To identify, determine and justify a disciplinary-relevant project, including its aims, scopes and objectives.
2. To self-manage research, including managing the supervisory process.
3. To understand how to identify and synthesise the relevant conceptual and methodological techniques from the degree programme, using a range of sources and data, applying them to them to a particular topic, case or organisation.
4. To show and review the results or the project, including drawing appropriate conclusions and recommendations, and assessing their impacts.
5. To understand the ethical request process and apply it appropriately to the research project.
Under the Standard University Assessment Regulations (UAR20) students have two opportunities to be assessed and to pass this module. If a student has not achieved a pass in this module after the resit, no further opportunities are available and the student will be withdrawn from the course.
Rationale
To pass this module, you must achieve a final overall mark of at least 40%. Failure to achieve a pass after the second attempt will result in the student being withdrawn from the course.
Option 1: Dissertation
A dissertation is an academic document created as a consequence of a student carrying out a research project based on a 2,000 word proposal. It is an extended piece of academic writing of approximately 8,000 words on a topic of your own choice, which has to be related to the subject area of your degree programme. The fact that you choose the topic and focus of your research makes this piece of work very different from any of your other modules where your ability to choose what you write about is restricted in some way. It also differs significantly from other modules in the expectation that you take full responsibility for the whole of the work: its organisation, subject area and content, the production of the literature review, the design of the methodology, the research activities, the analysis of results, the discussion of consequences, etc.
A useful calling card for employment, graduate training schemes or further study. As you are in control of the process, (from problem definition through to the design of data collection and analysis in order to shed light on that problem), the integrated research project allows you to refine and consolidate your research and communications skills. In fact, you should see that the whole process is highly relevant to many key employability skills.
A placement project is also an academic document created as a consequence of a student carrying out an integrated business research project. It is an extended piece of academic writing of approximately 8,000 words on a topic of your own choice, which has to be related to the context of your placement experience and fit the subject area of your degree programme. This option is therefore only available to students who carried out a placement in an organisation in their sandwich year. The only real difference between a dissertation and a placement project is that placement students who choose this option are required to contextualise their research study within the setting of their placement. This decision on what you do and how you do this will be influenced by how directly you intend to build from your work placement organisation and the experience you gained there.
Simply put, former placement students have two choices within Option 2:
1. You can choose an issue directly related to your work experience organisation and enjoy the benefit of your own access to information of the organisation to resource your work. This may involve the job role(s) you actually carried out there and the data and information you had access to at the time.
2. You may consider that the industry/sector setting of your placement experience may provide you with your focus for your placement project rather than a very specifically defined issue affecting your placement organisation. This choice may be suitable for you if you have less access to primary data related to the placement organisation because it may have been regarded as too sensitive for publication.
You are required to carry out an original piece of research under the guidance of your supervisor which is accounted for on in a final report document. You are entitled to attend up to 8 group supervisory meetings of up to 8 hours along with written or recorded verbal feedback on your proposal (for Option 1) / introduction (for Option 2), literature review, methodology and analysis/discussion. Please see the supervision policy document for more detailed information.
All students are required to submit an initial topic idea or research area on Moodle by 9am on Monday 4th October 2021. This will enable the module leader to allocate you a suitable supervisor. Students who provide a topic later than this will still be allocated a supervisor but the allocation process will not start until supervisors are first allocated to the students who submitted a
topic idea in time.
Dissertation students should upload their proposal on Moodle by midday on Monday 22nd November 2021. This counts as 20% of your total mark for this module. The maximum wordcount is 2,000 subject to the usual ±10% limit. See the module guide for further information. After receiving feedback on your proposal you should be in a good position to complete your introduction, literature review and methodology chapters.
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of... This placement project is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of If confidentiality is required the phrase 'ln strictest confidence' must be stipulated on the dissertation / placement project cover. You should also inform the dissertation / placement project module leader and your supervisor in writing. The maximum number of pages, including index, tables, diagrams and appendices should not exceed 250. Your work should be paginated in the bottom right hand corner of each page starting from the beginning of the contents pages with one sided printing throughout. Use Arial font throughout the work and note the following requirements:
All work should be referenced using the BCU Harvard format - there is a full definition of the style along with guides available at the library website (https://www.bcu.ac.uk/library/services-and- support/referencing/harvard). The guides are also available as hard copies in the Library. Do not cite popular websites such as Wikipedia, Google or Yahoo – Wikipedia is not peer assessed and the work is not always reliable; and the other two are search engines. Emphasise citations from journal articles and textbooks (although reports and newspaper articles may at times be acceptable). You should however, make more reliance on journal articles as these are peer reviewed and are often more recent than text books. If you are to use text books, these should be the latest edition so it is important to check whether you have access to them.
? Outline Literature Review (30%): A short review of literature relevant to your topic. The review should:
o Provide proof of scholarship
o Reflect your basic understanding of your topic
o Reflect your intellectual ability to construct critical arguments based on your reading of the relevant literature
? Outline Methodology (25%): A well-reasoned methodological approach in terms of:
o The scope of the research
o The choice of a research philosophy, approach and strategy
o A basic understanding of methods and techniques to collect primary data (if appropriate).
For example, if a questionnaire survey is to be used, this should include a description of your population, how you intend to select your sample and how you will distribute your questionnaires.
o The techniques proposed to be used to analyse the collected data
o Any ethical concerns
? Project Plan (10%). A short narrative providing an appreciation of your research’s feasibility within the time frame available to you. A schedule using a Gantt chart or similar graphical device showing activities to be undertaken at specific times. Note: This should not simply be copied and pasted from the sample Gantt chart provided but demonstrate personalisation and interpretation.
? Completed ethics request form (5%) – signed by you but not by your supervisor; not included in the word count
The topic may have been poorly chosen. The objectives of the study are possibly poorly stated, but sit within a recognisable conceptual framework based on limited background reading which shows some evident gaps. Primary research and / or the use of other data sources may be insufficient. Though execution of may be adequate, methodology will be weak and the methodological decisions made will be less justified and / or have weaker links to objectives. If data collection reaches minimum
levels it may be flawed in other ways. Results and analyses may contain errors as well as omissions and the subsequent interpretation and discussion of the data collected is likely to be very poorly developed. The study may show that relevant material is not always distinguished from superfluous and irrelevant commentary. Conclusions may be repetitive or lack a clear focus and may not completely refer back to the stated objectives even though an attempt to do this has been made.
Weaknesses are apparent in both the organisation and presentation of the study.
There are poorly stated aim and objectives and/or inadequate conceptual framework based on little background reading. The topic may have been poorly chosen and / or poorly defined in the rationale. Significant weaknesses are likely to be seen in the planning and implementation of the study. Conceptual content is likely to be minimal. Some appropriate academic sources are cited but generally in a descriptive or narrative way. Deeper issues are not explored. Poor primary research is likely to be present and / or poor use of secondary data. Perhaps not enough data has been collected for robust analysis to take place. Methodology may be largely unexplained or poorly justified or poorly linked to objectives. Results usually contain errors and omissions, some of which may be significant, and the attempted analyses may often be more superficial and / or inappropriate and / or highly descriptive.
The interpretation and discussion of the data tend to be short and lack detail with inadequate attention to relevant material. Conclusions are likely to be repetitive, lacking in consistency, depth, or focus, not necessarily linked to aim / objectives, or just incomplete. The work may be poorly organised with several flaws in presentation. Any strengths tend to be mainly those of effort and persistence; though the content has some merit, only a small amount of the possible potential of the study has been realised. Inclusion of a completed ethics form but not signed by the supervisor and not of a suitable standard.
The study may have been carried out in good faith but exhibits several of the following serious deficiencies: aim and objectives are poorly defined or lacking, little citation of relevant academic literature of a suitable standard, very little or no conceptual framework is apparent, methodology is inappropriate, not justified or misunderstood, data collection seriously inadequate or non-existent, poor description of results, analysis contains very serious errors or omissions, wrong interpretations,
very limited discussion, superficial ineffective conclusion, missing abstract, substandard presentation, likely to be below the word count.
This work shows few signs of being a proper concerted effort. There is an attempt to introduce the topic, describe methods, present and discuss results, and come to a conclusion. The study does not meet its own aim and objectives (which may be absent) and as a result it does not meet the learning outcomes of the module. Inclusion of a partially completed ethics form not signed by the supervisor. This work does not approach the demands of the assignment brief and does not achieve the learning outcomes.