ONCAMPUS Assignment Brief Academic Year 2021-22

ONCAMPUS Assignment Brief Academic Year 2021-22

Please read this document carefully. It includes the learning outcomes, assignment task, information

about plagiarism and marking criteria. Please speak to your tutor if you have any questions.

Programme

Undergraduate Foundation Programme: Business

Module

UFPB3 – Skills for Business

Assessment title

Research Project

Deadline date

To be confirmed by your tutor

Weighting

This assessment counts for 60% of your overall grade for this module.

Pass mark

40% *please note your University may require a higher grade for progression.

Assignment summary

To write an individual report investigating the following:

The perception and experiences of international students when studying

in the UK.

Submission of work

http://www.turnitinuk.com

Feedback

http://www.turnitinuk.com

Feedback will also be communicated back to you via your tutor. They will

confirm the timescale in which you will receive your feedback.

Important details

Unless instructed otherwise by your tutor, please follow the below instructions:

Word count 1,500 words File type Word processed Font 12 pitch font – Arial or Times New Roman Format Double spaced and justified Referencing Harvard system Notes Your assignment must include page numbers and word count.

You will receive a 10% penalty for this assignment if you go over the word

count by more than 10%. If your assignment is significantly under the word count, you may not have answered the question in full and will be

reflected in your overall mark.

The word count does not include contents, end of text references or

appendices.

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Module learning outcomes: On successful completion of this assessment, you will have met the following module learning

outcomes: Knowledge based outcomes:

LO1. Collect, analyse and present relevant research and data to support a chosen project LO2. Present information effectively to meet audience needs

Skills based outcomes:

• Gathering data and information from a variety of secondary and sources • Communicating relevant information in a variety of forms • Analysing information and make reasoned judgements

Assessment criteria: In order to successfully complete this assessment and meet the above learning outcomes, you must

satisfy the following criteria:

AC1.1 Evidence relevant primary and secondary research carried out to support their work AC2.1 Produce a well-structured research paper with clear findings to support a chosen project AC3.1 Interpret and present the data using appropriate methods to inform others and support

own ideas

AC4.1 Demonstrate proficient use of Harvard-style referencing (subject to progression university)

Assignment instructions: To successfully complete this assignment, you must conduct a piece of research using a questionnaire

or interviews to investigate the perception and experiences of international students studying in the

1. Your participants will be your classmates or other ONCAMPUS students.

Examples of the topics you might wish to investigate are:

• Homesickness • Life abroad • Work/life balance • Culture shock

These are just ideas – you can include anything you find of interest but please check the suitability

with your tutor first.

You will then write your findings as a research paper. The research paper is written in third person

formal English, such as you would find in a journal article. It will be treated as a scientific report,

therefore it must be factual, objective and logical in structure and content. You will be given more

information about how to structure your report later in this document. Task 1: Literature review and report introduction Part A: Literature review

• Decide what topic areas you might like to research. • Conduct a literature review to discover what previous research has taken place on your chosen

topic(s).

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Part B: Report introduction Write the introduction to your report.

Use the following guidance to help you:

• The introduction includes the literature review which is a description of the background literature related to the study. This provides the reader with some background information

relevant to your investigation.

• You should refer to at least 1 piece of previous research in this area. • Remember to use Harvard referencing in the body text when mentioning other studies.

Task 2: Research aim and designing a questionnaire or interview. Part A: Research Aim Write the aim of your investigation.

Use the following guidance to help you:

• Once you have completed Task 1, you will have an idea of what exactly you would like to investigate about students’ perceptions or experiences of education in the UK. This will

become the aim of the study.

• The aim of the study is a statement about what is being investigated and what is expected. Since this is not an experiment, there is no hypothesis; just a reason for doing the study.
• Your aim should be 1 or 2 sentences in length. Part B: Design a questionnaire or interview. Use the following guidance to help you:
• To investigate your aim further, you must devise a questionnaire or a set of interview questions to ask your fellow students about their perceptions and experiences.
• Consider what types of questions you will use, e.g., open or closed or a mixture of both. If you are using closed questioning, what form will this take, e.g., multiple choice, forced choice, or

Likert-type scale?

• Your questions must be chosen carefully to give you the answers you need that will meet the aim of your study.

Task 3: Conduct the research and Research Method

Part A: Conduct the research Before you actually conduct your research, there are some things that you must consider.

Use the following guidance to help you:

• Decide who your participants will be. E.g., will they be only your classmates, or will you use other OnCampus students or friends too?
• Decide how and when you will distribute your questionnaires and how you will collect them back in again. E.g., will you give them out during break time and collect them back in when you

return to class?

• If you are conducting interviews, you must schedule appointments with individuals. • Consider what type of sampling you are using, e.g., random sample, opportunity sample. • Remember to collect information about your participants such as age, gender if you think that

might be important based on previous research, country of origin, length of time studying in

the UK, existing level of qualifications, or any other relevant information. This information will

be needed when you write your Method section. Part B: Method Section

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This section is where you describe how you designed and carried out your investigation. Precision and

clarity are necessary in this section as this is where you demonstrate your understanding of

quantitative research methodology. This section is divided into 3 separate parts.

Use the following guidance to help you:

Participants • Give details of the number of participants together with details such as age, country of origin,

or the fact that all the participants were students. Include any characteristics of participants

that could be replicated, if someone else wanted to repeat this investigation.

Materials • This section is for the materials used for this investigation and can simply be listed with an

appendix reference for each one. (Example – Appendix 1: Informed consent form, Appendix 2:

Copy of interview questions. Procedure

• Carefully and accurately describe how the investigation was carried out. This should be done in a chronological step-by-step order. Enough details should be provided so that another

researcher could replicate the investigation.

• Include reference to any ethical issues that were addressed (for example when informed consent was carried out).
• Example: Participants were asked for their consent and gave it (Appendix 1). Questionnaires were handed out in class to participants. They were given 30 minutes to

complete the questionnaires before the researcher collected them in (Appendix 2).

Students were debriefed and advised that they could withdraw from participation in the

investigation at any time. Task 4: Results Present the results of your investigation.

Use the following guidance to help you:

• Collect the figures from your investigation, e.g., averages or percentages, etc. • Present the data in numerical and graphical forms, explaining briefly what the numbers are

saying (no conclusions here though!).

• Put the raw data into an Appendix at the end of the report. Task 5: Discussion Interpret your results in the light of previous research (you are comparing what is found in your

investigation to what was found in the studies you talked about in the introduction).

Use the following guidance to help you:

• Discuss the results of your investigation and how they link to the studies referred to in the introduction. Were your results similar or different to previous findings?
• The strengths and limitations of your research. • Any relevant modifications and areas of further investigation based on your results. Did you

have any problems when you carried out your study? Would you do anything differently if you

could do it again?

• An informed conclusion.

Important: Do not introduce any further studies in this section.

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Task 6: References, Report Abstract, and Appendices Part A: References References for all studies that appear in the introduction should be in standard Harvard format as you

have been instructed in your Skills lessons.

Part B: Report Abstract Write your abstract.

Use the following guidance to help you:

• The abstract contains a summary of important information about the study. It allows the reader to understand quickly how the study was carried out, the results and the conclusions

drawn.

• The abstract is the last section of the report to be written but appears at the beginning of your report.
• It should contain fewer than 200 words.

Part C Appendices Appendices (plural of appendix):

• Include copies of supplementary material, e.g., a copy of the questionnaire or interview questions, plus any other material you may have used as part of your investigation, such as

images or soundbites given to your students as part of the interview, etc. This section provides

all the materials necessary to allow a similar investigation to be replicated.

• Number them Appendix 1, Appendix 2, etc. Further information Once you have completed all of these tasks and received feedback from your tutor, you will need to

assemble your report for final submission. Make sure you assemble it in the following order:

Abstract

• Summary of aims • Summary of methods • Summary of results • Conclusion

Introduction

• Aim • Literature review

Method

• Method of data collection: interviews and/or questionnaires. • Participants: characteristics of target population. • Materials: list of materials used, reference to copies in appendices. • Procedures: itemised in sufficient detail to allow full replication.

Results • Descriptive statistics. • Graphical representation to show key data.

Discussion • Discussion of results. • Link results to studies mentioned in the literature review. • Identification of strengths and limitations of research.

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• Suggestions for modification and further research

References • Works cited within the report must follow Harvard style referencing.

Appendices • Copies of supplementary documents.

Plagiarism We expect all submitted work to be your own words (apart from in-text quotations), written in a style

that reflects your English language level. If you copy other people’s work and present it as your own,

this is called plagiarism and is a serious academic offence.

The full details of our policy on academic misconduct can be found at the back of the Programme

Handbook.

You must complete a coursework submission sheet and attach this to the front of your assignment. Submissions without this sheet may be rejected and may result in a mark of 0 being awarded for this assignment.

Marking criteria – Research Project Up to 60 marks are available for your Research Project as follows:

 

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