Essay Critical Literature Review Assignment Develop a Feasible Research Question – Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Task:

RESEARCH SKILLS
Assignment Details
Assignment Name: Critical Literature Review Assignment Weight: 70%

Learning Outcomes
The aim of this assignment is to help you learn how to
Search for and evaluate published articlesPosition research problems in the relevant literature
Write a critical literature reviewDevelop a feasible research questionSelect appropriate research methods for a particular research question.
Assignment Brief
Select a research topic (problem, question, and objectives) and develop a critical literature review to support them. Conclude your assignment by proposing a research design to explore your selected research question and objectives.
Preparation
Research problem and question
To specify your research topic, you need to select a research problem and formulate a research question. To help with this task, I encourage you to arrange a meeting with your supervisor prior to the December break (for Full Time Students) or prior to the June deadline (for Flexible Modular Students).
Please note that this assignment follows the same logic and requires the same skills as the Group Assignment. In preparing your Critical Review, you may want to consult either the relevant videos or power point slides.
Scoping out a research problem
To get started (and prior to meeting with your supervisor) scope out your chosen research problem. One way to get started is to search for published articles in your general area (theme) and review them for the type of problems and questions which they pose. Ask yourself, which one of these problems/questions would you like to explore further? Based on this initial review identify one or more potential research questions. If, after some initial research, you find that you are not as interested in your research problem as you first thought, explore alternative problems.
Your research problem can be in the general area of your theme (if you were assigned a supervisor on the basis of a theme), but it does not have to be.
To conduct this initial scoping research, I suggest that you consult:
Databases such as ARCOM and Business Source Complete to get an idea of the type of issue which scholars are raising in relation to your chosen problem and the type of research questions that they are asking. For more technical sources, consult your supervisors.
Start to classify them as we did in class (using the Group Review Template or your own system)
You can also consult professional trade journals such as ‘building.co.uk’ and ‘construction news’ to get an idea of what practitioners are concerned about and saying but be careful not to confuse the different types of source.
For examples of past research questions (to get an idea of the level of specificity for a feasible research question), see blackboard (under Content).
Preparing your literature review
As indicated in the teaching material, a critical literature review is a reflection on different academic conversations about your chosen topic. Like any text, it is written from a particular perspective. In this case, it is written from the perspective of your chosen research questionOnce you have located the texts for your review, your next task is to group them into different literatures or conversations. Using your Group Review Template (or your own version), you should characterise and group the articles by their research questions, topics, approaches, methods and findings. In presenting each ‘conversation’, you will want to reflect on similarities and differences between authors within a conversation and between conversations. You will also want to organise them in a logical order, leading to your chosen research question.
Preparing your research design
Once you have drafted your literature review you should be in a position to translate your research question into a list of specific objectives and to select a research object which you can use to explore it. This might be a data set or a particular case study or multiple case studies. If you are doing a more technical topic, it might involve a model which you propose to adapt and data which you can use to test your model or associated hypotheses. You may also want to re- visit your research question and adjust it for coherence.
Your objectives and empirical research object provide the basis for your research design. Ask yourself, how will I sample? collect data? analyse the data? ensure ethics? and explain them clearly. You can use points from research textbooks or from methods articles (yes, people write articles on methods – so be sure to search for them), but the key is to justify each point in relation to your research question.
Structure
Your assignment should include the following elements in the order specified below; you can use these headings for the assignment or provide your own.
Title page
The title page should be the first page of your submission, along the lines of the example posted on blackboard (see Assignment Brief).
Title
The critical review should start with a title which reflects the content/main argument.
Introduction
This section should introduce your research problem. It should discuss the importance of the problem for specific stakeholder groups, provide background to your research problem (with evidence and references), introduce your research question and provide a road map.
Make sure that your road map includes the main take away point from each section and is not simply a restatement of the Table of Contents.
Literature Review
This section should classify a set of articles by topics/methods/approaches which scholars have used to study your chosen research problem and report on each set (literature/conversation).
The discussion should offer a critical review of the different literatures and signal points which are relevant to your chosen research question and are thus interesting to explore further.
Your critical literature review should position your proposed research question in the relevant literature. In doing so, it should make a case for the interest and contribution of your chosen research question to current knowledge.
Conclude your section with either a restatement of your research question and/or your research objectives. Note: these should flow directly from the discussion.
Research Design
This section should propose a way to investigate the research question and objectives (as stated in the introduction). It should discuss approach, sampling, data collection and data analysis.
You can use research textbooks to support your choices, but make sure that you justify your design in relation to your research question.
References
All points which are not your own must be referenced using the Harvard style (for both in-text citations and references at the end of the assignment). Please note the criteria for referencing below.
Submission
Your assignment should be submitted through the link in blackboard. The report should be approximately 3500-4000 words. For the page layout use 1.5 or double line spacing and 2.5 cm. margins. For the font, use 12 pt with a professional font (e.g. Arial, Times Roman, Calibri)
Assessment criteria
Assessment criteria Weighting %
Introduction

• Is the research problem clearly introduced, with an indication of how and why it’s important and to whom? Is the background to the research problem provided and is it based on appropriate evidence? Is the research question/aim well-defined? Do the objectives follow from the research question/aim and can they be achieved in the scope of the dissertation? 20
• Literature Review
• Are current knowledge and perspectives developed through a review of published information? Is the range of sources adequate and appropriate? Does the literature review contain critical evaluation of key texts and approaches? Does the literature review help to develop and refine the research question and objectives? 40
• Research Design
• Are the sampling, data collection and data analysis methods clearly specified and justified in relation to the research objectives (and research question)? Does the discussion demonstrate understanding of the research approach and methods adopted and are they appropriately applied? 20
• References
• Are all points which should be referenced, referenced? Are in-text citations properly and consistently formatted, using the Harvard style? Are all in-text citations included in the reference section? Is the reference section properly and consistently formatted? 10
• Structure, style, and presentation
• Is the dissertation well organized/structured? Is the writing style clear and is there a logical flow? Is the English grammar and spelling correct? Are diagrams appropriately labelled and referenced? Is the presentation professional and consistent? 10
• Total 100
• For detailed grade descriptors, see blackboard (Assessment)