| Assessment Title |
Module Handbook |
| Academic Year |
2025-26 |
Table of Contents
- General Information
- Aims
- Learning Outcomes
- Indicative Content
- Assessment
- Essential Reading
- Recommended Reading
- Useful websites include:
- What is a research project?
- WRIT 1 – Research Proposal (3000 words)
- WRIT2 – Research Paper (7000-9000 words)
- Title
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Materials and Methodology
- Results and Analysis 1
- Discussion
- Conclusion and Recommendations
- References
- Appendices
- Submission Dates
- Full-Time Students
- Year 1 of Study (100% of lectures will be completed this academic year)
- Part-time students
- Year 1 of Study
- Year 2 of Study
- Ethics
- Approaching External People/Organisations
- Research involving vulnerable groups and research in secure settings: The protection of children, young persons and vulnerable persons
- Dissertation Supervision
- Publication
- Important Points to Note
General Information
FTI7005 Aims
This module aims to enable students to critically appraise and apply research methodologies and methods, gather and analyse data and present findings in an appropriate manner
FTI7005 Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students should be able to:
- Develop and carry out an independent research inquiry in an area related to food science /technology
- Undertake a critical review of the literature associated with a chosen research topic
- Critically evaluate a range of research methodologies and apply appropriate research methods
- Demonstrate the application of data analysis techniques appropriate to quantitative and/or qualitative data
- Synthesise valid conclusions and recommendations based upon research undertaken.
- Present research in an appropriate format
In addition, the following key skills have been embedded into the module:
- Communication
- Numeracy
- Technology
- Scientific
- Manage and develop self
- organisation and proper use of time
- Creative approaches to problem solving
- Professional and ethical manner
Indicative Content
The student will choose a subject, in discussion with the assigned supervisor, and develop a piece of scientific work:
- Reviewing the literature – literature searching/critical analysis
- Formulating the research question and aims -
- Planning, designing and carrying out a piece of scientific work
- Evaluating the results – quantitative or qualitative
- Comparing the results with the wider scientific literature
- Writing the research project
FTI7005 Assessment
Students have the opportunity to choose their own research topic from the list provided or come up with their own preferred research topic. To assist students in choosing their topics, supervisors are invited to attend a session and, in 10 minutes, present their projects. Students have three weeks to investigate the topic and choose their topic, and submit the table of choices on Moodle before the deadline. No submission means Anita, the module leader, will choose a topic for the student. Topics will be allocated based on first-come firs first-served and availability of the supervisors when students submit. If you are keen to get your first choice, please make sure you submit when the submission point is open. Time will be announced in advance for students to prepare. Students are not allowed to choose more than two topics from each supervisor. Any chosen topic is a student's choice, and when a topic is given to the student supervisor and topic cannot be changed. So, please pay attention when choosing your topic and our supervisor.
The research project topic will consist of two parts. Part one is a proposal of 3000 words and 20% of the module weight. Mark from the proposal can be compensated by the mark from the research paper if students get a mark below 50. Please note that supervisors will stop reading your proposal after the maximum word count, which is 3300, and you will get a mark based on that and not additional information.
The second part of the assessment is a research paper, which is 80% of the module weight and cannot be compensated for by any mark. The word count for the research paper is 7K to 9k and supervisors stop reading after 9K. Please be mindful of the word count. Don’t think that if you write more, you will get a better mark.
For more assessment information, please look at the Assessment criteria pack under module essentials. It contains all the relevant links and guidelines to help you meet the requirements of the module. Please read carefully.
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Assessment Code and Method
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Duration/Length of Assessment Method
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Approximate Date of Submission
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WRIT1 - Project Proposal
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3000 words
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Friday 26th January 2023
20%
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WRIT2 - Research paper
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7000 to 9000 words
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Monday 1st July 2023
80 %
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Essential Reading
Cardiff Metropolitan University Research Ethics Committee, please see the link below. Completing an application for ethics approval – guidance notes.
Risk Assessment
“A risk assessment is a careful examination of what in your work could cause harm, injury to individuals or damage to equipment or buildings, so you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm” Cardiff Met 2019
Risk assessment form and guideline can be found by visiting the assessment pack.
Recommended Reading
- Bowling, A. (2009). Research methods in health: investigating health and health sciences (3rd ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
- Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Fink, A. (2010). Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper (3rd ed.). London: Sage
- Bowling, A. & Ebrahim, S. (eds.) (2005). Handbook of Health Research Methods: Investigation, Measurement and Analysis. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
- Cresswell, J. (2002) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. London: Sage Publications.
- Crombie, I. (1996). The Pocket Guide to Critical Appraisal. London: BMJ Publishing Group.
- Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (4th ed.).London: Sage.
- Grey, D. (2013). Doing Research in the Real World (3rd ed.). London: Sage.
- Locke, L., Spirduso, W. & Silverman, S. (2007). Proposals That Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals (5th ed.). London: Sage.
- Greenhalgh, T. (2014). How to Read a Paper: the Basics of Evidence-Based Medicine (5th ed.). Oxford: BMJ Books/Blackwell Publishing.
- Hart, C. (1998). Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage.
- Higgins, J. & Green S. (eds.) (2011) Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (Version 5.1.0 updated March 2011). A
- Maxwell, J. (2005). Qualitative Research Design: an Interactive Approach (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
- Mills, J. & Birks, M. (eds.) (2014). Qualitative Methodology: A Practical Guide. London: Sage.
- O’Leary, Z. (2010). The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project. London: Sage.
- Oliver, P. (2003). The Student’s Guide to Research Ethics. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
- Oliver, P. (2014). Writing Your Thesis (3rd ed.). London: Sage.
- Patton, MQ. (2015). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods (4th Ed). London: Sage.
- Punch, K. (2006). Developing effective research proposals (2nd ed.). London: Sage. (Available as an e-book).
- Punch, K. (2014). Introduction to social research: quantitative and qualitative approaches (3rd ed.). London: Sage.
- Salkind, N. J. (2013). Statistics for People Who (think they) Hate Statistics (5th ed.). London: Sage. (Various versions of this book are available – the core content remains the same, the differences lie in the specific computer software referred to)
What is a Research Project?
The research project is an empirical research study providing you with the opportunity to work independently in an area of specific interest within your speciality. You will be required to design the study and collect, analyse and present data relevant to the stated aims of your investigation. The dissertation is designed to foster an independent approach to research and enable practical and directly relevant experience in research design and methodologies.
Students are encouraged to start planning for their project as soon as they start the academic year. Initially, any idea should be discussed with the Programme Director, who will assign the right supervisor for the research project.
Aims
The research project is intended to provide students with the opportunity to work independently in an area of specific interest. The work undertaken will generally be an empirical research study. The student will be required to design the study and collect, analyse and present data relevant to the stated aims of their investigation.
The aims of the dissertation are to:
- foster an independent approach to research
- enable students to gain practical and directly relevant experience in research design and method.
- explore further and test empirically issues of personal interest.
- gain experience in how research findings can be analysed, interpreted and reported.
On completion of this module, students will be able to demonstrate that they have:
- Developed and carried out an independent research inquiry in an area related to their MSc Food Science and Technology degree title.
- Critically evaluated a range of research methods and applied appropriate methods to the research project.
- Collected and analysed relevant data, including the application of relevant statistical techniques where appropriate.
- Synthesised valid conclusions and recommendations based upon the research undertaken.
- Presented the research in an appropriate format demonstrating that the aim(s)/hypothesis of the research have been fulfilled.
WRIT 1 – Research Proposal (3000 words)
Your research proposal and ethics are the first part of your research project to be submitted. The proposal should be submitted on Moodle and ethics to your supervisor, who will submit your Ethics on your behalf if it is acceptable; otherwise, they will give you feedback, and it is your responsibility to apply the changes and send it back to your supervisor. No submission of ethics means no mark for the research project, and it will be zero.
In the proposal, you explain what you want to investigate (your question), which demonstrates your knowledge and your skills based on reviewing existing studies and explaining the methods that you want to use to complete your research. For more information on how to prepare for this section, please visit the Assessment pack.
Proposal Structure (3000 words):
Please note your work will be marked up to 3300 words only
Introduction/ background
What is already known about the topic?
- Provide a brief outline of the topic area.
- Indicate how your work is likely to add to this existing knowledge. State how you will go about obtaining background information.
- Include references here
Research question/aims & objectives
What is the hypothesis to be tested or the issue to be investigated and analysed?
- You should be able to write this out in one sentence or a short paragraph. You may do this in terms of 'aims' and 'objectives' if you prefer.
Methods that you want to use to collect data
How do you intend to test your hypothesis or investigate and analyse the issue? (E.g. laboratory work, interviews, questionnaires, observational methods, literature-based reviews)
Justify the use of the chosen technique using appropriate literature.
What difficulties do you anticipate in carrying out your work?
- Will you have access to necessary facilities, e.g. finance, equipment, staff, and entry to organisations? Are there issues of confidentiality?
- You will need to discuss such matters at an early stage with academic staff (particularly the supervisor) and if appropriate, representatives of the organisation where you intend to carry out your research.
How will you analyse your results or assess your findings?
Demonstrate how you will apply statistical/mathematical, descriptive or analytical techniques, computer software, etc.
Timing/Planning/
Work out a provisional timetable for your activities.
- Remember to make contingency plans for unexpected events.
Implications/considerations/ ethics
How do you intend to identify and address any ethical issues associated with your research?
References
Ethics Form Completion
- Following the guidelines on Ethics, meet with your supervisor. In this form, you write what you want to do, how you want to carry out your research and in what timeframe you are going to complete your data collection.
- As part of your ethics, you need to complete the consent form, participant information sheet and how participants can withdraw from the study.
- For more information and guidance, please visit the Assessment Pack
- These are the links relevant to the Ethic forms and guidance.
How to write a Literature Review
A literature review is the presentation, classification and evaluation of what other researchers have written on a particular subject. A literature review may form part of a research project or may stand alone as a separate document. Although the second of these types of literature review is less extensive than that expected for a project, the skills required are identical.
A literature review is not simply a shopping list of what others have said. It does not and cannot refer to every piece of literature in the field. Rather, a literature review is organised according to your research objective. It is a conceptually organised synthesis which ultimately provides a rationale for further research, whether by you or by others.
Two essential elements of all literature reviews are:
1. An outline of what others have done in your chosen area
2. A progressive narrowing of the gap in the research you are about to carry out
Questions to help select, analyse and discuss each text critically:
- Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
- Is the problem/issue ambiguous or clear? has it been significantly discussed (scope, severity, relevance)?
- What are the strengths and limitations of the way the author has formulated the problem or issue?
- Could the problem have been approached more effectively from another perspective?
- What is the author’s research orientation (e.g., interpretive, critical science, combination) and theoretical framework?
- What is the relationship between the research orientation and the theoretical framework?
- Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the problem/issue? Does the author include literature taking positions s/he does not agree with?
- In a research study, how good are the three basic components of the study design? How accurate and valid are the measurements? Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research question? Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?
- In popular literature, does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, rhetorically-charged language and tone? Is the author objective, or is s/he merely ‘proving’ what s/he already believes?
- How does the author structure his or her argument? Can you ‘deconstruct’ the flow of the argument to analyse if/where it breaks down?
- Is this a book or article that contributes to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful for practice? What are the strengths and limitations?
- How does this book or article fit into the thesis or question I am developing?
WRIT2 – Research Paper (7000 to 9000 words)
Please note your work will be marked up to 9000 words only
The research paper allows you to think seriously about your topic. Building on the research of others, you have the opportunity to contribute your own research and insights to a particular question of interest to you. It also gives you practice in important academic skills such as:
- formulating a research question
- conducting research
- managing time
- organising information into coherent ideas
- substantiating arguments with research in the field
- presenting insights about the research
Organise before you start writing!
Your research will be a collection of a wide range of ideas; however, before you begin writing, it’s critical to your paper’s success if this is organised well. Without it, your paper will lack focus, and you’ll spend much more time in the revision process trying to make sense of your jumbled thoughts. A logbook may help here.
Title
The title should be as informative about the content of the research project as possible without making it too long. It should reflect the aim of the research project and be as clear and concise as possible.
Topics and supervisors can not be changed. Any adjustment to the topic can be made with supervisor and module leader approval.
Supervisor cannot be changed after disseminating the research topics which was chosen by the students. In case of no submission of the topic, research topic will be selected by the module leader on behalf of the students and that can not be changed.
Abstract
The abstract should be a clear and concise summary of the whole of the research project. It must, therefore, include
- the topic area and
- background, the aim(s) of the work,
- the methodology utilised, the (main)
- Results and discussion
- conclusion(s)
- Key words
The purpose of the Abstract is to provide a brief synopsis for the (often busy) reader to assess whether the work is relevant to them and worth reading. For the examiner, it will provide a precise guide to the report for assessment. For these reasons, the Abstract should be as brief as possible. It should be on one page only, with a 250-word limit, and written in the past tense. It covers all sections of your study, introduction, method, results, discussion and conclusion.
References should not be used in the abstract
Introduction
The Introduction should outline the focus of the work and set the scene for the reader. It should include a description of the topic area and the background to the problem or issue. You should indicate why you have chosen this particular topic and thereby justify its research. You must end by clearly stating the hypothesis to be tested or the issue to be investigated. You may do this in terms of 'aims' and 'objectives' if you prefer.
Since most research projects build upon existing knowledge, your Introduction should contain a summary of the literature to date. This should examine the main themes that have been pursued by other writers. The review should be constructively critical and should evaluate rather than describe. If the literature review is lengthy, it may be preferable to put it in a separate chapter following the Introduction. Consult your supervisor on this.
Materials and Methodology
In this section, you must state and describe the approach you adopted for fulfilling the aim of your research or testing your hypothesis. You must justify why you have chosen this particular method rather than another. It is important that sufficient information is provided in your method to demonstrate the developmental process and to enable replication. Note that in a literature-based dissertation, it is advisable to demonstrate that you have undertaken a methodical approach to the gathering of information.
Any ethical issues involved must be highlighted, together with a description of the steps you took to address them.
Results and Analysis
The results section presents what you found in terms of the raw data, whether from questionnaires, interviews, samples analysed, etc. If the data are extensive, then the results may justify a separate chapter. Where they are not, it is often preferable to combine the results and their analysis in one chapter.
Remember that results are raw data only and need to be processed by analysis (e.g. statistical or qualitative) to be interpreted as meaningful information. To aid understanding, comments must accompany figures, graphs and tables. It is not appropriate to discuss or speculate about the findings in this section.
Make sure that you do not report results that you do not understand!
NB. If you feel that the nature of your work does not readily lend itself to the above format, e.g. a literature review or 'desk-top' exercise, then alternative terminology and procedures may be more appropriate. Discuss with your supervisor.
Discussion
The discussion section does not present tables of data or produce additional information. Instead, it puts forward the issues that arise from the detailed findings. These should be compared or contrasted to the general findings or comments from previous work and issues that you looked at in your introduction. The sub-headings in this section may closely follow the themes used to organise the review of the literature.
The discussion section will also include some comments on the limitations of the study, e.g., sample size, how representative the sample was, the time period, etc.
You should also provide general evaluations of the work, e.g., are there areas that you would tackle differently with hindsight? What are the most surprising findings?
Conclusion and Recommendations
This section may stand as a separate section or as a sub-heading in the discussion. It is important to return to the hypotheses or aims and demonstrate to what extent these have now been addressed. All the various threads of the report should be clearly brought together, but nothing new should be introduced.
Leading on from the Conclusions, you will often feel the necessity to make Recommendations. As with Results and Analysis, this section may be combined with Conclusions in one chapter.
Recommendations may cover issues such as improved approaches to carrying out the study, further research or steps that could be taken to address problems and issues identified by the study.
All recommendations should follow on from the evidence that has been presented in the Report.
References
All references must be clearly listed in alphabetical order based on the Harvard Referencing System only.
Submission Dates
Full-Time Students
You should aim to complete your dissertation by end of July, the year after you commence your studies, for this to be marked twice and seen by the external examiner in time for results to be presented at the September examination board.
Year 1 of Study (100% of lectures will be completed this academic year)
Sept Begin MSc Food Science & Technology Degree Programme
Sep-January to complete proposal and ethics
Submit your research proposal and ethics form (with any relevant accompanying paperwork, e.g. participant questionnaire, participant information sheet, participant consent form)
On receipt of your protocol, your research supervisor and another will mark your work and provide feedback. The consideration of your proposal may involve a request for further information, clarification or a resubmission of the protocol.
Data collection cannot start until ethical approval has been obtained.
Jan Begin WRIT2 research and data collection
May all research and data gathering be completed. If you are working in the lab, you should finish all your lab work by the end of April.
May- June- Jul: discuss your progress on your research with your supervisor. Get advice and prepare for the submission of your dissertation (research project) in July
July Submission of WRIT2 final research paper electronic copy to TurnItIn only. No hard copy is required for submission. Research marks will be discussed in the September exam board. If retrieval requires it will be discussed in the next exam board, which is in February following year.
Part-time students
You should aim to complete your dissertation by the end of August, two years after you commence your studies, for this to be marked twice and seen by the external examiner in time for results to be presented at the September examination board.
Year 1 of Study
Sept Begin MSc Food Science & Technology Degree Programme
You do not have to complete any work this academic year for your research project.
Year 2 of Study
Sept Begin final year of MSc Food Science & Technology Degree Programme
Oct Discuss your ideas/proposals for your dissertation research with the Programme Director. You are encouraged to try and submit your protocol as soon as you feel you have identified a suitable topic area. NB: ethics application should also be submitted with your protocol as you are unable to conduct any research that involves human participants until you have received documented ethical approval.
January: Submit your research protocol and ethics form (with any relevant accompanying paperwork, e.g. participant questionnaire, participant information sheet, participant consent form)
On receipt of your protocol, your research supervisor and another will mark your work and provide feedback. The consideration of your proposal may involve a request for further information, clarification or a resubmission of the protocol.
May all research and data gathering be completed.
Jul Submission of draft dissertation for supervisor comments
July Submission of WRIT3 final research paper electronic copy to TurnItIn only. No hard copy is required for submission.
