Report on Critique and Design of Research Instrument for Capstone Project

You are asked to produce a report, which consists of three activities:

Section 1. Please provide a detailed critique of at least two well-used research methodologies.

Section 2. Please construct a research instrument that could be used to collect data in your capstone project. You will not be collecting any data – just designing the tool.

Section 3. Please reflect upon the audience and critical aspects of research dissemination in the specific context of your potential research findings and outcomes from the developed instrument.

Should you fail the assessment at the first attempt and be referred to retake the coursework, only the failed individual elements will need to be reworked, with 10% of the re-sit mark awarded for an additional reflective statement demonstrating how you learnt from the feedback and what you did differently the second time.

The final report should be submitted via Moodle to a turn-it-in box and will be graded according to the following marking criteria (see more instructions of the writing of above sections outlined under “Structure and presentation” below):

Section 1 – Clarity and justification of research problem

Section 1 – For the literature analysis, breadth and depth of explored research with a clear focus emerging

Section 1 – Critique of two specific research methods

Section 2 – Demonstration of the proposed research instrument’s potential for new knowledge generation and rigour in deduction of conclusions

Section 3 – Comprehensive appraisal of research dissemination requirements

All sections – Form and presentation (this section only for main submission)

Applies to re-sit only – Reflective section marked instead of “Form and Presentation”

Structure and presentation

Any written work should be spell-checked, and a contents page should be included. Do not use various font sizes and colours. lines spaced is recommended. Use DIN A4 format and page margins of 2.5 cm or 1 inch.

Your report should be presented in good academic style, having been formatted using the Harvard referencing system and proofread for grammatical errors.

Section 1: Comparing two research methodologies

Select a topic of interest or business problem relevant to your degree specialism, e.g. strategy, supply chain management, international business & economics, marketing, finance, or human resources. Choose one of these topics that motivates you and that you are likely to pursue for your Dissertation or Consultancy Project (you may change your mind later, but it will be to your advantage if you stick to it, so choose carefully). This will require some preliminary research into that specific area.

Provide the following subsections and address the following tasks for the chosen business problem:

Research problem

Short explanation of the research problem and the particular question that you would want to study.

Selected key readings

An introduction that provides a brief commentary of key relevant literature. Be sure to justify your choice of these references in introducing the existing knowledge on your topic.

Attach a full visual presentation such as a mind map, a Venn diagram, or a grandfather, father, son literature map in the report’s appendix to show the

scope of your review of literature. That visual presentation will be considered when marking together with your brief commentary.

Two appropriate research methods

A detailed critique of at least two well-used research methodologies in the literature you have reviewed. Discuss a) how they are applied; b) how the methods were deployed to provide a worthwhile contribution to theory and research and c) what gaps the methods may leave that could lend the area to further analysis (and an opportunity for your own research).

Discuss pros and cons of methods in the context of the proposed research question / research problem; and demonstrate full awareness of constraints and limitations deriving from investigation.