select one piece of published human behaviour/evacuation research which has employed one or more research methods and critically appraise this research in terms of its ability to provide reliable human behaviour/evacuation information/data which is appropriate and directly applicable to fire safety engineering design. Sections of this report should contain the following:
- Description of the overall research (theory), research method(s) adopted, findings from the chosen research paper and the conclusions it draws. (500 words)
- Critical appraisal of the research method(s) adopted in the chosen paper.(1500words)
- Recognition of the importance and implications of the information/findings of the paper appraised with regards to the field of (500words)
Verbal Explanation:
A verbal explanation of the following was provided to the students:
| Criteria
|
Possible | Comments |
| Description of research, method(s) adopted and findings from the chosen research. | 20
(approx: 500 words) |
A high mark will be allocated to reports that permits the reader to fully understand the aims, breadth and depth of the research and sufficient to help justify the critical comments which will appear later in the report. |
| Critical appraisal of chosen research method (detail of e.g. questionnaire / experimental design, interview, case study, interpretation of findings, reliability, validity, applicability). |
50
(approx: 1500 words) |
Good responses will provide complete, justifiable and insightful information regarding all aspects of the research – from the methodology used and its execution, to the results, to the interpretation of the results; good responses also recognise the constraints under which any research programme operates and balanced this with the approach taken. Discussions should offer alterative or improvements that could be made. The key will be to look at all aspects of the research, including for example, if a questionnaire was used, the types of questions asked, whether they were reasonable, clear, could be misleading, whether they were exhaustive etc, the sample – sampling, representative, valid, reliable – if not what implications does this have for the findings – how might they change etc .
A weak critical appraisal will basically describe the research and will not really offer any in depth critical analysis thereon. Comments should not be general and should look in-depth at the particular research and how it was conducted. You should not simply make comments that could be made about any research using the same methodology. These will score low in this respect. |
| Recognition of the importance and implications of the information required for the field of study. | 20
(approx: 500 words)
|
Higher marks will be allocated to those reports that discuss the implications of the findings so that the limitations of the research will be borne in mind when so doing, i.e. the importance of the research will be a balanced view and be able to recognise the significance of it, its relevance and perhaps the scope or generalisability of the findings in the field of study. |
| Structure, clarity and presentation of report with full and appropriate referencing | 10 | Good flow in the document, a coherent document, good grammar, and referencing of all sources in full. |
|
TOTAL |
100 |
