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Research Philosophy and Practice (C11BU)
Coursework 2: Research Proposal II
Overview
Your second assignment in this course is to complete the Methodology section of your
research proposal. Your assignment should be around 1,500 words ±10%. It should be
submitted in paper copy to the Dubai Student Service Center by the 1st of April 2020 by 8pm.
Please make sure that you have submitted the work to Turnitin in advance of the submission,
facilities to do so will be provided on the assessment page of Vision. Coursework not
submitted via Turnitin will not be marked.
This assignment, in conjunction with the first assignment, forms your complete research
proposal. This will serve as a guide to your dissertation next year, and should contain the
follow sections:
Methodology
1. Research Philosophy. In which philosophical paradigm are you rooting your
dissertation? [350 Words]
2. Data Collection Methods. How are you getting your data and which tools for data
collection are you using? [500 words]
3. Data Analysis Techniques. How are you going to analyse your data when you have
collected it? [300 Words]
4. Ethical Issues. How will your research comply with the principles of ethical research?
[250 Words]
All submissions should have a short introduction outlining the aim of their research from
coursework one. This will allow the marker to determine if the outlined methodology is
suitable. N.B. Please remember that the Methodology section should be heavily referenced,
drawing on general methodology textbooks, books that focus on particular data collection
methods and analysis techniques and ethics, and journal articles. The number of references
will vary, but you should be aiming for at least 20 to 30.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How does this relate to the first assignment?
A. You may want to include a couple of lines introduction, outlining your CW1, as often when
justifying your choices, you will justify it based on your theory/context from CW1. However,
CW2 is not marked in reference to CW1. They are marked independently, but you may find
that your theory/context helps to justify your methodological decisions (it certainly will in
the final dissertation).
Q. What do you mean by research philosophy/philosophical paradigm?
A. Try this link if you are unsure how your philosophy, data collection, and data analysis all fit
together: https://methods.sagepub.com/methods-map However, this is not a replacement to
good academic research, and should only be used as a guide. Philosophy is linked to methods
of data collection and analysis. Qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups etc.) are nearly
always rooted in an interpretivist philosophy, while quantitative methods (surveys, some
forms of secondary data collection) typically stem from a positivist philosophical position.
There are some students emailing about mixed methods. You may wish to consider critical
realism as a dualistic approach between objective and subjective. Or choose which is the
dominant method in your research, and choose the appropriate philosophy, and justify the
other as a complimentary form of research.
Q. Do I just write about the methods I’m using, or should I write about others too?
A. Good examples of this assignment will thoroughly justify the choice of philosophy and data
collection/analysis techniques. You should talk critically about your choices and justify these
in comparison to other choices available, the existing literature, and why yours are the most
appropriate choices for your particular investigation.
Q. How detailed should I be? For example, should I include questions I’d ask participants?
A. There is no need to include the actual questions you are going to ask in your research
methodology, but your data collection section should make it clear how exactly you would
conduct your study, to the point that someone else could set up a similar study.
This should hopefully clear up any questions you may have about Coursework 2. Please note
that it is your responsibility as an adult learner to seek out and study the meanings and
applications of the various aspects of research methods beyond the lecture materials.
Writing and responding to emails asking for definitions and meanings that are freely
available in libraries (on and offline) is not a good use of anyone’s time. Please also refer to
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the examples of previous submissions on Vision. While these are
not perfect, they are a useful guide.