Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

quantitative methodology Research method
Individual Assignment (25%) The deadline for the individual assignment is 13.00 ,18th January 2016.

• Your individual assignment is to design a dissertation proposal including a clear research question.
• You should develop a full research proposal and a pilot study. You should include a review of literature, explain your research design, identify and justify your methods and pre-test one of your methods.
• The assignment should demonstrate scholarship, academic rigour, creativity & methodological clarity.
• *******One or more qualitative methods should be applied, although using a mainly quantitative methodology is also acceptable (but you still need to justify it)

The Assignment Structure:
Considering the following steps will offer some guidance to your structure for assignment:
▪ The formulation of suitable research question(s)
▪ The selection of an area of literature to inform your study
▪ The identification of a population and a sample for the study
▪ The choice and justification of a set of methods appropriate to the aim of the study
▪ The development of a qualitative research instrument (e.g. interview schedule, observation points, focus group, experiment) appropriate to the research, and a method of analysis
▪ The piloting of the instrument/method (e.g. 10 questionnaires, 2 interviews, 3 hours observation, a focus groups)
▪ make it clear what each section is about and how it links to the rest of the assignment
▪ Have headings for each section
▪ Make it clear what is in each section and why
▪ Have a clear question not just a topic area
▪ Make sure you engage with academic literature – i.e. journal articles
▪ Use evidence and reference those academics with relevant ideas
▪ Use proper citation and a full & consistent bibliography
▪ You must pilot the study (do it properly) and explain the outcomes
▪ Use your concepts carefully and define them
▪ Introduce a framework or a perspective to help support your answer to the research question you choose, if possible
▪ Take care over generalisations. Try to support your arguments with references, data or an example or illustration. Qualify your statements
▪ Avoid generalising from personal experience without additional support
▪ Be critical, but make sure that your criticism is well-informed and coherent – linked to evidence or references
▪ Refer to theories and debates and use quotes and references where it helps to support your argument
▪ Show that you are familiar with the debate and key sources in the literature
▪ Avoid lists and long sentences (even if I don’t!)

Analysis
• Can you analyse the topic from different perspectives ? For example your sampling method and reliability of data/findings.
• Can you justify the research methods you propose to use for investigating a topic? For example a survey, a focus group discussion or a combination of the two.
• Can you think across topics and establish a link? For example a link between your formulation of your research question and the methods of data collection and analysis.
• Are you clear about your unit of analysis, reliability issues, sampling methods, ethical issues, etc.
Piloting
• You have been asked to test the method you use by piloting one of the methods
• Unless this is impossible to your method (in which case justify why this is not possible, you must do so
• The point: detect problems & improve the questions you ask
• You will learn from this and you must include an account of what you found and what you have learnt
• If you don’t do this properly and think about the date you have obtained, it will be obvious to the marker, so get this right

Things to Consider
• Is your research design clear and consistent?
• Does your project sound like an academic project that you might encounter in the literature?
• Are all the elements coherent together?
• Do you have a framework, or something to test?
• What theories and perspectives are you using?
• Why are you using this method/s and are you justifying this well?
• How do you plan to examine to data?
• How are you going to pilot the method and detect any problems?

Achievable
• you mustget access to the relevant data?
Focused
• Less is more (cannot include everything)
Well Structured and Sign Posted clearly
Evidence-based
• Via research methodologies (collect/analyse data)
Located in the literature
• Current state of knowledge and any debates/controversies
Presented in an appropriate style
• Do you express an engaging project
• Is there a key idea or narrative?

• Form: introduction (topic–research question + literature review –how to get the idea of the research topic & how to design the proposal through the books and the reference materials+ analysis the data +proposal for your future dissertation–The final assignment that you submit does not have to be your dissertation proposal, but it will help you in preparing for your dissertation)