The Impact of a Neighbours Perceived Success on Attendance: A Study on Swansea City FC and Ospreys RFC Sharing the Liberty Stadium Swansea, Wales, Uk
This piece of work assesses your ability to design and present a convincing rationale for a research proposal for your dissertation. Your proposal must be based on primary research, i.e. you will collect and analyse the evidence yourself through fieldwork, so that you can compare your own analysis of the findings with those discussed in publications by academic authors who investigated other phenomena to which your own may be related in some way. It should include the following components:
TITLE: please provide a working title for your research proposal. Just below the title, summarize what it is about in 15 words or less. Please can you also identify your course title, i.e. MA Events Marketing Management, MA Music Industry Management, or MA (International) Sport Management.
i) Phenomenon, Scope, Practical Importance, Timeliness (about 500 words)
Checklist:
• What is the main subject or ‘phenomenon’ that you propose to investigate?
• What is your particular contribution to understanding and knowledge of this subject or phenomenon going to be?
• Is your research going to be specific to one geographical location (e.g. country, region, site)? Or a particular activity? Will it investigate one particular population, or type of organization? Will it investigate the current situation or development over a longer period?
• What is the practical importance of your research? Who is interested in the findings of your research?
• Why is there a need to conduct your research now? What is the shift that has occurred with your phenomenon that makes your research timely?
ii) Preliminary Review of the Literature (about 750 words)
Checklist:
Before you explain your proposal in any depth, you must explain its context with reference to the academic literature, especially Refereed Journal Articles. Thus, your research proposal must be informed by theory, ideally questions that arise from a current debate to which you can contribute:
• Consider the Refereed Journal Articles that have some relevance to your chosen subject or phenomenon and your research aims and questions set out below (ii). What subject field(s) and/or discipline(s) (e.g. anthropology, cultural geography, economic history) do they draw from? If there is nothing specific on ‘your’ subject/ phenomenon, you must consider what has been published on related topics and broader areas of scholarship. For example, if there is nothing specific in the academic literature about ‘the branding of backpacker hostels’, you might consider what research on branding other types of accommodation, attractions, retail outlets and so on, and make it clear in your proposal what might be similar to/different.
• Select at least FIVE key Refereed Journal Articles. Summarize the main arguments and findings of the authors to which you refer and assess their work briefly but critically. Are these sources wide ranging (e.g. multidisciplinary) or narrow, how recently were they published? Please note that in addition to these 5 RJAs, there may be useful textbooks, government reports and statistics and other sources, e.g. articles in professional and trade magazines. These may reflect current issues and problems, but you refer to any of these additional sources you must treat their content critically, and remember that they do not count as RJAs.
• Can you identify one or more underlying theory, model or concept? Is there a debate to which you can contribute your evidence? If so, is it a well established or relatively new debate?
iii) Gap in the Literature, Aim, Research Questions, Hypotheses (about 250 words)
Checklist:
• Identify a gap in the current literature that you have read so far. Does this confirm your proposed research?
• Based upon this gap, what is your aim (one sentence)?
• What are your research questions or objectives? These must be ‘researchable’, that is it must be feasible for you to find answers when you do your data collection and analysis.
• What are your research hypotheses, i.e. what is your theory that you are trying to prove or dis-prove? (NB: Hypotheses are not always necessary)
iv) Strategy for Proposed Methodology (about 750 words)
Checklist:
• What data are you going to collect? Will you collect and analyze qualitative or quantitative data, or both?
• Will your approach be based on a ‘constructivist/interpretive’ or ‘positivist’ research philosophy? Critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of your approach in relation to the nature of your research questions.
• What research design are you using, i.e. experimental design, semi-experimental design, case study?
• What data collection methods might be used to investigate the phenomenon and answer your research questions? Comment critically on strengths and weaknesses. For example, will the survey sample be representative of the population that you want to investigate? How can you be sure that respondents are telling you the ‘whole truth’?
• How might the data be analyzed and drawn together as findings in answer to your research questions in iii) above? Please make sure that your discussion draws from the research methods literature for this module (pp. 9-12 below) and the techniques and methodologies you have been using and discussing in class.
• Can you develop any ‘triangulation’ the use of two or more methods or techniques to ‘ask the same question’ and cross-check the validity of the data collected?
