Chapter 5

Business Research Methods

CHAPTER 5

Considering Possible Topics

Lecturer’s Guide

This chapter does not introduce any new material: it is intended to help students stop and think seriously about potential broad areas they might research. You may therefore not wish to devote a lecture to it. But the exercise of taking stock of potential benefits in terms of career or other goals, and identifying several possible topics in terms of their potential benefits and feasibility, is a valuable one. It would usefully form the basis for an assignment to check that students are starting to think seriously about potential topics. It might also benefit from small group discussion.

Few slides are provided on the website for such a session, but some activities are suggested here which might be useful. If you wish to devote a session to the area covered by this chapter but a full lecture is not possible, you might consider asking students to bring ideas for topics to class, and to ‘coach’ each other by asking questions about learning benefits and aspects of feasibility. The questioning skills needed for this will be useful when working with clients in a practical research situation, so you might wish to combine this with work later on.

This would also be a good time to discuss with students your institution’s specific requirements for a dissertation, to ensure that students understand what will be required of them.

CHAPTER LEARNING OUTCOMES

The chapter should enable students to:.

• reconsider their personal objectives in relation to possible research

• identify potential areas within which projects might be located

• identify likely stakeholders in each of these areas, and consider their aims

• frame possible research questions in relation to these areas

• assess potential types and sources of information relevant to possible research topics.

LECTURE/SESSION AIMS

A session on this chapter might usefully give...