Business Research Methods Assignment Guidance Advice

You are to produce a research proposal that should address the following sections as given in the module guide marking criteria as follows:

Introduction (10%words)

• Produce a rationale of your proposed study i.e. what you will cover in the assignment? Why is your chosen issue important?
• Produce a research statement (aim)
• Produce a set of objectives (no more than 3 or 4)
• Produce a set of research questions (no more than 2 or 3)

Literature review (30%)

Produce a literature review that underpins your research statement, research objectives and research questions (ensure these “speak to each other”).

Research Design and Methodology (40%)

• Say what paradigm of enquiry you are going to use, for example,  subjectivism/interpretivism; objectivism/positivism; Pragmatism (mixed methods)
• Describe your research design, for example, longitudinal, cross sectional, case study
• Describe what methodology you would use for example, ethnography, phenomenology, survey, or mixed methods
• Describe the data collection instruments you would use, for example, interviews, focus groups, observations, questionnaires, a combination of these (if you use mixed methods describe how you will link your methods and/or data i.e. concurrently or sequentially.
• Describe your intended sampling methods.
• Describe how you would analyse your data.

Please note: You are not required to collect any primary or secondary data; the end of semester assessment is a research proposal of how you will undertake your investigation.

Ethical Issues (10%)

• Describe any ethical issues you would need to take into account (N.B. you are to complete and submit the University’s ethics application form and include this as an appendix). 

http://web.anglia.ac.uk/anet/rido/ethics/Stage%201%20UG.phtml

Research Plan (10%)

Give a rationale and produce a schedule, using, for example, using a Gantt chart, or the Microsoft project, or a word table that indicates the week by week breakdown of activities of how you would undertake the research. Describe any potential limitations of your study, for example, your chosen research design, methodology, data collection methods, analysis, or ethical issues. Describe potential places to disseminate your findings, for example, academic journals, conferences, professional journals, organisational forums/meetings, university groups. Explain how you will deal with unexpected events, for example, if you cannot get access, or cannot collect sufficient and relevant data; in other words what is your Plan B?