Task Description

Unit assessment overview: During this unit, you will complete an individual professional project that contains a number of cumulative components, and Assessment 2 will build on the components assembled in Assessment 1. You will be given significant feedback and feed-forward during and after Assessment 1, which you must use to develop Assessment 2.

In this unit, you will demonstrate a synthesis of the knowledge, learning, business research methodologies, and professional skills that you have acquired and practiced throughout your Masters course. In particular, this unit builds upon your previous work in the unit Research in Business, however, this time you will actually do a research project. The analysis component of the Professional Project will be based SOLELY on secondary data and it is important that you familiarise yourself early in the unit on the meaning of ‘secondary data’. You will work independently (although within a structure) to plan, carry out and report on an investigation that addresses an issue or problem in business relevant to your future profession. This will be one of the following: marketing, accounting or management/human resource management. Throughout the term, your independent study will be supported by Moodle resources (particularly for external students) and interactions with a campus tutor/lecturer, who will provide guidance.

Assessment 1: Project context and proposal (40%)

This assessment will be completed in two steps.

Step 1, worth 15% of total unit marks.

This assignment requires you to submit, by the end of week 4, a single page project plan. This project plan will contain three components:

A] A ‘field of research’ which pertains to your understanding of your profession. This short statement will include how this field relates to the work of your profession and an industry.

B] A source of secondary data linked to their chosen field of research. Students will be required to either include a website with a link to a publicly available secondary data set, or a short description of how you will use publicly available sources as secondary data.

C] A research question or questions that can be answered with the secondary data set you identified, including a clear expression of the variables you will be using, and the relationships between these variables you plan to explore. Alternatively, a broader, but still clearly defined exploratory research aim will be acceptable.

D] The search terms you propose to use in Google Scholar to identify literature in the field of the research question.

E] You will be asked to pick five articles that arise from the result of your search that you will think be suitable sources to write a literature review in the area of your field of research. You will be asked to write two sentences that combine at least three of these sources (referenced correctly) and provide the (at least three) sources in a reference list.

Step 2, worth 25% of total unit marks.

For this assignment you will be asked to prepare a short literature review that places your project within the context of your profession and industry, and ends with a focused field of study or research aim, and at least one research question. You will be asked to clearly describe your research plan, including your proposed method of analysis.

Assessment Criteria

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice”, and demonstrate “knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”.

Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level course, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research.

Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment.

Your assignment will be marked on the following eight criteria, with the weighting given on the Moodle site:

• Professional presentation and accuracy of work
• Quality and appropriateness of references, and accuracy of referencing
• Feasibility of project within time-frame
• Aim and objectives/research questions
• Preliminary critical literature review
• Organisation of the project
• Written communication
• Evidence of tutor/lecturer engagement