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Assignment Task

Part 1 Session objectives

• Understand the overall learning outcomes of the Module
• Demonstrate an understanding of what’s Research Proposal
• Understand types of Research Project
• Appreciate eight issues to bear in mind when choosing your topic

Module Rationale & Aims

This module introduces you to investigating particular topics within business management. It will enable you to develop skills in the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches to gathering data. It will provide a framework in setting SMART objectives for your research and drawing conclusions from the data to inform recommendations and decisions.

AIMS

To provide skills in selecting and focusing on a particular research challenge while setting guidelines to establish data requirements, together with meaningful and appropriate levels of analysis of a particular topic for a particular and specific reason.

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

1. Conduct a literature review for a specific topic;

Learning Outcomes

1. Explain and justify how you will gather and analyse appropriate data,, using appropriate tools, to provide evidence and information; 3. Differentiate research methodology from research methods;
2. Justify how you will present your findings within an evidence-based framework.

What is Research Proposal

• A research proposal is a concise and coherent summary of your proposed research.
• The proposal also gives you an opportunity to show that you have the aptitude for undergraduate level research by demonstrating that you have the ability to communicate complex ideas clearly, concisely and critically.

Preparing for Research Proposal 

Writing a research proposal

Professor Gillian Wright gives tips on writing your research proposal. … Writing a research proposal. University of Birmingham.

• A specific and  descriptive statement that should look like your Aim.
• This was selected and approved based on your choice and this would not change again as changing it will results in failing the whole dissertation

Types of Research Project (4 broad types)

1. A Consultancy Problem within your employing, or other host organisation. This will require primary research within or relevant to the client organisation.
2. A study of management topic, about which there is a gap in knowledge, as identified during the literature review. This will be based on primary research that you conduct in the field.
3. Model building, based on original data collected by the student  or reinterpretation of an existing data set.
4. A theoretical thesis, based on secondary data, and suitable for publication

Eight issues to bear in mind when choosing your topic

1. How much choice do you have?
2. Motivation?
3. Regulations, expectations
4. Subject, field of study
5. Previous examples of projects
6. Size of your topic
7. Time, resources available, costs
8. Research methods – play to your strengths
9. How much choice do you have?

Eight issues to bear in mind when choosing your topic

Motivation?

• What will keep you going?
• Get you out of bed?
• Choose a topic which rouses your passion and drive
• Choose a topic which will be interesting for an employer, get you an interview or a job.

Eight issues to bear in mind when choosing your topic

Regulations, expectations

• Read project guide thoroughly
• Follow the regulations, not your creative instincts
• Work to assessment criteria strictly
• If in doubt, question your tutor/supervisor

Part 2 Session objectives

By the end of this part students should be able to demonstrate understanding on:

• Appreciate eight issues to bear in mind in selecting research topic (continued from Session 1)
• Techniques for generating and refining research ideas
• How to turn research ideas into a research topic that has a clear research aim and objectives; question(s) and their relationships

Eight issues to bear in mind when choosing your topic

• Not too small
• Just right
• Adhere to word restrictions
• Edit your work
• Drafting and re-drafting – you do not hand in the first “write”

A hypothesis is a tentative explanation that accounts for a set of facts and can be tested by further investigation.

For example, one hypothesis you might want to test is that poverty causes low achievement, or that there is a relationship between pupils’ self-esteem and the amount of time they spend watching television.

These hypotheses can be tested by conducting a quantitative research.( Week 3)

We will collect the relevant data (for example, parental income and school achievement) and use statistical techniques to decide whether to reject or provisionally accept the hypothesis.

Accepting a hypothesis is always provisional, as new data may emerge that reject it later.

Questions

1. what impact does alcoholism has on marital status?
2. How does it affect the various aspects of children’s lives?
3. What are the effects on the family’s finances?

Aim– to find out the effects of alcoholism on the family

Objectives

1. to ascertain the impact of alcoholism on marital relations
2. to determine the ways in which alcoholism affects the different aspects of children’s lives
3. to find out the effects of alcoholism on the financial situation of the family