Research Project I

More than just theory – your research can help businesses run better

Research is more than just theory – you can actually use your findings to help optimise the activities of businesses and even entire industries. Find out how to plan a research project and gather data that can prove valuable in informing the current operations or future planning of a business.

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

1. Determining Research Needs
   • Introduction
   • Identifying research needs
   • The research goal
   • The research question
   • Other questions to clarify the research goal
   • Sources of information
   • What information is required
   • Depth and bredth of data
   • Constraining factors: time, resources
2. Searching For Information
   • Kind of exploratory research
   • Primary data research
   • Literary reviews
   • Research objectives
3. Research Methods
   • Research terminology
   • Experimentation
   • A controlled environment
   • Other field trial considerations
   • Steps in collection and analysis of data
   • Setting up a comparison trial
   • Running the trial
   • Evaluating the trial
   • Interviewing skills
   • Procedure
   • Asking questions
   • Types of questions
   • Ways of handling difficult questions
4. Using Statistics
   • Introduction
   • Official statistics
   • Reasons for using statistics
   • Disadvantages of statistics
   • Issues to consider
   • Descriptive statistics
   • Observed and expected rates
   • Confidence intervals
   • Standardising
   • Conducting Statistical Research
   • Reliability of statistics
   • Presenting statistics: pie charts, bar charts, histograms
   • Descriptive statistics: mean, median, mode, variation, standard deviation, etc
   • Correlation, Probability
5. Research Reports
   • Collecting quantitative data
   • Conducting a survey
   • Procedure for designing a survey
   • Forms of data
   • Planning a formal survey
   • Designing a questionnaire
   • Common problems
6. Research Reporting
   • Report writing tips
   • Structure of a report
   • The report outline
   • Research papers
   • Referencing

Aims

• Develop your ability to collect, collate and interpret data and prepare reports in ways relevant to the work environment;
• Monitor and evaluate your own work in order to develop a responsible attitude to workplace performance and quality assurance;
• Determine areas where there is a valid need for research which are relevant to area of study;
• Explain research methods, including experimental techniques, commonly used in your discipline.
• Understand of the basic statistical methods used for research;
• Locate, collect and evaluate information for a specific research purpose;
• Prepare a research report in a format which conforms to normal industry procedures.