I’m a lecturer in Research Methods in a Business Faculty and over the years I have found there’s is really very little thought put into guiding students on topic development and selection. The textbooks list items that students should consider i.e. what to do, but very few really discuss the process of development i.e how to do it. I’m wondering if anyone has any thoughts on practical activites to help student refine their research down quickly. I discuss levels of analysis, units of analysis, functionally focused research topics and a ‘group’ of interest that data would be collected from. Any other ideas? Much appreciated.
Here’s an open source Conference Paper that reflected some of my earliest thoughts on the matter..
http://arrow.dit.ie/buschmarcon/1/