Module outline for academic essay

Faculty of Business and Law

Department of Accounting and Finance

ACFI5070/Research Methods

Academic Year: 2021-22

Credit value: 15 credits

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Assessment Overview

	All Students (Campus and Distance Learning)

Type	Individual	Individual
Length	2,000 words +/- 10% excluding references and appendices	1,000 words +/- 10% excluding references and appendices
Weighting	60%	40%
Deadline	Thursday 18^th November 2021	Thursday 6^th January 2022
Return date	Thursday 16^th December 2021	Thursday 3^rd February 2022

Note: all coursework must be submitted electronically via Turnitin by 1159 on the deadline, unless there are mitigating circumstances. Information on penalties and late submissions can be found at DMU (2020a, 2021a). The Faculty is committed to a 20-day turnaround time for the marking and return of coursework. The turnaround time does not include weekends, Bank Holidays or university closure days.

Module Outline

The module provides students with a broad understanding of business and academic research methods. It is designed to help students prepare for a dissertation project, Executive Company Project or Entrepreneurship Project (hereafter ‘the research project’).

Students will be guided on the selection and planning of a suitable research project. The module will review research design, paradigms and ethics, including the broader ethical impact of research. The module covers a wide range of qualitative methods for data collection and analysis, including interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, observation and content analysis. Students will be guided on the financial datasets (Bloomberg and Refinitiv) available at DMU. The module covers a subset of quantitative techniques (using Excel, R and Matlab) including descriptive statistics, one and two-sample tests, ANOVA, chi-squared test, and regression. Lastly, the module provides an overview of mixed methods.

Learning Outcomes

Brackets refer to assessment task(s) and Global Graduate Competencies

Subject-specific knowledge and skills

Selection and articulation of an appropriate research project (1; GGC 4)
Critical appraisal of the broad academic literature relevant to the research problem (1)
Development of an appropriate research methodology for the project (2; GGC 2)
Articulation of the skills and competences necessary to collect, analyse and draw sound conclusions from research data (2; GGC 6)

Core academic and intellectual skills