Select a research topic (problem, question and objectives) and develop a critical literature review to support them. Conclude your assignment by proposing a research design to explore your selected research question and objectives.

Construction cost management

Learning Outcomes
The aim of this assignment is to help you develop and demonstrate the basic skills required for research. Based on the module, you should be able to:

Search for and evaluate published articles
Position research problems in the relevant literature
Write a critical literature review
Develop a feasible research question
Select appropriate research methods for a particular research question.

Assignment Brief

As specified on the Module Description Form

Assignment:

Select a research topic (problem, question and objectives) and develop a critical literature review to support them. Conclude your assignment by proposing a research design to explore your selected research question and objectives.

Preparation

Research problem and question

To specify your research topic, you need to select an initial research problem and formulate a research question.

To conduct this initial scoping research, I suggest that you consult:

Databases such as ARCOM and Business Source Complete to get an idea of the type of issue which scholars are raising in relation to your chosen problem and the type of research questions that they are asking.
Start to classify them as we did in class (in an Excel spreadsheet or using your own system)

You can also consult professional trade journals such as ‘building.co.uk’ and ‘construction news’ to get an idea of what practitioners are concerned about and saying but be careful to use these as background information (not part of your literature review)

Once you have an initial research problem and research question (remember, a research question is a question which can be answered in the scope of the proposed research, which means that its much more concrete and specific than the topic), you can begin researching your literature review. Once that’s done, you can revise your research question, specify your objectives (based on concepts and ideas introduced in the literature review) and develop your research design.
The next section reminds you what belongs in each section.

Structure

Your assignment should include the following elements in the order specified below; you can use these headings for the assignment or provide your own.

Title page

The title page should be the first page of your submission, along the lines of the example posted on blackboard (see Assignment Brief).

Summary Statement

For students submitting a second critical review. For details see above.

Title

The critical review should start with a title which reflects the content/main argument.

Introduction

This section should introduce your research problem. It should discuss the importance of the problem for specific stakeholder groups, provide background to your research problem (with evidence and references), introduce your research question and provide a road map.

Make sure that your road map includes the main take away point from each section and is not simply a restatement of the Table of Contents.

Literature Review

To write the literature review, you need to identify at least 15 empirical academic articles on topics relevant to your research question. This section should classify those articles by topics/research question/methods/approaches/main results which scholars have used to study your chosen research problem and report on each set (literature/conversation).

The discussion should offer a critical review of the different literatures and signal points which are relevant to your chosen research question and are thus interesting to explore further.

Your critical literature review should position your proposed research question in the relevant literature. In doing so, it should make a case for the interest and contribution of your chosen research question to current knowledge.

Conclude your section with either a restatement of your research question and objectives. Note: these should flow directly from the discussion. Remember to add your objectives to your introduction.

Research Design

This section should propose a way to investigate the research question and objectives. It should discuss approach, sampling, data collection and data analysis.

You can use research textbooks to support your choices, but make sure that you justify your design in relation to your research question.

References

All points which are not your own must be referenced using the Harvard style (for both in-text citations and references at the end of the assignment). Please note the criteria for referencing below.

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