Dissertation Research Methods and Project RESM701

EDINBURGH NAPIER UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL

MASTERS DEGREE DISSERTATION GUIDE

(MSc Programmes)

Edinburgh Napier University2023/24

Contents

Page

Section 1 The Masters Dissertation 1

Section 2 Key Points 4

Section 3 The Role of the Supervisor 6

Section 4 Writing the Dissertation 9

Section 5 References and Bibliography 21

Appendices

Appendix I Declaration 23

Appendix II Confidentiality in the Use of Data Provided by Third Parties Declaration 24

Appendix III Specimen Title Pages 25

Appendix IV Marking Guide 27

The Masters Dissertation

This is a vital part of your Programme and will contribute substantially to your personal development.Your MSc Dissertation is worth 40 Credits (two times as much as a taught Module). You will be expected to demonstrate where appropriate your skills in providing:

(a) A synthesis of the literature.

(b) An analysis of quantitative and/or qualitative information.

(c) A summary of empirical results whether found by experimentation, observation, survey or interview.

(d) The implications of the findings.

Each Dissertation should involve all of the following:

(a) Problem identification

(b) Problem resolution

(c) Information search

(d) Application of methods developed in your Programme

(e) Drawing appropriate conclusions.

Note: The Dissertation is a piece of appliedacademicresearch and must be more than a mere technical account.

Reporting of research is a vital, but often under-estimated, facet of research. It is not the most glamorous part but has to be done. Unless you can capture the imagination of others and get them to read your work, all your efforts will have been in vain. You have to think of this as a selling job.

You cannot begin work on writing-up too soon. Ultimately it is how the research will be evaluated. Keeping to the word limit is an important skill, which you need to master. Long, rambling chapters are a sure sign that you have not done enough thoughtful work.

Make use of figures, graphs and schematic diagrams as they are very useful in explaining difficult concepts. However, these must be clearly titled and discussed in the text. Write in a clear, formal and understandable style. Your work should be understood by both an informed and lay audience.

Dissertation Objectives

There is a set ofgenericlearning outcomes that are expected to be demonstrated. These are that students should, on completion of the Dissertation, have demonstrated:

(a) An ability to organise and plan their own research activity within the context of their original Dissertation specification and time limit.

(b) The production of a logical, coherent and well-structured analysis of both existing knowledge of their Dissertation field and their own contribution to that field.

(c) The applicability of concepts learned in the taught Programme to their specific field of applied research and the critical ability to evaluate the limitations of these as applied to that field.

(d) Where applicable, the relevance of their work to their organisation generally and to specific issues within the organisation with which they are involved.

These generic learning outcomes are reflected in the Assessment Criteria for all MSc Programmes in The Business School. This is detailed below:

The overall pass mark for the Dissertation is 50% (P1)

Appendix IV explains in detail the levels of performance per grade

Your MSc. Dissertation will be assessed by your Supervisor, one other member of academic staff and may also be considered by the External Examiner. You may be asked to undergo a Viva examination of the Dissertation as part of the assessment procedure although this is rarely required.

Where you are required to attend a Viva examination of the Dissertation you will be advised by the Programme Leader or Dissertation Co-ordinator in sufficient time for you to prepare.

Key Points

In writing a Masters Dissertation there are a number of key points to remember and to pay detailed attention to and these are described below:

• Nature of the Work
• Relevance
• Word Limit
• Timetable

Nature of the Work

The main purpose of the Dissertation is to enable you to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the examiners that you can undertake an independent piece of research in a specialist area of your choice at Masters level.

This will involve you in showing that you can design, implement and defend a research project in terms of the research problem identified, the research method(s) used and the conclusions arrived at.

Relevance

Relevancy can be viewed from a number of perspectives:

• The research topic may be heavilypolicyoriented or heavilytheory
• It may involve a high degree ofstatisticalanalysis or a high degree ofdiscursive
• It may be strongly linked to asingletheoretical framework or to anumberof theoretical models.
• It may be a work-based research project.

For work which is not based on a specific organisation (a single case study) care must be taken that the research topic and applications therein are relevant to a number of organisational situations. This may be done by ensuring that sufficient data is gathered from other organisations. However, where the work is based on a single case study care must also be taken to ensure that there are generalisations that can be drawn from such work. The main point is that whatever the mix you choose to adopt in your approach to the MSc. Dissertation it should involve some combination of all four perspectives. That is, it is dangerous to so narrowly define your research topic that its conclusions cannot in any reasonable way be capable of at leastsomegeneralisation.

Word Limit

The word limit, excluding abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, reference list and appendices is set at15,000 words (+/- 10%) for all MSc Dissertations in The Business School.

Timetable

Following the completion of your taught modules, you haveone trimesterto complete and submit your dissertation. A detailed schedule of dates will be issued to you at the start of the Trimester in which the Dissertation period begins.

Academic Supervisor:Whilst undertaking the Research Methods module, once you are clear on the topic of study, an appropriate Supervisor will be allocated to you. Arrangements will be made for you to contact the Supervisor.

Progress Monitoring:It is in your interest that you communicate regularly with the Supervisor in order that your progress is monitored and any problems identified.

Submission of Dissertation

A number of rules apply to the submission format for the MSc. Dissertation. These are presented in detail in a later Section of this guide. However it should be noted that these rules are to be strictly adhered to in the interests of consistency, comparability, readability and quality of presentation.

The Role of the Supervisor

After your study of the Research Methods Module you will commence your Masters Dissertation. At that time more information and guidance will be given to you about the identification of your Supervisor and how to make contact with your Supervisor for the first time.

Using your Supervisor's time

Each Supervisor is allocated a certain amount of time and you should try to use it in an efficient way.

There are a number of areas on which you can call on your Supervisor for help. Your Supervisor can:

• Advise on the relevance and practicality of your Research Proposal
• Aid you in refining your choice of research topic
• Advise on relevant academic literature
• Discuss and advise on the design of the research and the proposed research method
• Agree the timetable for completion
• Discuss the research findings/problems to date
• Read and discuss draft chapters and one complete draft.

Responsibilities

It is also the Supervisors responsibility to inform the Programme Leader or Dissertation Co-ordinator of inadequate progress, serious slippage from the agreed timetable, serious disagreements concerning the quality/relevance/direction of the research and any other issues that are considered to pose a danger to the in-time completion of the Dissertation.

You should keep in mind that the MSc. Dissertation is very muchyour responsibility. The Supervisor is there to guide and provide advice and help, not to help you actually research or write it for you or with you!

Assessment

Your completed Dissertation will be assessed by your Supervisor and a second marker. The criteria they will apply to your Dissertation are detailed in Appendix IV. In addition, your Dissertation may also be independently assessed by a Programme External Examiner. These procedures are in place to ensure quality and consistency of standards commensurate with the United Kingdoms Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency.

Plagiarism

The University has severe penalties for any student found to have engaged themselves in plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you use the work of other people within your own work but fail to acknowledge it. Basically, using text from published or unpublished sources without reference is plagiarism. The same applies to data, diagrams, maps and other media.

Not only is it important that you use material related to the academic content of each Module besides the material provided by Edinburgh Napier University, but it is important that you tell us what it is. Furthermore, if you quote or refer to this material, it is essential that you indicate the reference. You do this by using the Harvard Referencing System to lay out a Reference section and then to cite it in the text.

Plagiarism is an offence which involves passing off someone elses work as your own. It is considered serious academic misconduct. The most common forms are copying off another student (with their consent (i.e. collusion) or without it) or copying or paraphrasing the words or ideas from another text, such as a textbook, article or a website, without referencing that source. The Universitys policy is to try to avoid plagiarism by showing you how to prevent it. This includes how to quote, paraphrase, summarise and reference correctly. You can read about plagiarism and how to avoid it on the Student Portal at the following website address:

http://www2.napier.ac.uk/ed/plagiarism/students.htm

Typical offences committed in the past by students have included:

• Using published sources, such as textbooks, journals or websites with no acknowledgement of the source (citing and referencing)
• Doing the above, and including sources in the Reference section, but not citing in the text
• Cutting and pasting from websites and citing in the text and Reference section, but presenting the material as a paraphrase (in the students own words) rather than as a quotation.

A good piece of research should be wholly the work of the researcher and the researcher should be able to defend the work under any form of examination.

Turnitin

The University has subscribed to TurnitinUK, a text-matching software service that is used to assess the originality of student work or alternatively, is used by students to submit their own written work. GradeMark is an essay marking tool provided by Turnitin.

Turnitin software is available on Moodle for you to check your dissertation submission.You are required to check your dissertation via turnitin, the instructions for this will be provided on Moodle

Writing the Dissertation

Writing the Dissertation can seem like a major obstacle as it is likely to be the biggest single piece of academic work you will have undertaken. However, if you have a clear idea of the structure and nature of the research you have done or are doing then it makes it much easier to have a clear plan for the structure of the Dissertation.

Structure

The structure of the final Dissertation is to be presented as follows:

First inside page - Title, your name and year (2022, 2023, etc.)

(see Appendix III for an example of theFRONTpage and theFIRSTinside page)

• Declaration
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• Contents page
• List of Tables & Figures
• First Chapter - Introduction (research purpose and objectives)
• Chapters 2, 3, 4 etc.
• FinalChapter Conclusions and Recommendations
• References
• Appendices

There are a few key issues that you need to be aware of in terms of the presentation of your work, and as such you are required to;

• Use Arial 12pt as your default font
• Use 1.5 line spacing throughout the whole Dissertation with the exception of long quotations, diagram sources and the Reference list that are single-line spacing
• Use the third person in writing, therefore do not use words such as "I", "My", "Me", "We" etc.
• Use the APA 7th Reference system throughout. If you do not know how to use this system then you must learn this quickly. Do not use footnotes for referencing and only include footnotes extremely sparingly (and preferably not at all)
• Limit your use of direct quotes from secondary information sources to the bare minimum (and again if you can avoid using them at all then that is preferred). You may, of course, quote directly from people that have provided you with primary information (such as in an interview situation etc.).

The beginning of the Dissertation will be set out as follows;

• Declaration (signed by you confirming this is your own work)
• Abstract (approximately 200 words that describe all of the important elements of the whole Dissertation. This can only be written once you have completed the rest of the document)
• Acknowledgements (to those people that have assisted you in your study)
• Table of Contents (a breakdown of chapters and main sections within chapters by page number)
• List of Tables and Figures (if required).

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Your opening chapter is extremely important as it sets the scene on what is about to come in the rest of the Dissertation. You should therefore aim for this to be a clear and concise piece of work that provides all the key information required for the reader to understand the background to the work and how you will conduct the research in the pages that follow.

In particular you should have an introductory section that covers;

• An explanation of what the study is all about. Here, you should include a discussion of the background to the research and also identify a particular problem, issue or opportunity that will benefit from you actually conducting your investigation. A piece of work that is purely descriptive with no practical benefits is likely to be a weak Dissertation overall and unlikely to be awarded a high mark
• You also need to explain why you are doing this study (this is not for your benefit but for the benefit of others)
• You need to describe who will benefit from your research findings
• You need to explain how they will benefit from these findings.

You then need to set out your overall aim and research objectives;

• Your overall aim is closely linked to your title but will be based on answering a question or making some sort of discovery. Basically your aim is what you ultimately want to achieve and should be something that you want to discover and don't yet know
• Your research objectives will break your overall aim into 3 or 4 smaller pieces. This is where you will be able to focus on what is important in your research rather than getting sidetracked by irrelevant issues.

You then need a discussion on how you will actually do the study;

• Explain your overall research approach in terms of primary or secondary data collection and how this information will be analysed
• Describe the sampling approach i.e. exactly who is it that you need to contact and gather information from.

You can then have a section on potential limitations of conducting this kind of study if you are familiar with what some of those problems might be.

Finally, have a section at the end of this chapter that tells the reader how the rest of the Dissertation is set out. This basically means writing a sentence or two about what will be presented by you in each of the remaining chapters of the Dissertation.

Chapter 2 - Literature Review

The Literature Review chapter is the longest in terms of number of words and also the time taken to complete. This is because you must spend a considerable amount of time identifying, searching for, accessing, reading and discussing material from a wide variety of sources. Overall, this chapter will account for 25-40% of the total word count, meaning that most students will be expected to write around 4,000-5,000 words.

This may seem daunting at first, but the secret to a good Literature Review chapter is to realise that by reading so much relevant source material, you are actually learning about critical issues that will be of great help to you in the remaining parts of your work. For instance, by reading appropriate academic journal articles you will discover how researchers have conducted similar studies to yours. This means you can identify what research approaches work, what type of information is required, how this information will be collected and analysed etc.

Another key benefit is that in the latter stages of your Dissertation you will be expected to compare your main research findings with those of other people. In effect, have you discovered something new that we did not know about? Have you, perhaps, confirmed the findings of others? Either way, if you can discuss your findings as they relate to the findings in previous studies this will greatly enhance you work overall and consequently lead to a higher mark.

As regards the amount of source material, it is recommended that for a good quality Dissertation you should aim for at least 40 different sources throughout the whole Dissertation. There are two 50-50 rules that you should adopt here. The first is that 50% of all cited sources should appear in this chapter, with the remaining 50?ing spread throughout each of the other chapters. The second rule is that 50% of your sources should be academic journal articles as these are the most relevant to a student conducting research at Masters level. The remaining 50% of sources should be a mix of textbooks, company reports, newspaper articles, websites, government publications and statistics etc. The exact mix will of course depend on the nature of your investigation.

This chapter should be laid out as follows;

• A general introductory section that briefly explains the main themes that you will explore in this chapter
• A background discussion of historical work and any key concepts, theories, models, frameworks etc. that may have been developed and adopted in practice (this may go back many years or even decades)
• Next, you should identify the key theoretical issues as they apply today and examine these in detail in appropriate subsections
• Finally, and most importantly, you must discuss all this material that you have read in terms of how this relates to your own study. In particular, after all this hard (and sometimes tedious) work, how does your understanding of the literature fit in with what you are hoping to discover through the research objectives that you set out in the opening chapter?

Chapter 3 - Research Methods

Once you have completed the previous chapter you will have a very good idea about the options open to you regarding how you will conduct your own study. Many of the journal articles that you will have discussed in the previous chapter will have provided you with detailed information on the best way to research your topic and also whether there are likely to be any problems with your planned research approach.

In the early stages of this chapter it is important that you identify and set out the key questions and/or hypotheses that you wish to test. This can only really be done after you have a thorough understanding of the types of questions and/or hypotheses that need to be asked based on your review of previous studies in the area.

Once these have been discussed, you need to explain how you will go about answering these questions or testing these hypotheses. For the vast majority of students this will involve the collection of primary data. For some students it may be more appropriate (or indeed the only option open to them) to gather and then analyse only secondary data. There is no problem with this approach but it limits your ability to show us that you are an effective researcher in terms of designing a data collection tool and then using this to gather information for the first time.

Discuss the type of research you are doing and explain how you will collect the information required in practice. This includes issues such as;

• Time and place the data is collected
• Format of questions that will be asked
• Identification of key variables and measures (if appropriate to your study)
• Sample size to allow you to have enough information to analyse and provide you with robust results
• Sampling approach, to ensure that you are collecting the right information from the right sources.

All of this should be done in as much detail as possible. In effect, if the reader could simply read this chapter and then go off and repeat the data collection element of your study because you have provided enough detail here, then you have been successful. If, on the other hand, your study could not be repeated as key details have not been discussed by you in detail, then there are problems with this chapter.

You must also include a discussion covering the key concepts of study validity, reliability and generalisability. Also describe to the reader any anticipated problems that you consider may impact on the effectiveness of the information collection stage.

Finally, describe how you will analyse the collected data. This need not be a comprehensive discussion at this stage, but you should let the reader know that you know how the collected information will be analysed, and, finally, how this analysed information will help you to address each of the research objectives that you identified in the opening chapter.

Chapter 4 - Data Description

Having completed the collection of data for your Dissertation you should spend some time describing the characteristics of that information before then going on to conduct more detailed analysis. Depending on the type of research you are involved in, this may be relatively short as far as chapter length is concerned, or may be a substantial part of your work if you are investigating more theoretical or complex issues.

Either way, it is important that the reader becomes familiar with the characteristics of the data so that they will then be able to understand the analysis and results that you will discuss in the following chapter.

Elements that you should discuss here include:

• Response rate(s) to surveys or other data collection methods (such as the number of people you initially needed to contact before you had enough for a series of 1-1 interviews).
• A breakdown of demographic information (such as sex, age, experience, buying habits etc.) if, and only if, this is relevant to your investigation and is directly related back to at least one of your research objectives.
• A discussion of whether the above information has allowed you to meet the sample characteristics required. If you find that the sampled data does not match with the wider population in any respect then you need to address this issue and consider the implications this will have for issues such as validity of your results.
• While describing all of the above it is often appropriate to summarise this data either in terms of percentages, through appropriate tables, or through appropriate diagrams and charts.

Be clear and systematic in this chapter, and only describe the information that you will then analyse and report on in the following chapter. If something is described here, that is because it is important and will be investigated in the next chapter. If it is not important enough to form part of the analysis then remove it.

It is also appropriate to discuss any problems you encountered in the data collection stage, and to reflect on the likely limitations this may have for your results overall (if applicable). It is also useful at this stage to make suggestions as to how the data collection could be improved for researchers in the future who wish to undertake the same type of study.

Chapter 5 - Data Analysis

This is a critical part of the whole study and is where any new discoveries will be made. You need to set this chapter out in a logical manner and the most appropriate way to do this is to systemically address the research objectives, questions and/or hypotheses that you set out in previous chapters.

You may have a purely qualitative study, in which case much of the discussion here will be based on your own interpretation of information that you have gathered (such as through interviews, focus groups, observation studies etc.). It is perfectly acceptable to include direct quotes in this stage to highlight specific issues or get a particular point across. In any event, you should not identify any individual by name or other identifying characteristic. Similarly, in most studies at this level the names of organisations should be omitted from your written work unless you have the express permission of the owner/custodian to use their name.

In a quantitative study you will be presenting numerical data and this must be analysed using appropriate methods, in most cases using specific statistical tests. Most quantitative data can be analysed using a variety of different tests but you must choose the single test that is appropriate for your objectives and hypotheses and stick to the results you generate. It is unethical to reanalyse data with a variety of statistical tests until you find a result or answer that you had hoped for.

All tables, charts etc. should be introduced and not stand alone without any relevant discussion by yourself. This is done by having an introductory discussion explaining what is shown in the table or chart that is coming up in text. Immediately after the table or chart you then need to describe what it tells you. Do not leave this for the reader to work out. You must demonstrate that you understand what any table or chart actually displays.

At the end of this chapter, regardless of whether you have a qualitative or quantitative study (or better still, both) you need to restate the main results and discuss them as they relate to what was known on this topic before you started your investigation. This means going back to the results and findings that you identified in the Literature Review chapter, and discuss whether your results are in some way different, or whether your results simply confirm what was known about this topic before you started your Dissertation.

Chapter 6 - Conclusions and Recommendations

It can be argued that this chapter is the single most important piece of work that you will do on the whole Programme of study.

This is the final piece of written work that will be read by the markers before they pick up their pens and Marking Sheets and allocate the marks based on what you have written in your Dissertation. Therefore, you should make this the best piece of work you have written on the whole Programme.

This is a list of some of the issues that you should try to cover in the final chapter of your Dissertation. It is by no means exhaustive and this is not an official list in terms of marks, only my recommendation based on supervising other student Dissertations. However, if you do cover most of these issues then you should be on the right lines.

1. In theory anyone should be able to readjustyour final chapter and still have a good idea about what your whole Dissertation is all about.
2. Remember that the markers may read your first chapter and then go straight to your final chapter to make sure that you have been consistent in what you set out to discover. Therefore it is important that your final chapter addresses everything you say you are going to look at in your first chapter.
3. The final chapter should be well structured. There are a lot of individual areas to cover so you need to be clear in setting this out. I suggest that you include a discussion on the following points:
   • Re-state your overall aim and research objectives. Let the reader reacquaint themselves with what you have attempted to discover in your research andwhythe research is important.
   • Discuss how you did this (i.e. your research approach andwhyyou chose this approach) and also describe what theoretical or conceptual ideas underpin your own academic study.
   • Then go over your results and discuss thepracticalimplications of your findings. This could be the largest section of your final chapter and so needs quite a bit of detail. Here you want to discuss which of your research objectives have been fully met, which only partially met, and which (if any) you could not address in any meaningful way. It is important that you bring inyourown interpretation of the findings, so try to argue your case strongly here. Also restate howyourfindings relate to those of other researchers in the area you previously covered in your Literature Review chapter.
   • Once you have stated your findings and conclusions you need to be honest in reflecting on the potential and apparent limitations of your study. (This is not a criticism of your work but an acknowledgement thateverypiece of academic research has some weaknesses associated with it.) Here you need to talk about the validity and reliability of your own study. You should also acknowledge any limitations that you discovered when actually conducting the research (e.g. problems with sampling approach or response rate, lack of clarity over question wording or meaning etc.). You also need to discuss the generalisability of your findings. Who else could make use of your study findings? If it is many organisations, individuals, businesses etc. then this adds value to your findings. If you have used a case study approach then can your findings be transferable to other organisations? If so then is this to a small number of very similar organisations, all organisations in the sector, all organisations in a particular country etc.?
   • Finally talk about recommended future research areas. There will be many things that you wanted to discover but were unable to because of lack of time or other resources. It may be that during your investigation you came across something new that would make a good study for someone else. What about any issues covered in the media, new Government legislation, advances in technology, world trade etc. that could impact on your findings? Does this mean that someone else should reinvestigate this issue at some point in the future?
4. One of the best ways to see how your final chapter should be structured is to re-read some of the journal articles you read for the Literature Review chapter. The final two or three pages of any academic journal article will be similar to what I have described above. If you can structure your final chapter in the same way, and cover most of these points in a sensible and honest manner then it will be a very good read, a clear summary of the main points to do with your study, and the basis for a very good mark.

References

A single list in alphabetical order by author or organisation of all of the works cited in your text. Theremustbe a 1-1 relationship here; if you have cited a source in your text then there must be an associated reference. Similarly if you have referenced a source then there must be an associated citation in your text. The Reference list mustnotbe in bullet- or numbered-list format and (unlike the rest of the Dissertation) should be formatted at single-line spacing.

Appendices

Additional supporting material such as a copy of the questionnaire, interview schedule, letter of introduction, tables of statistics etc. This material is seen as essential to the Dissertation but would otherwise interrupt the flow of text and is therefore placed in an appendix.

Style

A number of presentation (format) style rules should be adopted.

Font will be Arial 12pt and all line spacing will be at 1.5 lines (except long quotations, diagram sources and the References list that are single-line spacing).

Dissertation Title =BOLD, CAPITALS, 18 point

Chapter Titles = bold,Initial Capitals, 14 point

Sub-headings = bold, as Chapters but 12 point

Quotations = quotation marks to be used and quotation to be indented one space below paragraph and one space above next paragraph. Source and page number(s) to be clearly shown e.g.

The next stage is linking, where all the variables considered important can be linked together towards a more holistic theory. This process involves consideration of literature and existing models and relating this to the results.

(Adamset al.,2014; p167)

Citing Literature

You must cite and reference all the literature that you discuss and refer to in the Dissertation. The reason for this is so others can refer to your sources so it must be traceable. The form used for referencing literature is the APA 7th system. This is explained in theAPA 7th Referencing guideavailable at;

file://napier-mail.napier.ac.uk/staff/The Business School/User Data/40000019/My Profile/VDS/Downloads/202008_Referencing_in_APA_7th.pdf

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the few resources that arenotacceptable for citing and referencing in the Dissertation. There is nothing wrong with using Wikipedia to initially investigate an issue or find a suitable description of an item. However, because anyone can edit Wikipedia articles there is no guarantee that the information held there is accurate and reliable. Therefore, once Wikipedia has been used as an introduction to a topic, if any of that information is to be used in the Dissertation then another, more reliable, source must be used. This can be done by either following the links to original source material found at the bottom of the Wikipedia article, or simply using other search engines or databases to find suitable source material. This source material can then be cited and referenced in the Dissertation, but it isnotacceptable to cite the original Wikipedia article itself in a piece of work at Masters level.

Diagrams, Charts & Tables

These should be included in the main text and referred to by chapter, subsection and number. For example, referring to a histogram that is the third figure in chapter four, section two might be referred to as explanatory textas displayed in Figure 4.2.3.

After the figure a legend should appear, e.g.

Figure 4.2.3 Histogram of Survey Response Rates

All illustrations (diagrams, charts, tables) should appear on or close to the text page in which they are discussed. They should not be confined to an appendix. Appendices should only be used for items such as questionnaires, essential extracts, substantial computer output and other data tables which are too detailed for the body of the text.

When including diagrams, charts and tables, you must always introduce them in the paragraph immediately before they appear, and then discuss what they show in the paragraph immediately after they appear.

Students are not allowed to use a photocopy of an illustration from an original source without copyright permission.

Typing

Your typescript must be line spaced at 1.5 lines with a left margin throughout of 30mm and all other margins of 25mm. The Dissertation must be printed on one side of the paper only. The typescript must be 12 point Arial font. Page numbers to be consecutive and in Arabic numerals. Initial pages (Abstract, Declaration, Contents etc. and References, Appendices etc.) should be in Roman numerals. All page numbers to be at the bottom centre of the page. The Dissertation must be in English and a declaration (a form is provided as Appendix I) must be made that the work is the authors own and has not been submitted previously for the award of any other qualification or as a component of any other work undertaken by the author.

Each chapter should be sectioned into subsections, and the subsections numbered and given a title, e.g. section eight in Chapter 2 could appear as: 2.8 The Value of the Audit.

Binding

You may wish to keep abound copyfor yourself but the final dissertation should be submitted via Moodle/Turntinby the due date please check Moodle for more information.

Summary

The above guidance is to help you to present a piece of work in the correct format and presented in such a way that your Dissertation is a professionally produced piece of academic research. It is now up to you to ensure that thecontent of your Dissertation is of a suitable professional standard.

References and Bibliography

The following list is by no means exhaustive but it includes a range of texts covering research methods, methodology, statistical techniques and philosophy.

Adams, J., Khan, H.T.A., & Raeside, R. (2014).Research Methods for Business and Social Science Students. Sage.

Bell, J. (2010).Doingyour own research project, (5^thed.). Open University.

Bryman, A.,&Bell, E. (2015).Business Research Methods.Oxford University Press.

Bryman, A., & Cramer, D. (2008).Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS 14, 15 & 16: A Guide for Social Scientists. Routledge.

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2008).Business Research Methods, (10^thed.). McGraw-Hill.

de Vaus, D.A. (2001).Surveys in Social Research, (5^thed.). Allen & Unwin.

Field, A. (2018).Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics, (5^thed.). Sage.

Fisher, C. (2010).Researching and Writing a Dissertation: An Essential Guide for Business Students.Pearson Education.

Flick, U. (2009).An Introduction to Qualitative Research, (4^thed.). Sage.

Frankfort-Nachmias, C., & Nachmias, D. (2007).Research Methods in the Social Sciences, (7^thed.). Arnold.

Graziano, A.M., & Raulin, M.L. (2010).Research Methods: A Process of Inquiry, (7^thed.). Harper Collins.

Miller, D.C.,&Salkind, N.J. (2002).Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement, (6^thed.). Sage.

Montgomery, D.C. (2009).Design and Analysis of Experiments, (7^thed.). Wiley.

Morgan, D.L. (1998).The Focus Group Guidebook. Sage.

Ott, R.L., & Longnecker, M. (2010).An Introduction to Statistical Methods and Data Analysis, (6^thed.). Duxbury Press.

Robson, C. (2002).Real World Research, (2^nded.). Blackwell Science.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2019).Research Methods for Business Students(8^hed). FT Prentice Hall.

Yin, R.K. (2009).Case Study Research, Design and Methods, (4^thed.). Sage.

Appendix I: Declaration

I declare that the work undertaken for this MSc Dissertation has been undertaken by myself and the final Dissertation produced by me. The work has not been submitted in part or in whole in regard to any other academic qualification.

I have checked my work via turnitin.

Title of Dissertation:

Name (Print): ______________________________________________

Signature: ______________________________________________

Date: ______________________________________________

Appendix II: Confidentiality in Use of Data

Provided by Third Parties

The data received from the organisations listed below have been used solely in the pursuit of the academic objectives of the work contained in this Dissertation and has not and will not be used for any other purpose outwith that agreed to by the provider of the data.

Name (Print):_____________________________________________

Signature:________________________________________________

Date:___________________________

List of Data Providers

Appendix III: Specimen Title Pages

Specimen Title Page

(Front Page)

MSc Your Programme Title

Masters Dissertation

SESSION 2023/24

The full title of your Dissertation

AUTHOR

Your full Name

Your Matriculation Number

Supervisor: Your Supervisors Name

SpecimenTitlePage

(Inside Page)

The Full Title

of

Your Dissertation

by

Your full Name

Month, Year

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment

of the Degree of

Master of Science

in

Name of Programme

Appendix IV: Marking Guide

This Marking Guide is a guide to the standard of work which will normally attract a grade within the specified range. It also further explains the Marking criteria. Naturally, in many cases none of these explanations will exactly fit every students work; however it does give you, the student, a clear idea of the level of work expected for a given range of grades.