He made a presentation on the content of the course, and its aims and explained how important it is for students to fulfil their master's dissertation

The topic of the week was mastering the art of choosing a research topic.

I learned how important it is to choose a topic that is researchable and related to my main course of study in my master's.  

I also learned how important it is not to choose topics that are too ambiguous.

I learn tools to use in doing research, such as Google Scholar, Scopus, and Lib Guide.

How to come up with a research topic:

By brainstorming and reading through previous works, I chose a topic. My chosen topic is the role of the Scottish government in creating and enabling business opportunities for black migrants.

What to look out for in research materials: Author, Title, Focus finding, methodology, and limitations.

In choosing a project topic, the aims, and objectives should be clearly defined by the student before embarking on the project.

Research Aim: The aim tends to be to investigate, analyze, or evaluate a particular situation or subject.

Research Questions: What questions does the research tend to answer? What purpose or solution does the research tend to solve? Is it adding new knowledge or expanding existing knowledge? Is there other research out there that has asked or answered these questions?

Project Objective: What new information is available to boost the weight of the project?

The student should be able to know if there are materials available and what is existing on such topics, and they must have a personal interest in the topic.

Projects should be narrowed down to a specific subject, a place, or a situation to avoid reader bias.

The project should be able to answer questions or add new knowledge.

Mr Shem helped all the students in selecting project topics, giving advice, on what is possible and not. Helping to narrow selected topics down to a defined purpose and audience.

We also got introduced to the following app, Padlet, for recording weekly activity logs.

Grammarly and Mendeley for easy referencing. We signed up for these educational apps and learned how to use them.

The class closed with an assignment to write research questions on a chosen topic.

Hej All, 

Welcome again to this week's episode of my log blog on class work activities for this Moodle EN10104 Postgraduate project progression. So, this week title is adjusted beginning, I thought I had the project topic sorted out IN THE BEGINNING it turns out you never know where you are until Mr Shem has private interactions with you. This week is about that big talk that led to the birthing of my final project topic, with aims and objectives and research questions also made possible by that discussion.  

The session started with Mr Shem calling for everyone to finish previous week reflective log. Many got busy with it and corrections were made by those who had submitted. In my case I was asked to add more facts and provide references as well. Class was divided into groups depending on the level of helps needed by everyone in the group or the position at which one's work is.  

Finally, Tutor settled to addressing individuals needs on their project works, we took turn to meet and speak with him. 

When it got to my turn, he talked about the importance of narrowing the topic down to specific subjects, situation, and location. He advised me not to choose a topic that is too broad. I understood that for project topic to be weighted as good academic work it must be streamlined to either analysis, evaluation, or investigation on a subject matter. This gave insight and showed need to adjust my project topic.  

The original text was about the role of Scottish government in creating enabling business opportunity for black migrants. Together we proposed and adjusted many topics until we arrived at “” An investigation into the Role of the Scottish Government in creating and Enabling business start-up Opportunities for UK Graduate visa Holders””.  

The discussion continued toward developing research aim, objective and research questions.  

Research aim and objective were framed out by the experience tutor alongside three research objectives while the fourth objective was given to me as assignment to develop and include the question in this blog. here are the four research objectives  

• to investigate to critically review literature in business and management, entrepreneurship, and small and medium enterprises to gain an understanding of the role of the Scottish Government in creating and enabling business start-up opportunities for UK graduate visa holders. 

• To understand the role of the Scottish Government in creating and enabling business start-up opportunities for UK graduate visa holders.  

• To contribute new knowledge in business and management, entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises research that will be useful to academics in these fields.  

• To provide understanding of the challenges and opportunities to business start –up for graduate's visa holders that will be useful to graduates, institutions, Stakeholders, the local Council authorities, and Scottish government.   

The fourth one is the sole effort. Moving forward, i was asked to start gathering materials for literature review.  

This is where my time with Mr. Shem ended, and other students saw him too before the class hour elapsed.  

THE END.

Welcome to week three of my weekly learning blog. I’m sort of short on ideals for the title of this week, so it's skipped for now.  

The lectures this week were centered on preparing us to write our literature review. The seminar was titled The Art and Science of Synthesis: Mastering the Literature Review Process. I guess the title explains it all.  

From the seminar, I learned how important it is to be critical when reviewing or reading a book, article, or journal. That criticism is more than pointing out the negatives about a write-up; it is more about the ability to find a significant connection to one's chosen research project. 

Well, in the past, I assumed being critical is pointing out negative stuff about people, things, or places. It feels good to know how significant something can be to you and your learning. What this means is that I now know better how to review a book and extract the information that will serve my research project.  

Interestingly, I still need to learn more about research tools and how to use them, will study and consult more to achieve this desired knowledge.  

So far, I have made more studies and findings toward the research project, read government publications on post visas, and read articles on challenges facing business owners. Furthermore, the literature review will be organized thematically as follows:  

Paragraph one. 

current visas and opportunities available. 

Paragraph two 

the role the Scottish government plays 

Paragraph three 

Issues being faced and criticisms 

Paragraph Four 

Looking toward the future. 

This project will be research-led; hence, there are chances of adjusting or changing the aims as new information and ideals are revealed through research findings.   

Welcome to another episode of my weekly blog. This is week four, hope you are keeping up. personally, I don't like surprises but this one glaring before me is NO objectives. Hi Lewis, nice to see you! 

Alright, new sheriff in class,, new rules. Basically, the assessment approach changed, we are still doing same thing but different ways of packaging. With Mir Shem, the format of writing the research proposal includes, introduction, literature review, research questions, objectives and methodology, and all the rest. However, we were shown a new format that is thematic in style. This for contains headings like:  

• Provisional title for your dissertation: Here is where title of project topic is inserted.  

• Rationale: Here is the reason why you want to undertake the project, you can also add a bit of literature review in there. 

• Research question(s): By now, you have an idea of what this is if you have been following, like the page if you, and don't forget to write down your research questions in this space.  

• Methodological approach : here you indicate what method you intend to use for your research.  

• Main stages of data collection : what are your sources of data, how do you want to collect them, Write them all here.  

• Definition of key terms : define key terms and write them here. 

• Ethical considerations : there are university rules that border on information collection and the sensitivity of it, so could you please make an oath promising to be nice and seek consent from people, if you do write it down here.  

• List of references : hope you realized by now, that you have no power or knowledge of your own, you need to acknowledge academic sources to make it credible, so all the materials you reached out to write this proposal write them here.  

Obviously, new things were learned, and gratefulness is all one can be. 

Today's class is personal sessions with the tutor, discussing feedback on the submitted research proposal and pointing out alternatives to different situations. Also, I am to identify and note answers to my research questions by doing secondary data collection. That is reading existing sources and finding their view on the project topic or more like literature review 

I came to the knowledge that information on ways the Scottish government has assisted startup businesses is a bit lacking in secondary data collection, so the tutor suggested primary data collection, which is going to Africa shop owners (graduate visa holders) to enquiries if they received any form of help or assistance while setting up their business. The absence of vast data available for referencing means lots of the work will be primary sources however, due to the limited time of 6 hours left of this term, class sessions mean I will have to settle for secondary sources using Google Scholar, the school library, and other relevant academic sources.  

Another thing i will be doing is preparing for my final presentation, by doing my learning log and reading more to find those answers.  

Well, this is it for this week. Next week will be boom.  

Nice to see yah. It feels good to be back. I promised that this week will be boom, I'm sorry I will take a rain cheque on that. I wish to write about two things on today's episode which might be the final episode for this term. Apologies ahead because I may bore you, The reason boom thing is set aside. In this life, one could achieve many things or possess a lot of trophies or honors, but without good health, those achievements are meaningless. So last week i was visibly sick, to the extend Mr. Lewis wondered why I had to come to class in such a condition, eventually left before the second class ended because i couldn’t hold on anymore. I wasn't happy that i had left school early because of illness but then more shocker were waiting for me. I tried booking to see a GP, I couldn’t get an immediate appointment, rather, I was scheduled further two more weeks before I could see a doctor. It was even more painful to realize that there is zero effectiveness in the UK health care system, the health practitioners and policy makers are void of compassion. It's a pity, but I made it out with them. 

On the academic side, a lot had happened, more importantly is that i started working on my Oral presentation with the guidance of Mr. Lewis, Before that, I submitted the research proposal and got positive feedback and corrections to be made. I have learned a lot through active instruction on how to arrange the slides for presentations, the importance of sign posting your slides is another new lesson learnt. The slide arrangement and contents suggested by Mr. Lewis served good purpose in helping to facilitate the work. I can’t wait to present on Tuesday.