction/Significance of the study (4-6 pages)

• Provide background on the topic.
• Help the reader understand why this topic should be explored, briefly discuss the reasons for interest in the topic.
• Fine-tune the research question/s.
• Describe the general direction of the study.

Chapter 2:

Literature Review (10-15 pages)

• A review of published scholarly literature about the topic.
• Review key results or findings of the author(s). What is known about the topic?
• What previous works provide the best information to date on the topic and what do the studies conclude?  Identify and discuss controversy in the published literature.
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of these studies and how are they synthesized?
• A literature review is not a summary of articles, but a conceptually organized synthesis, including criticism appropriate to the results of your search.

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Chapter 3:

Methodology/Research Design (4-7 pages) (originally written in future tense then if data is collected, changed to past tense).

• Explain and discuss the process for examining the data or information. How will you be analyzing or comparing theories or data etc?
• Does your research involve a quantitative approach and hypothesis or a qualitative approach and a research questions/s? or perhaps both as in mixed methods.
• Determine what evidence or data collection answers the various research questions and/or hypothesis
• Develop an original research design for addressing the problem and question stated in the introduction. (I will compare this to that, I will interview etc.)
• Discuss the relevance of the research design. Why do you think this approach is a good fit to your question/s?
• Any ethical issues expected with a process for addressing them.
• Limitations: what will you not be researching which is closely related to your topic and why? What boundaries have you chosen for your sample or study and explain your reasoning.
• Discuss how the research design would be (will be) implemented.
• Identify sample, hypothesis, variables, data collection, findings
• Qualitative aspects, interview questions, implementation problems, expected outcomes, timelines.

In general, the first three sections or chapters comprise the mini-proposal or the research proposal. The mini proposal is the portion that the Institutional Review Board (IRB) will want to review before granting approval or exemption involving the participation of human subjects. Even if you administer only one interview, or a survey, you must obtain review through IRB. In many research proposals, data collection follows the first three chapters.