Using the form attached, please submit your research topic via email to rani.kaur@northampton.ac.uk. This is due two weeks AFTER your workshop date. You are ENCOURAGED to add whatever other information might be useful into the proposal. Examples might include, photo of a diagram or list from a Whiteboard; screenshot of a MindMap .....

Also attached is a template for Planning which you may find useful.

Note - your proposal does not have to be terribly thorough - bullet points in each of the boxes of the form will be fine, as would be question-marks to indicate uncertainty (e.g. whether to use interviews or focus groups as your methodological approach) , which you can then clarify with your supervisor. As you draft your proposal, you may find it useful to skim through the 'Module Materials' section to explore what research options are open to you and some of the processes by which you might painlessly come up with a research question or topic

Your supervisor will be an approachable, positive and responsive resource who will support and guide you. You should generate an agreed plan with your supervisor to move from proposal to undertaking research - usually driven by a (changeable) research question.

It is up to you to establish a working relationship with your supervisor and ensure that you know what their ability is to, for example, reply to emails, review drafts and approve your ethics form. This is a crucial part of the skillset accrued through Masters level study.

You are strongly encouraged to select a business problem or issue which you can apply thinking to in order to gain more insight into the problem or - indeed - begin a process of problem-solving. Such an approach will be more stimulating for you, generate more career-relevant skills and confidence and make the writing up of your work and presentation of it to future employers, etc., easier.

Despite what you may have read or heard elsewhere, please do not assume that you need to collect large amounts of numerical data, nor that it is necessarily easier or more reliable to collect that quantitative data and then apply numerous statistical and other models to it. This approach should be avoided unless there are specific and justifiable grounds to do so!

Please note that, in addition to completing the ethics form - you must make every effort to keep all data that you collect anonymous and secured (as per the Data Protection Act in the UK and whatever other legislation applies in the jurisdiction and / or environment in which you are working). You are strongly encouraged to prepare Participant Information Sheets and other materials for your research respondents and ensure their anonymity (in all media) unless explicitly stated by respondents that they are content to be identifiable.

For commercially sensitive and other proprietary information - work with your supervisor and Module Leader (if necessary) to ensure that the businesses or other organisations that you are working for are appropriately anonymised and not identifiable.