ntroduction
The aim of this task is to demonstrate your ability to find useful resources regarding current research in an area of professional interest to you, as well as your ability to convey information in a written form about those resources and structure a short report, including referencing. This task also requires you to demonstrate your understanding of research design and methods, and how they have been applied in an area of professional interest to you. Your skills in critiquing and writing about previous work will also be assessed.
The learning outcomes covered by this task include:
- Research the literature, and compare viewpoints and arguments and identify gaps in knowledge.
- Interpret and critically evaluate previously published material in a formal literature review.
- Describe the practices used in real-world research including legal, commercial and ethical frameworks.
- Describe the characteristic features of real-world research methods and debate their relative merits.
- Compare, evaluate and select suitable research methods appropriate to a body of research.
The Task
For this task you will need to investigate current research trends in an area of interest to you. This could be a broad or narrow area; the area will need to be defined. Try to identify themes or ideas that you come across, for example, are there particular topics that are popular, or is there a key problem that has many different possible solutions? Your report needs to be structured so that someone not familiar with your area of interest can follow it.
For the method review part, you are required to identify and explain the research method(s) that have been applied in the area you are investigating. You will need to reference existing studies that applied such methods, but you will also need to reference at least one textbook that explains how the methods should be designed and executed in practice.
Lastly, you will need to scope your review: do not just include every single idea you come across; develop a proper structure and some questions for your review, and then aim to answer those using acceptable scholarly resources. Please try and avoid using web links and papers that are not peer reviewed.
This task MUST be completed individually. Try and keep within the word range. Appendices will not be marked. References are not included in the word count.