Module Assignment Brief

Research proposal
Programme: Business & Tourism Management
Level: Level 4 Module Title: Research methods - 1
Module code: U14886 Module leader/s: Halyna Miasoid, PhD
Assignment No: Choose an item. Assignment Type: Research Proposal
Assignment Assignment Word
50% 2000 words
weighting %: Count: (or equivalent)
Penalties All penalties that are listed at the end of this document in the Table of Penalties.

Submission Dates and Times (Day: Date & Time)

Friday, 4 October, 2024
Summative Link
U14886_JAN22: Research Proposal - First Submission Inbox (globalbanking.ac.uk)
Tuesday, 8 October, 2024
Late Submission
U14886_JAN22: Research Proposal - Late Submission Inbox (globalbanking.ac.uk)
Friday, 29 November 2024, 2:00 PM
Resubmission 1
U14886_JAN22: Research Proposal - Resubmission 1 Inbox (globalbanking.ac.uk)
Grade & Feedback All Grade and Feeback release dates are 21 days after the submission date. If an assignment deadline is
release Dates Monday 1st 2:00pm then the grade release date will be Monday 22nd 2:00pm

This assignment has been designed to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your achievement of
the following module learning outcomes:
Module Define and justify an appropriate business-related research issue to investigate empirically.
Outcome 1
Module Explain and critically evaluate the main social scientific research methodologies and methods
Outcome 2 appropriate for the business.
Module Draw on relevant academic literature and appropriate data sources to develop and evaluate
Outcome 3 insights from published materials related to chosen research area.
Module Demonstrate an informed understanding on key ethical considerations of conducting research
Outcome 4 projects.
Module Demonstrate appropriate academic writing skills, referencing and good academic practice and
Outcome 5 make decisions on organising material in a logical and coherent way with an audience in mind.

Assignment Requirements
1. Students are required to develop a research proposal in tourism sector in the UK or in the
international tourism market.
2. This research proposal will be presented in one structured document using the Research
Proposal Template available on Moodle and be the equivalent of 2000 words of the main
body, excluding the Table of contents, References and Appendices which are mandatory.
3. This assignment will prepare students to do individual research in Level 6 and further in
Overview
their careers. It aims to equip students with skills of identifying the research problem in the
field of tourism and developing the research proposal which will reflect the research design,
methods and instruments to resolve this problem. These are core employability skills.
4. Successful completion of this assignment will demonstrate student’s ability to understand
and interpret information relevant to the research methodology and present it to a number
of audiences in both academic and business environments in a written form.
5. The research proposal will be submitted on Moodle as a Word Document file in due date
 anonymously – without the assessment front sheet. Page 1 will list the Contents.
6. You must NOT give your name or Student ID anywhere in the text.
7. You should NOT name the submitted file as your name or Student ID.
Assignment a) Students are encouraged to investigate needs in the jobs they occupy if they are related to
task/s to be tourism or examine the current need for research in the sector in the UK or internationally and
completed develop the research proposal according to the identified research question.
b) A practical problem might be more suitable for an undergraduate level as it is the first attempt
to undertake research. Therefore, a research proposal might seek a solution to a problem in an
existing UK-based or overseas tourism business, a tourist destination, DMO or any other
organisation in the tourism sector.
c) Students will use the Research Proposal Template and follow the suggested structure and word
count of each section.
d) Page 1 of the submitted Research proposal will open with the Title of the research proposal
and will present its structure (see Assignment Guide, section The structure of the Research
proposal).
e) Students will need to explore the theoretical background of the research problem, review
research literature and verify if the research question they ask is responded in the previous
research, or, alternatively, there is a gap in the research and no solution has been found yet. In
the latter case, students will set the research aim, objectives, and develop research
methodology, including research design, research methods, research instruments, and a feasible
timeline.
f) See the Assignment Guide for a detailed explanation per section.
g) The Research proposal must be supported by three Appendices.
Additional 1. The Research Proposal must be developed individually, and students are responsible for
Information submitting their own piece of research and demonstrating academic integrity.
required to 2. The written Research proposal (Assignment 2) will be explained by each student orally as an
support Individual presentation of the Research Proposal (Assignment 1). Therefore, both
completing assignments will have the same topic, aim, objectives, utilize the majority of resources, and
the tasks mainly discuss the same research methodology and predicted outcomes.
above 3. There will be NO Figures or Tables in the body of the research proposal. See Assignment
Guide as for how to refer to statistical data in the text when you need to.

Mandatory Referencing and Research Requirements

Referencing CCCU Harvard Referencing Style harvard (canterbury.ac.uk)
Style CCCU Harvard Referencing Guide · CCCU Harvard citation (updated Jul 23 2024) · Citationsy
• Include at least 15 references. Sections where resources are expected to be used are
Mandatory highlighted in green throughout the Research Proposal Template available on Moodle.
Sources to
• Please, be aware that you CANNOT USE books on RESEARCH METHODS as resources for
be included
Literature review on Tourism or Theoretical or Conceptual Framework.
in the
• The only section in your Research Proposal and Individual Presentation of research proposal
Assignment
is Research Methodology.
Learning At GBS you have access to our online databases through ESBCO, which can be accessed
Materials/ through the Moodle page. You also have access to the CCCU library which can be accessed
Resources online at:
https://ulms.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/client/en_GB/CCCU
https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/library-services
Essential Resources (available on shelves and electronically in GBS library)
Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B. (2019). Business Research Methods. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2019). Research Methods for Business Students. 8th
ed. Harlow: Pearson.
Flick, U. (2020) Introducing research methodology: Thinking your way through your research
project. London: SAGE.
Tracy, S.J. (2020) Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis,
 Communicating Impact. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
eBooks (unlimited user access):
Big Data for Qualitative Research / Kathy A. Mills
International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction / Fanny Badache, Leah R
Learning Kimber and Lucile Maertens
Materials/ Research Methods for Business and Social Science Students / John Adams, Hafiz T. A. Khan and
Resources Robert Raeside
Research Methods for Graduate Business and Social Science Students / John Adams, Hafiz T A
Khan, Robert Raeside and David I. White
Other recommended reading:
Abdulai, R. T., & Owusu-Ansah, A. (2014) Essential Ingredients of a Good Research Proposal for
Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students in the Social Sciences. SAGE Open, 4(3).
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014548178
Booth, W.C., Colomb, G.G., & Williams, J.M. (2016) The Craft of Research. University of Chicago
Press.
Cooper, D.R. (2019) Business research: a guide to planning, conducting, and reporting your
study. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Cottrell, S. (2019) The Study Skills Handbook. 5th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 352-361.
Creswell, J.W. (2017) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five
Approaches. SAGE Publications.
Creswell, J.W., & Plano Clark, V.L. (2017). Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research.
SAGE Publications.
Davies, M. and Hughes, N. (2014) Doing a successful research project: using qualitative or
quantitative methods. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Ford, N. (2012) The essential guide to using the Web for research. London: Sage
Kirk, R. (2012) Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences. SAGE Publications.
Kumar, R. (2019) Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. SAGE
Publications.
Laetus O K Lategan, Liezel Lues and Hesta Friedrich-Nel (2011) Doing research. Bloemfontein,
South Africa: Sun Press. Available at:
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=225
6576&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 19 December 2023).
Neuman, W.L. (2019) Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches.
Pearson.
Punch, K.F. (2001) Developing Effective Research Proposals. London: Sage
Romberg, S. (2018) Business Research: A QuickStudy Laminated Reference Guide. [S.l.]:
QuickStudy Reference Guides. Available at:
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=nlebk&AN=280370
1&site=eds-live (Accessed: 4 April 2024).
Yin, R.K. (2017) Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. SAGE Publications.
Journals:
Educational Researcher: Sage Journals (sagepub.com)
International Journal of Research & Method in Education: Vol 46, No 5 (Current issue)
(tandfonline.com)
Journal of Business Research | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: Sage Journals (sagepub.com)
Journal of Mixed Methods Research: Sage Journals (sagepub.com)
Journal of Research in Science Teaching - Wiley Online Library
Journal of Research Practice – DOAJ
Qualitative Research: Sage Journals (sagepub.com)
Open Access SAGE Journals with a Research Methods Focus:
Big Data & Society (BD&S)
Methodological Innovations
 Research Ethics
Teaching Methods Identifying & Planning Research
The International Journal of Qualitative Methods
Websites and Electronic Resources:
• On Academic Writing and writing a Research Proposal:

Learning Academic Phrasebank | The University of Manchester

Materials/ An Ultimate Guide to Write a Tourism Business Proposal - HttClub
Resources Course: Study Skills (globalbanking.ac.uk)
McCombes, S. & George, T. (2023). How to Write a Research Proposal | Examples & Templates.
Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-proposal/ (Accessed: 18
December 2023)
National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM)
Research Objectives (manchester.ac.uk)
• On Research in Business and Tourism:
All data related to leisure and tourism - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Article Archives - CMI (managers.org.uk)
Businessweek - Bloomberg
Census - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
CMI Career Confidence | Management & Leadership Development (managers.org.uk)
ETC Corporate - The European Travel Commission (ETC) (etc-corporate.org)
Financial Times (ft.com)
Harvard Business Review - Ideas and Advice for Leaders (hbr.org)
Hospitality & Tourism Complete | EBSCO
International tourist arrivals by world region 2022 | Statista
Oxford Economics
Statistics of tourism | World Tourism Organization (unwto.org)
The Economist | World News, Economics, Politics, Business & Finance
The UNWTO Tourism Data Dashboard | Tourism Data
Tourism Statistics | World Tourism Organization (e-unwto.org)
Tourism Statistics Database (unwto.org)
UK Tourism Statistics 2023 - Latest Data (condorferries.co.uk)
• On Research Ethics:
Global Banking School (2024) GBS Code of Practice for the Ethical Conduct of Research.
Available at: https://www.globalbanking.ac.uk/media/jh4bi33o/code-of-practice-for-the-
ethical-conduct-of-research-jan-2024.pdf (Accessed: 24 July 2024).
Governance and Ethics - Canterbury Christ Church University
 Format of your submission and how your assignment will be assessed
1) This research proposal will be presented in one structured document of 2000 words of the main body,
excluding the Table of contents, References and Appendices which are mandatory.
2) You will use the Research Proposal Template available on Moodle and will follow its instructions as for
word count per section, content and you are encouraged to use some tips about the language and
resources.
3) Please, delete the text in red after you complete the draft of your research.
4) This submission will be marked anonymously. You must not have an assessment front sheet or a cover
page.
5) You must NOT give your name or Student ID anywhere in the text.
6) You should NOT name the submitted file as your name or Student ID.
7) Please ensure that your work has been saved in Microsoft Word format. Your file must contain at least 2000
words of text without the Table of Contents, References and Appendices and be less than 40MB in size.
8) You CANNOT submit a set of images of the text, as this will be viewed as Academic Misconduct and the
attempt to avoid similarity check on Turnitin. See all details in the Table of Penalties (Appendix A).
9) Your submitted text must be editable, and not in the textbox or frame.
10) You can submit your work as many times as you like before the submission date. If you do submit your work
more than once, your earlier submission will be replaced by the most recent version.
11) Once you have submitted your work, you will receive a digital receipt as proof of submission, which will be
sent to your forwarded e-mail address (provided you have set this up). Please keep this receipt for future
reference, along with the original electronic copy of your assignment
12) Please, get acquainted with the following documents to comply with the requirements on Academic
Integrity, preventing and handling cases of Academic Misconduct. By submitting your assignment, you are
acknowledging that you have read and understood these regulations.
- Student-Academic-Integrity-Policy (canterbury.ac.uk)
- Student-Academic-Misconduct-Procedures-staff-students (canterbury.ac.uk)
Marking Scheme / Rubric - The Marking Scheme (otherwise known as a rubric) is available on the Module
Assessment Tab on Moodle.
 Submission Requirements
Submission This assignment should be submitted electronically using Moodle to the Module Submission link
Platform
Submission All submission & resubmission dates and time are as stated at the beginning of this Assignment
Date &Time brief.
You should submit your Assignment for all deadlines earlier than 2:00pm on the date stated.
Late submissions can be accepted for Summative Submissions only up to a maximum of 2 working
days after the submission deadline. This does not apply to resubmission deadlines. A 10 mark
deduction will be made by CCCU for all late submissions.
Work submitted more than two working days after the deadline will not be accepted and will be
recorded as a non-submission.
Assignments submitted to the Resubmissions deadlines will be capped at 40 by CCCU.
If you are affected by events which are unexpected, outside your control and short-term in nature
(i.e. lasting one to two weeks), under the exceptional circumstances procedure you may be eligible
for:
• A seven day extension to your coursework (via self-certification request).
• A 14 day extension to your coursework (via evidence-based request).
• To defer your exam or time-constrained assessment if you have not yet
submitted/attempted it (via self-certification or evidence-based request).
• To re-take an exam/time-constrained assessment, if you feel your performance on your
first attempt was negatively impacted (via impaired performance request).
Please note students are only eligible to have a maximum of 2 self-certification requests per
academic year.
You can make a self-certification request up to 14 calendar days before your deadline:
• for coursework it must be no later than 2pm on the deadline date
• for exams and time-constrained assessments, the request must be submitted no later
than the start time of the assessment.

Appendix A

Table of Penalties

Issue with the Assignment Penalty to be Applied

The Assignment will be graded zero. Written feedback will be ‘This
assignment has been identified as potential Academic Misconduct/Breach of
Academic Integrity. You will be invited to a meeting to discuss’.
You will be invited to a meeting with an academic Misconduct reviewer.
When you attend the meeting if Academic Misconduct or the breach of
Suspected Academic Misconduct or Academic Integrity is upheld you will be asked to rewrite the section of the
Breach of Academic integrity assignment it applies to and re-submit the assignment.
Do not upload any assignments to the AMC submission links before
the meeting otherwise it will be removed.
Failure to attend the meeting means the assignment will remain graded at
zero and you will be unable to pass the module until you have attended the
meeting.
A 10-mark deduction applied to the overall grade that is manually entered by
The assignment is more than 10% over the the Lecturer. This deduction is capped at 40%, which means an assignment
prescribed wordcount i.e. for 3,000 words, cannot get less than 40% if a deduction has to be made.
if 3,400 is submitted excluding the cover For example, if the mark for the assignment was 60. The lecturer would
page, table of contents, references and deduct 10 marks and the mark will be 50. Written feedback will also state
appendices. ‘This assignment is 10% over the wordcount and 10 marks have been
deducted’.
Where assignments are more than 10% This assignment will be graded below 40.
less than the prescribed wordcount and
lecturers cannot identify if the learning
outcomes have been met.
This assignment will be graded a Fail.
Where a student submits a .pdf instead of The lecturer will grade as 1 and the written feedback will state ‘This is a pdf
a word document. submission and is not allowed. All submissions should be in Microsoft Word
format’.
This assignment will be graded a Fail.
The lecturer will grade as 1 and the written feedback will state ‘This
Students not working in their groups as
submission was not completed in the designated group’.
agreed by the lecturer.
Please note: Where a student has asked the lecturer to move from their
original group and the lecturer has agreed this does not apply.
For a presentation assignment that
requires oral delivery, and the student The Oral rubric criteria is not moved, and the oral criteria will remain at zero.
does not present in person.
For a presentation assignment and the
The communication rubric criteria is not moved, and the communication
student does not upload a converted PPT
criteria will remain at zero.
To Word File with speaker notes.
For a presentation assignment that This assignment will be graded a Fail.
requires oral delivery, and the student did
not present on the day or upload the The lecturer will grade as 1 and the written feedback will state ‘There was no
presentation to a Word document with Oral presentation in class and the submission was not converted to Microsoft
speaker Notes. Word’.
For a presentation assignment the student This assignment will be graded a Fail.
uploads a file that contains no slides and is The lecturer will grade as 1 and the written feedback will state ‘There are no
simply continuous text. slides present in the assignment submission’.
If the assignment is group work and the
resubmission is not changed to individual
work.
If a group assignment is failed then the
resubmitted work must be changed by a This assignment will be graded a Fail.
minimum of 25% to make it an individual
piece of work. The lecturer will grade as 1 and the written feedback will state ‘This
This means if a Group Presentation is 12 resubmission should be individual and a minimum of 25% of the assignment
slides a minimum of 3 must be different to has not changed’.
the group submission. If the assignment is
a Group Poster with 6 text boxes then a
minimum of 2 of them must be different
to the Group Poster.
Where a written assignment has text that
is unable to be read by Turnitin because it This assignment will be graded 0 and the written feedback should state ‘This
is either a graphical image (excluding assignment is unreadable by Turnitin and cannot be checked for Academic
Presentations & Posters); for example, a Misconduct. It has been referred for an AMC meeting’.
screenshot or the assignment is written The assignment will then be referred for Academic Misconduct investigation.
within text boxes on each page.
An assignment that does not make use of
any Mandatory references provided in the The reference rubric criteria is not moved and that criteria will remain at zero
assignment brief/Module Handbook.
The reference rubric criteria is not moved and that criteria will remain at
zero.
An assignment has a reference list, but no
Written feedback should state ’The reference criteria has been graded Zero
citations.
as no citations have been used. Please include citations in your assignment
to support the academic points being made’.
Foundation & Level 4 - The reference rubric criteria is not moved and that
criteria will remain at zero. The written feedback will state ‘Please ensure
that you use citations and references to support your assignment
An assignment has no citations and no submission’.
reference list.
At Level 5 and Level 6 this would be graded as a Fail. The lecturer will grade
as 1 and written feedback will also show ‘This assignment has no citations
and no reference list’.
 This will be referred for Academic Misconduct.
Where False references are included in an This assignment will be graded 0 and the written feedback should state ‘This
assignment. assignment contains false references and has been referred for Academic
Misconduct. You will be invited to attend an Academic Misconduct meeting’.
This assignment will be graded a Fail.
Assignment is submitted after the Late
Deadline or if it is a Resubmission, after The lecturer will grade as 1 and written feedback should state 'This
the Resubmission deadline assignment was submitted after the deadline. Please resubmit at the next
resubmission opportunity.'

Student Integrity and Academic Misconduct

The values of student integrity expected by CCCU are:
• Honesty – being clear about what is your work and where your ideas come from other sources.
• Trust – others can have faith in you being open about your work and acknowledging others’ work.
• Fairness – you do not try to gain an unfair advantage in using others’ work.
• Responsibility – you take an active role in applying the principle of Academic Integrity to your work.
• Respect – you show respect for the work of others.
Peer-support:
Students might choose to get support from their peers when preparing assessments, such as discussing the subject of the
assessment, exchanging ideas, and receiving suggestions for improving the work. This is peer-support, and the University accepts
this as a reasonable expectation when completing assessments. However, peers must not make any changes to anyone’s
assessments as such actions could lead to allegations of academic misconduct.
Use of English as the medium of assessment:
Students cannot write an assessment in another language and subsequently translate their work into English or have it translated
by any form of third-party. Use of translation software or third-party translators is a form of academic misconduct.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Students must write the entire assessment without using AI software such as ChatGPT. Submitting an assessment that contains
any form of AI is a form of academic misconduct.
Proofreading:
Students can make use of Microsoft Word’s grammar and spell-checking functions but the use of Grammarly is not allowed as it
uses AI text generation. If student’s use third-party proofreaders, these cannot make any changes that alter the assessment in
anyway including correcting language or citation format errors. Third-party alterations to the assessment are a form of academic
misconduct.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be defined as incorporating another person’s material from books, journals, the internet, another student’s work,
or any other source into assessment material without acknowledgement. It includes:
• Using exactly the same words (sentences, phrases or even expressions not in everyday use, invented or created by an
author to explain an idea) as used originally
• Rephrasing by making slight adjustments
• Paraphrasing in a way which may deceive the reader as to the source.
• Plagiarism in whatever form it takes is form of academic misconduct.
Collusion:
If students submit work for assessment that is falsely presented as the student’s own work but was jointly written with somebody
else; this is a form of academic misconduct.
Duplication/Self-Plagiarism:
The inclusion in assessments of a significant amount of identical or substantially similar material to that already submitted for
assessment by the student and graded for the same course or any other course or module at this University or elsewhere is classed
as self-plagiarism. It does not include a resubmission of the same piece of work allowed by the examiners in an improved or revised
form for reassessment purposes. Self-plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct.
Further clarification of the above can be found in CCCU’s Academic Misconduct documents below
1. CCCU Student Academic Misconduct Procedures can found below: Please click the link to Open.
https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/asset-library/policy-zone/Student-Academic-Misconduct-Procedures-staff-students.pdf
2. CCCU Student Academic Integrity Policy can be found below: Please click the link to Open.
https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/asset-library/policy-zone/Student-Academic-Integrity-Policy.pdf