Mid term exam (15%):The midterm exam will be multiple choice, open-book, take home exam. The midterm questions will be posted at MyUni. You will need to submit the answers by a date to be specified. The midterm will test your ability to correctly apply the course materials to identify, diagnose, and solve research problems in various situations. Details of this assessment will be provided in the pre-recorded lecture. 

Assignments One (Prospectus) (10%): The prospectus is the first step towards producing your state-of-art literature review. It should briefly outline your research question, your theoretical rationale, and 8 relevant academic sources you propose to review. In total, the prospectus should be not more than 400 words long, not including the end of text References. It is important to justify your proposed research question as interesting and worth answering. Details of this assessment will be provided in a pre-recorded lecture.

Assignments Two (Single Study Review) (15%): In the second assignment, you will apply your new methodological skills to analyse an assigned research article, and to identify its main strengths and weaknesses. The article to be analysed and the questions you need to answer will be made available at MyUni. You will need to submit the answers at MyUni. Detail of this assignment will be discussed in a pre-recorded lecture.

Assignment Three (Literature Review) (30%): In this assignment you will do a thorough literature review, addressing a topic of your choice. The Literature Review will be not more than 1,800 words long, not including end of text references. As a critical review of the “state of knowledge” on your topic, it will allow you to situate your research question as having the potential to add to or correct an existing theory, thereby helping us to understand the phenomena in question. For this reason, it is crucial to find proper academic sources to review.

A literature review is not simply a list of the research on a topic, nor is it merely a summary of the arguments others have made concerning a topic. A literature review is an essay which allows you to survey the field as it is, with an eye to the contribution that you will make to the literature through your research question. Therefore, you should be particularly attentive to the questions that are unanswered (or unasked) in the literature, the theoretical concepts in the field which are inadequate, the errors that exist in our current ways of looking at the topic, and so on. The literature review will not involve any primary data collection.

You should begin to conduct your review of the literature with a question that is as specific as possible, knowing that it will change as you interact with the literature. The assignment three will build on the work and skills you developed in the assignments one and two. By the time you write your literature review, your research question should be carefully formulated in researchable terms. Details of this assessment will be discussed in a pre-recorded lecture.

Final Exam (30%): You will be expected to display understanding, integration, and critical reflection on the required readings and lectures. The final exam will be multiple choice, open-book, take home exam. The format will be similar as the midterm exam. Details of this assessment will be provided in in a pre-recorded lecture.

Note: : Further information on the expectations for the Assignments and Exams will be provided at the MyUni and discussed in tutorials.