.

MNG10720 Research for Business and Tourism

Assignment 3 Notes and Instructions

Covers:

  • Topic 1: Introducing Tourism Research
  • Topic 2: Beginning Research
  • Topic 3: The Literature Review
  • Topic 4: Research Design

Assignment Text

  • You are required to think of an interesting business-research idea and develop this idea into a formal, clearly-articulated research question – a problem-statement. This question will be used as the organising framework for a critical literature review of previous academic research in the area.
  • Assignment 3 has two related stages. The first is to convert your idea into a researchable question using the techniques taught in the first two weeks of the unit. The second is to write a critical literature review using the methods taught in week 3 of the unit.
  • The overall objective is to produce a formal research question and set of research objectives based on a rigorous assessment of the available evidence on the topic. This will be the basis for your development of the project report in Assignment 3.
  • You are encouraged to discuss your research idea(s) with your lecturer and fellow students in the workshops/tutorials as well as study the materials for the first three weeks of the unit carefully. You will start with a general research idea and, as you go through the literature review, you will modify and hone your question into a clear and concise statement that could form the basis of a research design.

Instructions

1) Prepare a research proposal that addresses the following criteria:

  1. Background (250 words) – provide a brief overview describing the industry-related research situation relevant to the research idea you would like to develop.

Tips for the Background Section

  • This section sets up for the reader a background to the context for the research
    • It ‘sets the scene’ for the research project
  • Tell the reader why the study is being conducted
  • Describe the location of the phenomenon you are researching and the experiences it offers
    • E.g. if you are studying client satisfaction in hotels, you may want to describe the location of the hotels and the experiences that the hotels offer to clients
  1. Significance (250 words) explain the significance and need for this research from the perspective of the business or organisation.

Tips for the Significance Section

  • This section should explain the significance and need for your research project to be undertaken from the perspective of the management and marketing of the attraction
    • E.g. if you are studying client satisfaction in hotels, how will your research help the hotels in regards to its operations, management and marketing functions?
  • If you are aiming at a high grade for Assignment 3, you may also want to justify the significance of your research by referring to relevant academic literature
    • A ‘gap’ in the literature, or a limited amount of research having previously been conducted in this area
  1. Scope (150 words max) – explain the geographical, temporal and demographic scope of the proposed research

Tips for the Scope Section

  • Be specific! Ask yourself the following questions:
    • What(concepts)/who am I studying in my research project? (demographic scope) E.g. Client satisfaction of hotel guests travelling for business aged 40-60 years visiting the Star City Hotel and Casino in Sydney
  • Where will my research participants be drawn from? (geographical scope) E.g. Only domestic hotel guests – that is, hotel guests who live permanently within the geographical country border of Australia
  • When will the research be conducted? (temporal scope) E.g. in the Australian winter period, from June-August 2012
  • If your answer to these questions are ambiguous, you need to refine the scope further and be more specific
  1. Problem statement and objectives (150 words max) – determine a clear and concise problem statement and 2-4 research objectives that relate to your research proposal

Tips for the Problem Statement and Objectives

  • Include the demographic, geographical, and temporal scope in your problem statement
  • Use the correct instruction word/s, e.g. examine, explore, describe etc.
  • Consult a dictionary if you are not sure
  • Keep sentences short – try not to exceed 2 sentences in your problem statement
  • Pay attention to grammar and expression
  • Be critical: does the problem statement say exactly what you intend to research?
  • Make sure that your sub objectives are relevant to solve the overall ‘problem’ (i.e. the problem statement)

Instructions

  1. Prepare a literature review that critically evaluates at least five (5) references from the academic literature (books and/or academic journal articles) relevant to your research idea (1000 words).

Note:

Your assignment is a hypothetical exercise only, that is designed to give you opportunity to learn, in a small but practical situation, about the research process and its place within business and tourism. Under no circumstances are you to approach any employee of a tourist organisation or tourist attraction for assistance with this assignment and also Assignment 3.


Assignment 4 Notes and Instructions

Covers:

Mainly Topics 4-9, but also includes some elements discussed in Topic 2 (ethical considerations and problem statement/objectives

Assignment overview

  • You are required to prepare a report that will set out how you will go about answering the research question developed in Assignment 2.
  • The report will map out a research design - techniques you will use to convincingly address the research question.
  • Your report will describe and justify the decisions you have made for your research design, data collection methods, sample selection, ethical considerations and data analysis techniques.
  • The proposal report also involves the development of a Qualtrics survey which you need to design and include whether you choose to develop a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method of survey and/or interview questions.

Instructions

Your research proposal should address the following criteria (and use these headings in your Research Project Report):

1. Problem Statement and Research Objectives – state your problem statement and research objectives at the start of your research proposal report so your lecturer can refer to these when reviewing your proposal.

Tips for problem statement and research objectives

Use the feedback from assignment 2 to improve these

  • A problem statement is a concise statement of the purpose of your study – be specific
  • Grammar and expression heavily scrutinised here
  • To find the sub objectives you need to identify the steps required to fulfill your problem statement
  • Use instruction words like describe, examine, explore…
  • Should reflect the scope of the project – geographic, temporal, demographic
  • Make sure that the sub objectives are relevant to solve the overall ‘problem’

2. Research design – explain and justify the methodological approach you propose to guide your research proposal using relevant literature.

Tips for the research design section

  • Provide a brief discussion of research design at the 3 levels
    • Core function (pure vs applied research)
    • Information requirements (exploratory, descriptive, explanatory research etc)
    • Methodology (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research)
  • Good papers do justify their design choices with appropriate academic references

3. Data Collection Methods – explain and justify the methods you propose for data collection and data management using relevant literature.

Tips for the data collection methods section

  • You may compare/contrast your selected methods with other methods that you did not select for your research project (explain why) by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods available
  • Based on this discussion, explain and justify the particular data collection methods/techniques that you selected to apply in your research project
  • Make sure to support your explanation/justification with evidence from the academic literature using appropriate academic references (e.g. research methodology books and/or academic journal articles)
  • Remember, if your choose a mixed methods approach for A3 and use Qualtrics you can use other methods in addition to this, if you wish, and it fits with your problem statement/objectives, e.g. observation)

Tips for the data collection methods section

  • Methods commonly used for quantitative research include:
    • Surveys (household, street/intercept, telephone, mail, on-site, web/e-surveys, captive group, organisation)
    • Structured interviews
    • Longitudinal studies
    • Observation
    • Case studies
  • Methods commonly used for qualitative research include:
    • In-depth interviews
    • Participant observation
    • Focus groups
    • Case studies
    • Content Analysis

4. Qualtrics Survey – design and include your Qualtrics survey and/or interview format and explain and justify the questions and style of questions you use with respect to collecting appropriate data to address your objectives.

Tips for the Qualtrics survey section

  • Include your Qualtrics questionnaire as an Appendix in your Assignment 3 (export it into Word from Qualtrics)
  • In this section in the body of your assignment, you need to explain and justify why you use particular types of questions in order to address your problem statement and objectives, such as:
    • Open-ended vs closed/pre-coded questions
    • Poll questions
    • Multiple choice questions
    • Checklists
    • Ranking questions
    • Fill in the blanks
    • Rating scales
    • Filter questions
  • Justify your choice with reference to the levels of measurement (i.e. nominal, ordinal, interval and ration)

Tips for the sample selection section

  • Specifically, you need to address:
    • What is your research population
    • What is your target population
    • What is your sampling procedure (simple random, stratified, convenience, purposive etc.)
    • How big will your sample be?
  • For your quantitative sample, I will expect a number based on, for example, Neuman’s guidelines (see Power Point slides from Topic 7)
  • For your qualitative sample, while you can estimate an approximate number, it is sufficient to justify your sample size here referring to the point of saturation

6. Data Analysis Techniques – explain and justify how you would propose to analyse and present the data collected.

Tips for the data analysis techniques section

You should discuss:

  • What forms of analysis you will apply to your data (univariate, bivariate – frequency counts, central tendency, scatterplots etc.)
  • You are advised to explain which variables will be subject of univariate analysis and which will be bivariate.
  • How you will present your analysed data (e.g. frequency tables, bar graphs, pie charts etc.)
  • Justify your choices – e.g. ‘frequency tables are suitable for presenting nominal data’ (Smith, 1999, p. 45)
  • Remember to explain/justify data analysis of both your survey and your interviews

7. Ethical Considerations – explain how you would consider the ethical issues associated with the research proposal.

Tips for the Ethical Considerations Section

Briefly outline how your project will be ethically conducted:

  • How you will obtain informed consent
  • The risks to participants in your study, and how you will protect them from those risks (mostly to do with privacy)
  • How the anonymity of participants will be maintained
  • How will collected data be reported and stored?

8. Provide a reference list (Harvard) for any reference sources you use to justify your final research proposal.

Good papers include a variety of academic references to justify decisions made in relation to the research proposal (A3 required 5 references, so I would propose that 5 is the minimum for A4 as well – however, HDs and Ds may require more references than this)

Qualtrics Training Instructions

.