成人大片

The course is being presented in Intensive mode with seminars, workshops, and group discussion. All activities will be recorded for the benefit of students that are studying remotely.

The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from the . Note: this course is run on a participatory seminar-basis , and a considerable degree of the course assessment will occur during seminars (Intensives' sessions). Intensives tend to be run on irregular weekends.  For specific dates, see your Course Calendar and/or MyUni. 

The distribution of materials covered, topics, workshops, and other seminar details can be found in the Learning Activities session below. 

Note 2:  topics sometimes shift from one intensive to another, but any change in required readings is always posted well in advance in MyUni. The information below is presented here for your convenience; however, any changes to the timetable will be recorded in the .

The course provides a strong grounding in understanding the research process enabling students to either engage an external research organisation to undertake a study on their behalf in a business environment or, alternatively, action and complete a research project themselves as either the sole researcher or as part of a research team. In addition to the technical skills and knowledge required to be successful in these endeavours, the course also provides students with a clear understanding of the ethical considerations involved in undertaking research and the special challenges evidenced in international and cross cultural studies.

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Apply an advanced understanding of business research design options, methodologies and analysis methods (both qualitative and quantitative), including respective terms, definitions and applications to the design, implementation and evaluation of a research project.
2. Distil an identified business problem into a succinct research problem (or problems) and articulate this into a comprehensive research brief for investigation by a research team locally or internationally.
   • This brief will include a statement of the resulting research problem and the objectives that need to be achieved to provide the information necessary to tackle the business problem and the decisions that need to be made respective to it.
3. Complete, from the brief created, a research proposal for implementation at either a local or international level.
   • This will include (but not be restricted to), a literature summary at the necessary level of depth to ensure a thorough understanding of what is already known about the problem to be addressed, the proposed research design, data collection, sampling, analysis methods to be employed along with an indicative time frame for each stage of the research proposed and budget.
4. Apply a broad understanding of issues specific to undertaking business research across international boundaries, including cultural, geographical, language and cost related challenges and respective strategies and approaches that may be employed to solve them to the design, implementation and evaluation of a research project.
5. Recognise, and take account of, the importance of ethical conduct in undertaking research, including potential implications for business relationships, effects on potential respondents and sensitivity to cultural differences and honesty and integrity in analysis and reporting in the design, implementation and evaluation of a research project.

Business Research Methods, 2nd Edition, 2019 (ISBN: 978-1-4737-6035-6)

Authors: Quinlan, Babin, Carr, Griffin, & Zikmund

Note: The 成人大片 library has an e-copy of this book. 

ONLINE LEARNING

Course Website:  

All topic lectures will be recorded for the benefit of those that can't attend the sessions. (Interactive discussions and sessions cannot be recorded without permission from every person participating). A comprehensive reading list will also be available in addition to lecture slides (although this is not a 'slide intensive' course) etc. All resources will be available via the course MyUni site.

All assessments are to be provided electronically and will be marked and returned electronically, where possible, mostly via the Turnitin portal on the MyUni site. Online discussion tools will be available for students to maintain contact with each other between intensive sessions.

In order to perform well in this course, students must have a strong command of the relevant research theories and concepts covered in preparation and in class and successfully apply them in their assessment and project. Therefore, students are expected to have completed all the preparation and engagement work every week (including non-seminar weeks) and be fully prepared. In addition, there is a strong assumption that students will engage in seminar discussions in an informed way. The communication skills developed in seminars by regularly and actively participating in discussions are considered to be most important by the School and are highly regarded by employers and professional bodies.

The University expects full-time students (i.e. those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This means that, for this course, you are expected to commit approximately 9 hours for private study (i.e., the study time outside of your regular classes). Students are required to attend all class sessions.

This course is taught in intensive mode fortnightly (6 sessions in total). Each intensive session will incorporate revision, lecture, group and individual discussion and Q&A. Topics presented in each intensive session are structured as below:

Intensive Session	Topic
1	Introduction to the course Research topic and Research question Research Philosophy
2	Literature review Ethics
3	Selecting methodology Sampling Introduction to Qualitative research design
4	Qualitative methods and Qualitative data analysis
5	Quantitative research design and analysis SPSS training
6	Overview Presentation of research proposal

This course is preparatory to the culminating Research Project. Each School and Discipline has specific Research Project criteria, so students undertaking the Business Research Methods course must prepare for their Research Project specific to their home Discipline’s criteria rather than in a uniform manner across the course. Students are responsible to be familiar with their own Discipline’s criteria for length and style of written work.

Proper class attendance must be observed (this includes, for instance, proper attendance, punctuality, returning from a break in a timely way, and the like).

Academic writing sessions are available from the Writing Centre in Hub Central. Students must attend at least one session.

Assessment Item	Assessment Task	Task Type	Weight	Length(Word,Time)	Learning Outcomes
1	Engagement and participation	Individual	10%	N/A	1 - 5
2	Literature review and Research Brief	Individual	35%	Max 2700 words	1,2,3
3	Proposal Presentation	Individual	15%	N/A	1 - 5
4	Research Proposal	Individual	40%	Max 4400 words	1 - 5
Total			100%

The critical things to note about the assessments in this course are that:

• Active engagement in discussion forum are required.
• The assessment activities contribute significantly to your actual research project. 
  Therefore:
  
  • be timely - meet deadlines
  • collaborate (note: acknowledged collaboration is a powerful professional and academic strength; UNacknowledged collaboration is called 'collusion' and is seen as cheating)
  • have fun (if you don't learn to enjoy it now, it will be 'unpleasantly hard work')
  • know that it DOES get easier - every piece you do makes the next one easier; every impossible-to-understand article you read makes the next one more possible and more readable - and your blogs will help you scale that wall faster and more easily than you can expect... the discussion board collaboration with your peers will make a world of difference. Therefore, your feedback to one another is critical!

Assessment 1 - Engagement with the course; Participation / attendance, Discussion Forums, Blog (Individual grade 10%)
Get involved

By the end of the course, we will have spent over 35 hours in a classroom with you, seen some projects and taken attendance (really just as a reminder to me). This is ample opportunity for me to allocate 10% of the course mark to the quality of your contribution. This can be confronting for some people, but part of the transition to senior manager role involves being prepared to comment when the opportunity arises.
So this component of assessment in the course comes from being involved in the classroom (which is impossible if you aren’t physically there) as well as online contribution an you might even create a blog in the public domain. If I was looking to “make a splash” in this course, that’s exactly what I’d be doing.

Why not build a blog?

Grasp the nettle. Many people in business these days are creating a simple reflective blog – allowing it to be public but enhancing their personal brand. If you feel a little uncomfortable about speaking up in class, then why not do some reflection in a blog – even one that is public. This provides a triple benefit; you learn a few new skills, you can supplement the insights you demonstrated in the class, and it pumps you up the Google rankings against your name. In the first session I’ll show you how to get a blog going. It’s a five minute job. For the “tragic” among us, we might feed the blog with an outreach medium such as Twitter.
So for AT1 the overarching criterion is as follows:
The instructor’s subjective assessment of the student’s contribution to the discussion of marketing concepts, principles and examples. This can occur in a face-to-face, discussion board or blog context, or all three.


Assessment  – Research Brief (Individual grade 20%)
Students will submit a research brief that summarises a stated business problem that requires specific information in order for Managers to decide a strategic direction to address the issue.

This will include a background to the problem and the implications of not finding a solution. The nature of the information that needs to be sourced (from both secondary and primary sources), concise and actionable research objectives and an indicative time frame for the completion of the resulting study.

This is not meant to be an 'argument' for the research per se - but it must provide any researchers that may take on the task with good understanding of the issues involved and nature of the information that is needed to find a solution.

A sample brief will be provided to students and many others can be found from a variety of sources. This brief (including no more than 10 references) may not exceed 2000 words.

For further detail, the grading rubric is provided as a part of this course outline.

Assessment 3 – Quantitative Assignment (default 15%)
Students are required to read a short case study provided in this brief and answer 5 questions, selecting the appropriate statistical test to answer each business problem.
This is an individual assignment. So, make sure you conduct data analysis and prepare a summary report individually. The written report represents a summary of key insight from your data analysis, demonstrating an ability to choose an appropriate statistical technique to provide answers to specific business research objectives, as well as an ability to correctly interpret results and develop preliminary conclusions and recommendations.
The title for this report should also include the words Assignment 1_quant_student ID. Please submit this assignment as a Microsoft Word file. The assignment should not exceed 1,500 words (excluding the Appendix). Please use only the key tables or charts in the main body of your report with all support tables attached in the Appendix.
Learning Objectives
This assignment focuses on student’s ability to:
• Develop skills in statistical analysis
• Understand the need to relate research and management objectives to analysis and findings
• Demonstrate an understanding of quantitative research and required analytical skills
• Develop knowledge in the choice and application of inferential and descriptive statistical tests
• Understand how quantitative research fits into the broader management and business planning process
• Apply an advanced understanding of quantitative analysis methods to a specific research problem
In addition, the aim of this assignment is to develop advanced knowledge in relation to the fundamental quantitative business and marketing research processes, such as:
• Data preparation and re-coding
• Descriptive data analysis and charting in SPSS and Excel, use of filters
• Significant difference testing using ANOVA or an Independent-samples T-test
• Factor analysis
• Correlations and regressions
• Provision of a short summary of key findings and recommendations
For further detail, the grading rubric is provided as a part of this course outline.

Assessment 4 – Qualitative Assignment (default 15%)
Students will complete a qualitative assignment that supports their upcoming research project and is relevant to the research design they are pursuing in their proposal. This accomplished by working in, and builing your project in, the software program NVivo11 Pro.The full software database employed is submitted via dropbox. This assignment lays the foundation for the research project literature review and methods chapter, and gives students important practice in practical aspects of developing qualitative instruments and analysing and interpreting results. More information will be provided on the MyUni site.

For further detail, the grading rubric is provided as a part of this course outline.

 
Assessment 5 – Research Proposal (40%)
In order to pass this course, students must achieve at least 50% overall, and achieve a passing mark of at least 50% for their final research proposal. The written proposal is the culmination of the work in this course and provides the basis for the culminating Research Project.

This document will be assessed on:
• Short restatement and justification of the research problem
• Relevance of objectives to the stated problem
• Adequate assessment of the relevant secondary data
• Justification of the research design and proposed methodology, including data collection and sampling methods.

Things to be considered include:
• can it be done this way?
• is it an appropriate design - is there a precedent for this design/approach?
• will it provide the right kind of data and enough of it?
• will analysis of the data provide the insights required?
• are projected costs defendable?
• Proposed analytical methods
• Research budget and timelines for completion of the project
• Quality of written presentation (referencing, grammar, punctuation and clarity)

For the purposes of this course, this document is expected to be no more than 15 pages (not including references and appendices), and follow the "Document Guidelines". (Please note: The 成人大片's version of Harvard Referencing is to be used.)

All assignments are to be submitted by the due date using the Turnitin facility on the course MyUni site, unless an alternative submission site is required. Software-based assignments (qualitative and quantitative) will require additional electronic submission. Assignments will be marked and returned electronically, when possible. Please remember to keep a copy of all your work. Each assignment must also have a cover sheet as its first page and title page after that.

Late Assignment Submission
Students are expected to submit their work by the due date to maintain a fair and equitable system. Extensions will generally only be given for medical or other serious reasons. All requests for extensions must be emailed to the lecturer in charge of the course before the due date. Each request will be assessed on its merits. A late assignment (without prior arrangement) will be penalised by a 5% mark reduction for each day that it is late.

Return of Assignments
Lecturers aim to mark and return assignments to students, with written feedback, within two (2) weeks of the due date.