SENIOR FINANCE STUDENTS DISSERTATION PROCESS, TIME SCHEDULE AND EVALUATION GUIDELINES 2011-12 STAGE 1

1. Identify your area of interest. Example: Equity market, Commodities, Derivatives, Banking, Micro Finance, Behavioural Finance, Capital Structure, Cost of Capital, Risk Management, Portfolio Management, Financial Instruments, Mutual Funds, Insurance, Taxes, Accounting etc. 2. Choose the area depending upon your inherent interest and also from career perspective, though not necessarily. 3. Once the area is more or less clear, look for research works already done in that areas from JSTOR or SSRN or NSEINDIA like sites. More often you would get good research works done abroad and only some done domestically. Some of the research reports you may look at may not give you the necessary perspective. In which case, look for more research reports until you are satisfied about its relevance to your likely area of dissertation. 4. Go through the research work broadly to see the appropriateness, suitability, practicality of doing here in India, feasibility of adopting the research methods and tools and more importantly the data collection feasibility. 5. The references at the end of the research report chosen will give you more leads into other research reports. 6. Take print out of atleast 10 to 15 appropriate research reports you would like to bank upon for your approach, research methods and tools and discuss with your mentor. 7. Once you are convinced about taking the dissertation forward, try to frame your title the hypotheses and the variables. Please note that the hypothesis framed should necessarily be a statistical hypothesis meaning that the hypothesis should have numerical parameters to be tested. 8. Prepare a synopsis based on the above work and show it to your mentor. The synopsis should essentially contain the problem statement and the research design (research methods and tools). STAGE 1 ENDS Time Schedule: To be completed before 30th September 2011.

STAGE 2

9. Build chapters 1 to 3 which are Introduction (chapter-1), Review of literature (chapter-2) and Research Design and Method of study (chapter-3) for your dissertation. 10. While doing the above step, prepare the draft questionnaire and get it vetted for the variables, research tools and its appropriateness to the hypotheses you are trying to test, with your mentor. 11. Do a pilot study for the questionnaire and see whether you need any revision taking into account the feed-back from the respondents. 12. Make the necessary changes to the questionnaire and proceed for primary data collection. STAGE 2 ENDS Time Schedule: To be completed before going for Christmas holidays. Hard copy of chapters 1, 2 and 3 along with draft questionnaire should be made available to the mentors for evaluation (100 marks).

STAGE 3
13. Complete the data collection before 1st week of Jan 2012. 14. Do the analysis on the data collected and arrive at conclusions on the hypotheses. 15. Build chapter 4 which is Analysis 16. Build chapter 5 which is Summary and Conclusions STAGE 3 ENDS Time Schedule: To be completed before 31st Jan 2012. Draft hard copy of the dissertation report should be made available to the mentors by 31st Jan 2012.

PLAGIARISM One of the dictionary meanings of Plagiarism is a close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one s own original work . This takes the form of cut and paste work. We are very much against this and any student resorting to this would be appropriately punished. You may like to learn about the system of referencing and appropriately adopt it in your dissertation. An undertaking should be provided by the students in the format prescribed, as a part of the dissertation report, in this regard. OTHER GUIDELINES
Get your process vetted by your mentor at the end of each stage namely Stage1, 2 and 3.

When you are meeting your mentor for review, always carry all the background papers so that your mentor can recollect the previous discussions and guide you accordingly. As a matter of rule, the dissertation should be Primary Data based. If any student is interested in Secondary Data based dissertation mainly with the prices from equity or commodity or currency or debt or derivatives markets, then the work should result in financial modelling, multiple regression and / or forecasting and should not stop with simple correlation, regression and ANOVA. Working with secondary data in the area of banking, micro finance or such other areas is not permitted. Specific prior approval for working with secondary data from your respective mentor s is compulsory. Adopt APA (American Psychology Association) method of referencing consistently in your report.

Time schedule:
Stage 1 : To be completed on or before 30th September 2011. Stage 2: To be completed on or before going for Christmas holidays Stage 3: To be completed on or before 31st Jan 2012 Submission of hard copy of your dissertation : To be completed on or before 10th February 2012 Viva : To be completed on or before 28th February 2012.

Evaluation :
Each stage shall carry 25% weightage (Stage1, Stage2, Stage3 and Viva) @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Please find the overall structure of your dissertation, which is indicative:

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION CERTIFICATE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF GRAPHS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.2 Genesis of the problem 1.3 Major concepts 1.4 Need for the study 1.5 Overview of the study CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Importance of review of related literature 2.2 How review has been done 2.3 Studies conducted abroad 2.4 Studies conducted in India 2.5 Arrangement of studies in chronological order variables wise Author (Year) Title 2.6 How the review was useful

CHAPTER 3 DESIGN AND METHOD OF STUDY 3.1 Statement of the problem 3.2 Operational definition 3.3 Variables of the study 3.4 Objectives of the study 3.5 Hypothesis 3.6 Design of the study 3.7 Sampling procedure 3.8 Explanation about the input 3.9 Tools used in the study 3.10 Statistical Analysis

CHAPTER 4 ANALYSIS 4.1 Explanation regarding the type of data and analysis- quantitative and qualitative 4.2 Analysis based on using the relevant test (Hypothesis, Table heading, Tabular column, Interpretations) Graphs

CHAPTER -5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Major findings 5.2 Conclusions 5.3 Educational implications 5.4 Limitations of the study 5.5 Suggestions for further study Bibliography Appendices

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