What you will study
This module is divided into five stages, which correspond to the stages of doing research for a Masters level dissertation. These stages are equivalent to the units you have studied in previous MSc HRM modules.
In Stage 1, Preparing for your dissertation and starting your research, you’ll begin by examining what is required of a Masters student and a Masters dissertation. You’ll be able to examine previous OU MSc HRM dissertations to get a better feel for what is required. Then you’ll consider what it’s like to do research, and the important things to reflect on as you embark on your own research. This will enable you to select a topic and a research question/objective and think about what kind of data you’ll need to collect to address it. Finally you'll spend some time learning about the importance of writing for your dissertation and how to do it well. Stage 1 will prepare you for the first tutor-marked assignment (TMA), which is an outline of your research question/objective and a rationale for this.
Stage 2, Reviewing the literature and refining your research ideas and question(s), covers the literature review, a crucial element of any Masters dissertation. In this stage you’ll develop your skills in finding the relevant literature, reading it critically and writing the review itself. This stage of B894 will also support you in deciding exactly what your research gap is – i.e., something that isn’t already well travelled in the literature – and therefore to revisit your research question/objective if necessary as well as to think ahead to your methodology. Stage 2 will prepare you for the second TMA, which is a draft of the literature review chapter of your dissertation.
Stage 3, Designing your research, prepares you for the third TMA, which is a draft of the research methodology chapter of your dissertation. This stage is divided into five parts. However, you’ll only study three of these parts, as follows:
- Part 1 is called Developing your research philosophy. This is compulsory for all students. Here you’ll learn about philosophy as it pertains to research – i.e. the different assumptions researchers make about social reality and about knowledge of that reality, as well as the values that underpin research such as the extent to which they see objectivity as important. This leads into material about research approaches, for example whether to test a theory or to develop one as a result of your research. You’ll also learn about research strategy – in other words, the overall process you’ll use to gather your data. This part concludes with material about the overall time needed to plan and undertake your data gathering, negotiating access to those data and research ethics.
- Part 2 is called Qualitative methodology. This and Part 3 are compulsory for students who want to undertake qualitative research, and you’ll be equipped to make that choice by the time you reach this part. Part 2 discusses various research designs – i.e. plans or blueprints for qualitative research. You’ll also learn about the key qualitative methods you are likely to use in an MSc HRM dissertation – less structured interviews, focus groups and qualitative secondary data (i.e., data which have been gathered by other people). Finally, you’ll learn about ways to record qualitative data, as well as revisiting research ethics as they specifically pertain to qualitative research and exploring how to plan qualitative research.
- Part 3 is called Qualitative data analysis. Here you’ll learn about when to begin the analysis of your qualitative data as well as how to do it. Although there are a variety of ways to undertake such analysis, here we focus on two which we believe are the most straightforward and relevant for you as MSc HRM students: reflexive thematic analysis and grounded theory. You’ll also cover material about writing up qualitative data analysis, and in particular different ways to discuss such data, linking them to your research question/objective and the existing literature in your topic area.
- Part 4 is called Quantitative methodology. Parts 4 and 5 are compulsory for students who want to undertake quantitative research, and again you'll be equipped to make that choice by the time you reach this part. This part offers a general overview of quantitative research, as well as revisiting how to formulate a research question for this kind of enquiry. It will also introduce you to developing hypotheses, measuring variables, sampling and designing and using self-completion questionnaires which are the most commonly used quantitative research method for MSc HRM dissertations.
- Part 5 is called Quantitative data analysis. Here you’ll review the types of variable which you learned about in Part 4 as well as exploring basic statistical techniques for the analysis of quantitative data. These techniques will equip you to undertake both univariate analysis, where only one variable is analysed, but also bivariate analysis where two variables are considered together to identify the relationship between them.
Stage 4, Carrying out your research and analysing your data, is the time when you will be collecting and analysing data, discussing your findings, and preparing to draw out conclusions. You will also be refining the drafts of your literature review and your research methodology chapters. As such the learning material for this stage is very light compared to previous stages. However, some is provided to steer you through this vital period in your dissertation research, and to enable you to continue to connect with your tutor and your peers for help and support. Stage 4 prepares you for your final TMA.
Stage 5, Completing your dissertation, is the last stage of the module when you will finalise your dissertation (end-of-module assessment) for submission. It will guide you through the process of writing the introduction and conclusion chapters as well as providing useful guidance on revising the other chapters to ensure the finished product is as strong as possible. Again the learning material here is fairly light to give you the necessary time and space for this work.
You will learn
By studying this module you'll learn how to:
- identify and justify a suitable topic for research and related research question(s)/objective(s)
- carry out a literature search and write a critical review of the literature relevant to your chosen topic
- develop a methodology for carrying out your research
- carry out your empirical research by collecting or accessing the data you need
- analyse your data to arrive at findings and draw conclusions which address your research question(s)/conclusion(s)
- write up your research in the form of a dissertation.