HBC201 Research Methods For The Social And Behavioural Sciences ECA Jan SEM 2025 | SUSS

Question 1: Case Study

During his speech at a local conference this year, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Mr Eric Chua highlighted that roughly 17,000 youths were not meaningfully engaged in employment, education or training in 2023. This is an increase compared to the proportion 10 years ago.

NEET youths are a group of individuals aged 15 to 24 who are not working, studying or undergoing training even though they have the potential to be contributing members of society.

Various factors can contribute to one becoming a NEET youth. If this status persists long enough, it can lead to adverse outcomes such as social exclusion, criminal activities and poor mental health.

Although some social service agencies are already helping NEET youth to reintegrate into society, Mr Eric Chua noted that greater effort is required to support this group of youths and maximise their potential.

Source: Ang, S. (2024, Sep 27). Around 17,000 youth in Singapore are not in school, work or training. The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/around-17000-youth-in-singapore-are-not-in-school-work-or-training

Suppose the Singapore government would like to find out more about NEET youth in Singapore. You are tasked to submit a research proposal that will elaborate on how you can apply relevant concepts and research methods to study the topic. Your proposal should be written as an essay and include the following five parts.

Title and Abstract of Research Proposal

Propose a title that fits your research proposal. Also, include an abstract that properly describes and summarises your proposed study. The abstract must not exceed 150 words.

• Both the title and abstract should be included in your total word count.
• The title should clearly indicate what your proposed study is about.

Background and Literature Review

Examine relevant literature on an issue related to NEET youth in Singapore that you would like to study. Analyse the identified literature, examine the research methods used in the existing studies, and critique the strengths or weaknesses of these studies.

Following your literature review, you should propose a specific and clear research question that you would like to study. The research question should be about NEET youth in Singapore. You should also discuss the importance of the study you have proposed.

• You can choose to study any topic related to NEET youth in Singapore. The key is that you clearly describe the topic you would like to study based on your literature review. Examples of possible topics include the following: factors associated with NEET youth in Singapore, impact of an initiative that aims to support NEET youth in Singapore, etc.
• For your literature review, you need to include at least five academic journal articles that are relevant to the topic of your choice. It is acceptable if one or more journal articles that you have selected are not done in Singapore. The key is that you should explain explicitly how the selected journal articles inform your proposed research.
• In your literature review, you should critically evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of the selected journal articles, rather than merely present the methods or findings of these previous studies in a descriptive manner. Based on your literature review, discuss the importance of the study you propose, such as how your proposed study addresses a specific limitation of the past studies, any theoretical or practical contribution(s) your research finding(s) may make, etc.

Research Design

Apply relevant concepts and propose a research design to address your research question concerning the following aspects: (i) explain whether you plan to use a quantitative or qualitative method and why, (ii) briefly describe your proposed method and discuss critical elements in your research procedure, and (iii) discuss possible threats to the validity of your research and explain how you will address these threats.

• You should first explain whether you plan to use a quantitative or qualitative method. Provide at least two reasons to explain why you chose one method over another. If you choose to use both quantitative and qualitative methods, provide at least two reasons to justify your choice.
• Next, discuss the critical elements in the research procedure. You are required to at least describe your sampling strategy, data collection method(s), and procedure of data collection.
• For sampling strategy, at a minimum, specify the population your study targets (for example, youths aged 15 to 24), the number of participants you will recruit, and how you will recruit participants for your study.
• For data collection method(s), if you choose to use a quantitative method, you need to include the survey. If you choose to use a qualitative method, you need to include the interview (either semi-structured interview or focus group) questions. You should explain clearly whether you plan to develop the survey/interview questions from scratch, use existing survey/interview questions, or adapt existing survey/interview questions to study your research question. You need to include all survey or interview questions that you propose to use in the Appendix.
• Describe the procedure of administering the survey or conducting interviews.
• You should also discuss at least two possible concerns in the use of the survey or interview method that may threaten the validity of your research. Explain how you will address these concerns.

Ethical Issues

Recognise and appreciate at least two ethical issues in your proposed study that concern research participants. Discuss action(s) you will take to address each issue to ensure that your proposed study will be conducted ethically.

• The two ethical issues that concern research participants (for example, protection of participants’ autonomy) should be discussed specifically in the context of your proposed study.

Limitations of Research

Discuss at least two limitations of your proposed study in understanding the chosen topic about NEET youth in Singapore.

• Examples of possible limitations you can discuss include the planned sampling strategy, limitations in the chosen data collection method(s), etc. The discussion should focus on the limitations of the chosen methodology to address the research question of your proposal and should be limitations that cannot be resolved in your proposed study.