Assessment 2 (1,500–word Essay)
The below text is written-guidance that has been put together to help you structure, write,and reference your second assessment, which is a 1,500-word essay and is worth 55% of your overall module.
Choosing case study from the lectures to explain.
1. Describe the case study you have chosen and your reason for choosing it.
What is the research conducted by the expert focused on?
What does the expert’s research seek to do?
Why are you talking about this research project in your essay? Is it important and
significant in your view? Maybe it is a policy-relevant issue or something that drives your curiosity and research interests? Maybe it is constantly covered in the media and therefore deemed to be in the interest of the public? Why have you, the student, chosen to write your essay on this topic?
Ensure that for this section, you are citing the research and publications that the
expert who delivered the lecture told you to consult/read.
2. Outline of the benefits and drawbacks of the research methods used in the
case study.
For this section, you need to describe the research methods the expert used in their
research and explain what the pros and cons of each of these methods for their research were.
You may not be in a position – due to the word-count – to go into detail on every single research method that was used by the expert. You may therefore want to list all the methods that were used and then be brief in talking about the pros and cons of each.
If you can talk about the pros and cons of each method in the context of the actual research project you are focusing on rather than just talking generally about them, this will show a stronger sense of engagement and understanding with the researcher’s methods and increase your chances of scoring higher on the assessment.
Where you are discussing the pros and cons of the research methods used by the expert, if the experts have not specifically spoken about their methods in their academic publications that you have been directed to, then you should consult the lecture slides for this information and offer some assessment based on those. It is acceptable to use the lecture PowerPoint slides for this section only to understand and describe what methods your choice of expert used in their research.
3. Outline and explain one alternative research approach, research strategy OR research method you think could have been beneficial to the case study.
Note that your explanation around an alternative approach, strategy or research method must be discussed in the context of the actual research project as opposed to just being a generic discussion.
