Guidelines for Assessment 1 Presentation of Research Proposal

Assessment 1 Details

Deliver a 10 minute presentation to your class of the research proposal you are developing for assessment 2.

Your presentation should include the use of PowerPoint slides.

You will need to narrate your powerpoints and audio record this, before submitting the file as a Powerpoint file. Powerpoint allows you to narrate your slides, and audio record this. There is no need for any fancy equipment, no need for you to purchase anything.  

This video shows how to do narration of a PowerPoint which will be saved when you save the file.

How to create voice-over narration for your PowerPoint Presentation (Links to an external site.)

A few points to keep in mind:

• Your presentation should follow the same structure as the research proposal and the emphasis should be on describing, explaining and justifying your research decisions.
• The following structure is advised in the guidance:
  • Introduction
  • Brief literature review (leading to the gap in knowledge).
  • Research Question
  • Aim & objectives
  • Methods
  • Research outcomes
  • Cost
  • Timeline

• Please review the guidance (checklist and marking criteria on more specific elements that need to be covered).
• Please make sure to balance your time carefully. You only have 10 minutes so much more than 10 slides seems not advisable.
• Make sure you do not spend all your time explaining the public health issue or the nursing problem, but make sure that the emphasis is on explaining the study, how will you conduct the study?
• You are presenting your proposal, with the aim of receiving feedback that will help you to prepare further for your research proposal.
• Make sure not to put too much text on your slides, be concise
• Make sure to think about your presentation style, try to sound natural and do not read too much. Reading from the slides is not advisable.
• If you do not have powerpoint, please note that University of Sunderland students can download for free Microsoft Office: https://ts.sunderland.ac.uk/help-and-advice/software-downloads/
• Any problems with IT, please make sure to contact the IT department, and put in an IT request via the student portal.
• Make sure to look at the technical elements on time, do not leave this to the last day!

Extension requests

Requests for extensions should be directed to the module leader in the first instance. If your module leader is unavailable, you can contact your programme leader in their absence to request an extension. For further information on the regulations governing extensions of assessment deadlines, see here. Note that if you submit your work late without an agreed extension, this will be recorded as a non-submission.

Extenuating circumstances

In situations where a short extension may not suffice, the University of Sunderland has a procedure to deal with events which affect your work, but which are not predictable and are beyond your control, for example, illness, enabling you to defer a piece of work (and submit it at a later assessment point).

Important note: You should note that the policy (like that of many universities) takes the view that by sitting an examination or handing in an assessment, students have deemed themselves fit, and no subsequent claim for extenuating circumstances will be considered. The Faculty will publish deadline for the submission of such claims prior to the assessment and it is important that you are aware that such claims must be made by the deadline, as after it has passed, a claim will not be considered unless there are exceptional circumstances.

For further information on the regulations governing consideration of extenuating circumstances, guidance on extenuating circumstances and details of how to apply, see here

Academic misconduct

All work submitted is expected to be your own work. Common forms of academic misconduct include plagiarism and collusion, but are not limited to these. The penalties for academic misconduct can be very serious. If you are unsure what academic misconduct is, you should contact the module leader or your personal tutor to discuss it.

Prepare a written research proposal for a health related project. 

• Your proposal should be 2000 (+/- 10%) words long, excluding references.

• Your proposal should offer a comprehensive explanation of your proposed research, including, but not limited to, the public health issue, gap in knowledge, justifications of research decisions and ethical considerations.

A few points to keep in mind: 

• The purpose of your research proposal is to present the problem you are proposing to investigate, the health problem, to present the reason for studying this (i.e. the gap in knowledge), and for you to describe, explain and justify how you will conduct your study.
• The following structure is advised in the guidance:
  • Introduction
  • Brief literature review (leading to the gap in knowledge).
  • Research Question
  • Aim & objectives
  • Methods
  • Research outcomes
  • Cost
  • Timeline

• Please review the guidance (checklist and marking criteria on more specific elements that need to be covered).
• Where some students go wrong is that they spend too much time explaining the health problem, and not enough time on describing, explain and justifying the research decisions. Make sure you balance this carefully. The emphasis should be on explaining the research methods.
• Justifying your research decisions means you support your decisions with literature. For example, you have chosen a qualitative design, describe what this is, explain why this is appropriate in answering your research question, and justify with support from the literature why this is the most appropriate research design for this study.

You do this for each research decision you make (check the checklist!).

• Make sure to use Harvard referencing and double check if you are using this correctly.
• Writing concisely is an important skill and the word count will be adhered to. Word count policy is about fairness between students and students who go over the word count give themselves an unfair advantage over other students.