Typical mistakes that students make:

Your topic must fall within the domain of your degree. For example, marketing students need to relate the topic to marketing and so on. Events students need to relate the topic to Events and so on.

Students must use academic journal articles. Always take a critical perspective when you review them. There is no ideal number of journal articles to use because it is not about quantity but quality. Nevertheless 10-15 journal articles are a conservative minimum. Make sure you use a theoretical framework to help you with your work.

Students leave it too late to pick a topic. It is imperative that you start early. Ideally you should pick a topic in week 1 when you start this module.

Students have to pick a topic and investigate that in detail. Sometimes topics are too broad such as: “Consumer Behaviour in India”. This is not appropriate. A good example could be: “Measuring Consumer Brand Equity of Designer Jeans Brands in India”

Students sometimes don’t provide enough detail in their methodology section. Make sure you provide a lot of detail in that section. It is important to discuss research philosophy and research approach, research strategy (i.e. survey), time horizon and sampling in great detail. It is a good idea to refer to relevant research methods textbooks or articles. It is not enough to write: “I will conduct a survey with consumers in London”. All this needs to be discussed in great detail. As a rule: Always justify your actions.

Research Development Template

Research Title

What do you know about the topic at this point?

(What did past studies say about this topic?)

Identify relevant concepts and theories

Why are you interested in this topic?

Have you found a research gap?

What do you want to find out?

How are you going to find out?

What is your primary research question?

What are your research aim and objectives?

What are key journal articles you have found so far?