Research Projects

Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

The two branches of statistical analysis as the source distinguishes them, its eight-term vocabulary table, and the sixteen analysis issues it lists as bare labels.

Descriptive Research Methodology

Observation recorded for later analysis, its dependence on human responses, and the two distortions the source names: selective observation and biased interviews.

Descriptive, Explanatory and Evaluative Research

The three research purposes named in the teaching source, the verbs that signal each one, and how the purpose you choose constrains every later design decision.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 18 min read

Designing a Data Collection Instrument: A Worked Attempt

A student asked to design a data collection tool and discuss its suitability - what the submission delivered, what it did not, and how much of the shortfall the brief itself cau…

Designing a Questionnaire

Layout, order, length and the covering explanation - the design rules the source gives, in the sequence you apply them, and the pilot stage it mentions without describing.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Drawing Conclusions From Your Results

Limit conclusions to what the results support, give equal weight to negative findings, and treat post hoc analyses as explanatory - three disciplines that are harder than they s…

Eight Examined Theses Compared

Focus groups, a systematic review, a Delphi panel, two case studies and three surveys - what each design could establish, at what scale, and what each work actually demonstrated.

Eleven R&D Management Papers Compared

A formal model, a regulatory analysis, three empirical studies, a case study and four practitioner syntheses - what each kind of paper can evidence, and what it cannot.

Epistemology: How Knowledge Is Created

The theory of knowing, why answering epistemological questions means justifying your methodology, and the two different definitions the supplied source gives for the same word.

Ethical Issues at Each Research Stage

Five issues at proposal stage and six at design stage, whose rights are in play at each, and the four stages the supplied source never covers.

Ethics Application Failures: What Goes Wrong

Three real cases from the supplied source - a skipped training video, a wrong submission route and a dependent group - and what each cost the researcher.

Ethics Review and Approval Processes

Why review panels exist, what dual approval means when your workplace hosts the study, and the one thing you must never do before clearance arrives.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 8 min read

Evaluating an Article Before You Cite It

Ten questions to answer about every piece of writing you read - from what school of thought it follows to what data backs its argument - and how to record the answers usefully.

Evaluation and Action Research Methodologies

Participants as equal partners in design and interpretation, and research carried out in the real world with little or no control over independent variables.

Exploratory, Constructive and Empirical Research

The three forms the research process takes — identifying a problem, testing theory and proposing solutions, and gaining evidence from observation — and how a project moves betwe…

Financial Techniques for R&D Project Selection

Five objective selection techniques set out with their inputs, their arithmetic and the conditions under which each one misleads.

Five Journal Article Research Designs

Econometric evaluation, mathematical modelling, comparative survey, single case study and formal theory - five published designs, only one of which collects data from people.

Formulating and Testing a Hypothesis

The supposition to be tested, the precise difference between rejecting and supporting, and why a hypothesis is never proved - only supported until superseded.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 17 min read

Four Myths About New Product Failure

Four beliefs about new product failure that an empirical study set out to overturn, what it found instead, and how much weight one study can carry.

Functionalism, Feminism and Postmodern Frameworks

The other philosophical frameworks named in the source and the pyramid — functionalism, symbolic interactionism, feminism, critical theory, post-structuralism and postmodernism …

Governing R&D Decisions Organisationally

Who decides, who analyses and who is accountable - the organisational arrangements a quantified R&D decision process requires, and why the tools fail without them.

Handling Outliers

Four different characterisations of an outlier across four slides of one deck, the questions asked about them, and the detection rule that is never supplied.

Harvard Reference Anatomy: Journal Articles and Books

Every element in a journal reference and a book reference, in order, with what is italicised and what is quoted - and an honest list of the source types the supplied material ne…

Historical and Comparative Research Methodologies

Synthesising evidence about the past through where, who, when and what — and the comparative extension across societies in the past or in parallel in the present.

How Examined Theses Argue a Gap

Eight attempts at the hardest paragraph in a thesis - the one that says why the study should exist - ranked by what each actually establishes.

How Large Should a Sample Be?

The question the source poses on its own slide and never answers. What it does supply, where the only numbers in the dataset come from, and why they do not transfer.

How Much Literature Review a Proposal Needs

Not expected to be extensive - what a proposal-stage review must nonetheless demonstrate, and how it differs from the review in the finished thesis.

How Real Literature Reviews Are Organised

Emergent, two-chapter, standalone-paper, funnel and no-review-section - five published solutions to the same problem, and how to tell which one your project needs.

How This Material Expects to Be Used

The subject's own closing statement about itself - that you will not apply most of this immediately and are expected to return to it during your thesis - and what that reframes.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 20 min read

Identifying the Gap in the Literature

The gap is what justifies your study existing. How to find one, how to state it so it can be checked, and five real gap statements from published research compared.

Independent and Dependent Variables

Defining your variables before you collect anything - the two-way distinction the source gives, why the direction of the arrow is a claim, and the variable types it omits.

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning in Research

Generating explanations from data against collecting data to test a prior proposition — the two directions of inference and how each shapes sampling, analysis and claims.

Inductive Categorisation: A Complete Worked Example

Thirty-one open-ended responses sorted into six inductive categories - the only complete worked analysis in six weeks of teaching material, set out in full with what it does not…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 10 min read

Insider and Action Research Ethics

Doing action research where you are the boss, and the promise to participants that gets quietly dropped once the researcher leaves the site - two problems the source names plainly.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Interpretivism and Phenomenology

People provide their own accounts of situations and behaviours — the interpretive position and the six associated traditions the source groups beneath it.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 18 min read

Interview Design in Project Research

Semi-structured, in-depth and expert interviews across four studies - how many, how selected, how recorded, and the deliberate tactic of never asking the headline question direc…

Interview Types and Choosing Between Them

The interview types the source distinguishes, what each is suited to, and how the choice follows from how much you already know about the answer space.

Levels of Measurement in Structured Questions

Nominal, ordinal and interval response choices, what each permits at analysis - and the fourth level the source never names, which is where most project measures actually sit.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 20 min read

Literature Review Quick Reference

Every checklist, question set and structure from the literature review material on a single page - the search rules, the credibility tests, the reading questions and the writing…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 9 min read

Literature Search Strategies

Lower case, synonyms, most important word first, quotation marks, wildcards and advanced filters - six search rules that decide whether you find the work that already answers yo…

Making Better Project Termination Decisions

Twelve critical variables, ranked, and a stage-specific model that replaces single-indicator tracking - because one indicator changes meaning as a project advances.

Managing Acceleration: Complexity and Trade-offs

Five factors that shape how steeply cost rises with speed, what complexity does to the curve, and the estimation approach the source offers for pricing an acceleration decision.

Measurement and the Basis of Validity

Assigning symbols and numbers by rule, and the claim that measurement must be reliable before findings can be called valid - what that dependency does to your instrument decisions.

Measures of Central Tendency

Mean, median and mode as the source defines them - including the definition whose label and procedure disagree, and the fact that none of the three is ever computed.

Measuring New Product Success Rates

A widely quoted failure rate, the measurement model that disputes it, and why definitions of success decide the answer before any data is collected.

Methodological Coherence: Making Every Step Fit

The four things every step must be appropriate to, the two 'fit' rules the source states, and a coherence audit you can run over your own design before you defend it.

Methodology Decisions in Research Design

The decisions that fix a methodology before any data is gathered - what each one commits you to, and which of them the supplied material states without explaining.

Methods and Their Place in a Design

Methods are the techniques used to gather data - the one-line definition the source gives, why methods sit below methodology, and what follows when the two words are used interc…