Essay Instructions: Research Methodology Assignment
January 2010
This document represents the formal description of your Research Methodology
Assignment. It also places into context the relationship between this coursework and the
proposal for your Masters research project.
The Research Methodology Assignment requires that you write a research project
proposal. This proposal does not necessarily need to be related to your Masters
research project proposal, but often students take advantage of the similarity in the
requirements for this coursework assignment and their need to propose a Masters
research project.
For your Masters Research Project you need to gain the backing of a supervisor. For
this Research Methodology Assignment, there is no requirement to gain such backing.
However, you may benefit from the guidance of such a supervisor.
Note that for each task the marks and word limit are indicated. Besides the main report
body for your Research Methodology research project proposal, you are required to
provide “working notes” that will form sections of its appendices. Any a word limit that is
specifically indicated for these appendices should be adhered to. Each appendix will be
taken into account when allocating marks for the deliverables from each of the tasks
described in this document.
Description of required elements of work to be performed and reported
within Research Methodology Assignment.
Task 1 - Identify A Research Project [Mark 40% - Word Limit 4000 Words].
During your Research Methodology lectures, you were introduced to the difference
between standard and research based projects. Your Master research project needs to
be focused on an area of research, one that has sufficient scope whilst being welldefined
so that it can be executed within the time available to you.
During your Research Methodology lectures, you were also introduced to the concept of
the cyclic and iterative method of choosing a research project definition. This required
the definition of a research question, after which you would consider the definition of the
research objectives and an overview of the work packages that would be required to
achieve such objectives. The aim of such an analysis is to determine the feasibility of
choosing such a project definition in terms of the required resources and risks. If the
scope is too resource demanding or to risky you could suggest that this particular project
definition is not feasible. However, you could reconsider the project to have a more
feasible definition if its considered content were to be altered. Hence, the iterative and
cyclic nature of this project definition method.
Task 1 of this assignment requires that you apply such a process and demonstrate your
considerations in applying it. This will require that you provide “working notes” as an
appendix to your “Research Methodology Assignment” research project proposal.
Consider these “working notes” as entries in Appendix-A, for instance. These “working
notes” should highlight the range of topics that your were initially considering as being
appropriate and describe how you refined the definitions in order to set an appropriate
scope for the research project proposal.
The main focus of your Research Methodology Assignment is the realisation of a
Research Project Proposal. Task 1 requires that you present a conclusion to your choice
of definition of the research project, through the formal definition of your Research
Project Proposal in terms of its:
(a) Title.
(b) Topic Introduction.
(c) Background, Reference To Literature Review & Overview of Project Scope.
(d) Objectives.
(e) Description of Research Methodologies, Approaches/Methods, Task Definitions
and Work Schedule.
The descriptions should present definitions of milestones and deliverables, as well as
the project phases. It should present the schedule of your project in the form of a Gantt
Chart. It should also highlight the risks that you associate to the project tasks and
consideration of how you can mitigate such risks. You should highlight the expected
benefits and relevance of your study in context to the research field.
The word limit for Task 1 is indicated as 4000 words. This word limit does not include
your entries in the “working notes” for this task. The word limit reflects that the “Project
Proposal” has a form of a “Brief Project Proposal” rather than a “Full Project Proposal”.
Deliverables : Formal Brief Research Project Proposal & Appendix-A “Working Notes”.
Task 2 ??" Perform A Formal Literature Review & Report It In Your “Working
Notes”[Mark 30% - Word Limit 5000 Words].
In order to complete Task 1, you will need to perform a literature survey. Your research
project proposal will require that you report information about this literature survey in a
relatively compact format, focusing on the relevance to your project definition and the
project background.
Task 2 relates to a process of documenting your literature review so that your process of
reviewing information from references can be critically assessed. You are required to
select at least 5 references, but equally up to a maximum of 10 references could be
selected, that have a significant relevance to your project definition. You are required to
perform and report an analysis of the content of each of these references so as to
highlight their individual contributions to knowledge and the limitations of the research
that each reference presents. Your consideration of how many references to formally
review and report in your “working notes” will be depend on the amount of information
that each reference provides. The aim of this exercise is to present sufficient depth of
analysis within your literature review about the research topic, supporting the items
described in your research project proposal. Since this work will form an appendix in
your project proposal, you can make reference to the discussions of these analyses in
your main project proposal sections.
The average word count limit for each reported analysis should be 500 words. This is a
limit, not a target. It is suggested that you report your analyses in a concise manner,
using bullet point highlights that are introduced and followed by paragraphs that place
the highlighted points into context. Each reported analysis should be considered a
summary of the paper, focusing particularly on the KEY information in the reference
rather than simply compressing the writings of the reference into a lower word count.
The work associated to Task 2 should be reported in Appendix-B, for instance. You are
encouraged to provide an introduction to these analyses, followed by a review that could
extend the information to consider other references that you have not specifically
included in your main selection of 5 to 10 references but which are relevant to the topic
area. You should then provide any conclusions that can be made from your literature
review. The word limit refers to all parts of the information that you present in this
appendix.
Deliverables : Literature review, including concisely summarised in-depth analyses of
between 5 and 10 significant references.
Task 3 ??" Describe The Research Methodologies And Research Gaps
[Mark 30% - Word Limit 3000 Words].
It is important to highlight the research GAPS that you have found from your analyses of
this subject. These can be reported in the main body of your project proposal, in
summarise form, relating to the final proposed project. They can also be highlighted
during your project idea development process and in your literature survey. Thus, you
are asked to specifically highlight such research GAPS in the appropriate sections of
your documents.
You are then required to summarise these highlighted research GAPS in a separate
appendix (Appendix-C, for instance) of your assignment document. Along with each
summarised point, you are asked to describe the different research approaches that
could be used to investigate such GAPS in knowledge, highlighting whether the research
is exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, qualitative, quantitative, fixed and/or flexible in
nature. Similarly, explain what research approaches / techniques you would use to carry
out such research and what considerations you would need to take into account. You
should highlight the risks associated to performing research using such approaches and
consider how they could be mitigated. You should also describe the benefits that could
be gained from doing such research.
Deliverables : Highlights of research GAPS in relevant sections of the report (main body
and appendices) PLUS summary of these highlighted research GAPS in Appendix-C (for
instance).
Submission
This assignment is to be submitted via email It should be formatted in the style of a
formal report, in a single electronic file in Microsoft word format or pdf.
