The Assessment Task
To conduct an investigation of a current 'industry' or 'sector', or industry/sector ‘issue’ relevant to your degree and your professional development. This will typically result in the identification of a problem, trend or issue that is subsequently examined during the project. Students must make use of relevant academic concepts to structure their investigation and to facilitate their analyses.
The module offers the opportunity to develop considerable skills relating to employability – secondary data research, (possibly primary research) and business report writing with evidence-based analysis.
To achieve this you will need to consider the following;
- Identify a suitable structure for the research project.
- A justification for conducting a survey or investigation
- A substantial review of the literature pertaining to a problem or issue
- A considered choice of research or survey method (where appropriate)
- Presentation and evaluation of secondary or primary data (where appropriate)
- Conclusions pertaining to the aims and objectives of the work.
- Apply relevant marketing theory/concepts to inform the collection and evaluation of the secondary data (and primary data if necessary) to complete your project.
- Analyse and interpret your data in order to develop your marketing project.
The complete work will be a 5,000-word report (+/-10% word count). Harvard referencing must be used throughout.
Students usually approach the completion of this project using ONE of the following methods:
Choose ONE of either a –
Marketing Audit (of company/brand in a specific market)
OR
Campaign Analysis (using a model such as SOSTAC)
OR
Critical Literature Review (critically evaluating existing published material to achieve specific research objectives)
Ethics Approval
This project is designed to be undertaken using SECONDARY RESEARCH ONLY.
The project assignment is designed to be completed using secondary sources only, such as MINTEL, KEYNOTE, Business databases, Journals, newspaper sources, online sources, and other already available and published sources.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The project needs to be an independent piece of work submitted. It cannot be associated with other work being conducted on another module, or work already completed on another module.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this assessment, you will be able to:
Subject-Specific Knowledge, Understanding & Application
a) Apply relevant academic and marketing concepts to the topic
b) Identify, justify and use methods of analysis, enquiry and production which are appropriate
c) Identify the issues pertinent to the task as outlined; devise a response related to the range of issues inherent in the topic
d) Coherently collate, critically evaluate information and data and justify links to appropriate literature
Employability & Changemaker Skills
e) Communicate the outcomes of an independent research project in a professional manner
f) Demonstrate appropriate use of techniques and resources when working indepedently on complex projects
Your grade will depend on how well you meet these learning outcomes in the way relevant for this assessment. Please see the final page of this document for further details of the criteria against which you will be assessed.
