The Research Proposal in Bioengineering Courses

Students in four bioengineering courses for upper-level juniors, seniors, and graduate students were required to write a research proposal.For these courses, the proposals ranged from a series of writing assignments to one writing assignment for the entire proposal.We observed that writing a research proposal was a challenge for the students.Breaking the requirements down into segments (such as a summary with specific aims, rough draft, and final draft) due on different dates helped make the assignment more manageable for the students.By the final draft, a great majority of the students were able to produce a proposal without major problems.On the order of one-fifth of the students wrote proposals that presented new and unusual ideas that were well explained and which could serve as the basis of a