You are required to complete the initial stages of a research project. It will involve carrying out secondary research, designing primary research and writing a research proposal.

Your choice of a research topic may be any subject, which is relevant to your course of study. It is intended that the work you complete for this module may form the basis of a final year dissertation.

The assessment involves 3 tasks:

Task 1: INTRODUCTION – stating project title, and aim and objectives:

This should provide a clear and precise purpose for the research and some contextual background information on the topic

LITERATURE REVIEW – a critical summary of secondary research:

This should show that you have researched the topic from a wide range of current and appropriate secondary sources which must be referenced in the Harvard Style throughout.

Please note that it is imperative that you use relevant ACADEMIC journals as your main sources in order to establish a critical discussion.

Word count guideline: Introduction 300 words; Literature Review 1500 words

Task 2: METHODOLOGY – formulates a research design to collect primary data:

This should discuss research approaches and include a critical review of alternative data collection techniques and the need for ethics and consideration of limitations.

You are to attach (as appendices) interview questions and a research questionnaire. These do not count towards the word count.

Word count guideline: 1000 words

Note: YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO COMPLETE ANY PRIMARY RESEARCH?
Task 3: RESEARCH PROPOSAL – outlines a possible final year dissertation

The proposal is a working document that you will complete throughout the module as homework. The completed proposal will then be submitted as the final task. Please use the template below.

The proposal will include a working title, clear aim and objectives for the research, and strategies for collecting primary data. It will also indicate some relevant topic and research related secondary sources.

The following will have to be completed as homework (using the attached template) at various stages of the module:

Week 1: Create a working title for your project.
Week 2 and over half term: Write out your critical and achievable aim and develop objectives as per Task 3 template below. There should be one sentence for your aim and per objective only.
Weeks 3 and 4: Provide some background information on your topic and indicate how your proposed project is relevant to your programme of study.
Weeks 9 and 10: Provide a summary of your research methods that you intend to employ for your primary research collection.

Whilst completing your proposal it is also necessary for you to include intended academic sources that relate to your research topic as well as sources you used for the methodology.

Word count guideline: 100 words for the working title; and aim and objectives, 200 words for the background information, 200 words summarising the methodology.

General guidelines for all tasks:

• Please hand in the tasks as one continuous document. This means, after you have written the Literature Review and received the feedback, please download it with the partially filled in assessment grid and continue with the Methodology. At the end attach the Proposal.
• Please keep expanding the table of contents and the list of references on the continuous document.
• The work is submitted in a report format and therefore the headings and sub-headings need to be numbered.
• Due to the nature of the work you would be expected to use more than the minimum required 10 academic references. These references should be from within to past ten years in order to be valid.[
• If you refer to older models (e.g. life cycles, motivational theories, etc.) please ensure that you link them to current research to show they are still valid and/or have been adapted.
• Please note that you are allowed to use this work as a BASIS for your Level 6 dissertation, however, you are not allowed to re-use the Literature Review and Methodology that you have written for this module. This would fall under academic misconduct.