Accredited by: Member of:

IACBE CCIG
ECBE FEDE
EDUQUA FSEP
AGEP
ACICS

FINAL EXAM
SCW 952
Research Methods
(PLEASE ENTER YOUR DETAILS IN CAPITAL LETTERS)

Course Code: SCW 952

Course Title: Research Methods

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

GBS Final Exam for Research Methodology - take home

This assignment is intended to help you synthesize information learned throughout the Research
Methodology course and use it in a practical manner. The assignment asks you to use the beginning
steps of the scientific method to formulate a research proposal for your Masters Project or Masters
Thesis. The purpose is to enable you to see how what we have learned in this class can be used to
create an effective research proposal; it also helps you work through the critical beginning stages of
your Masters project/thesis.

This paper should be 8 pages, double spaced.

Please note that you are NOT carrying out an entire research project, rather you are drafting a
proposal for a research project that you will carry out (i.e. your thesis project/Masters project)

Specifically, you will do the following:

1) Come up with your research question and explain why this is a good/appropriate question for a
business research paper (remember we have discussed what makes a good question in this class -
this is not just your own view, but must be based on class information)

2) Do some background research. This is the preliminary research that is part of Step 2 of the
scientific method. This must at minimum include 10 publication citations (academic and/or grey
literature, such as business reports). You may be asking colleagues/etc. as we have discussed in
class, but you must demonstrate that you have also done secondary research.

3) Write your hypothesis.

4) The last stage is to propose your data collection and analysis methods. Are you going to do primary
or secondary research? What sources will you use? Be as specific as possible for your methods. For
example, if you are doing an interview: how many people will you interview? how will you choose your
sample? how long will the interviews be? what questions will you ask?
If you are doing a literature review, where will you find the literature? how will you determine if a
publication is worth recording? how will you record the information? how many publications will you
use? Feel free to bring in other information we have discussed in class as well: ethics, personal bias,
reporting strategies, etc.
 Accredited by: Member of:
IACBE CCIG
ECBE FEDE
EDUQUA FSEP
AGEP
ACICS

After you have written your data collection methods, you should briefly explain how you intend to
analyze the information that you collect. That is, after youve done the interviews or after youve done
your literature review, how will you actually use the information? Think about how you will go from just
finishing an interview or researching books to actually writing your research paper. You need to do
some form of analysis. What will this look like?
__________________________________________________________________________________

IMPORTANT: If you have already completed your Masters thesis/Masters project OR if you have
already done the above steps with a supervisor for your project, you must choose a different topic. In
this case, you may choose any topic.
If you have simply thought about your research project/thesis, you may still do your assignment.

Basically, ask yourself the following: Will I have an advantage over other students in this class because
of work I have already done on my Research Project/Thesis Project with a supervisor?

If in doubt, just ask your instructor or email her at: leah.polonenko@gmail.com

Marking Grid:

Research Question identified & discussed /10

Preliminary research /20

Hypothesis /10

Analytical Tools & Data Collection Methods /20

TOTAL: /60