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500 words
Reflective Account – Data Collection Practices
This individual assessment requires students to complete practical data collection exercises and write a 400–500 word reflective account based on their experience. The assessment is designed to develop understanding of different data collection methods and encourage students to connect the practical exercises completed in the laboratory with research methods and concepts covered during lectures. Students are required to complete two main types of data collection practice. The first involves questionnaire tests, which students attend during their allocated practical sessions. The second involves a series of recorded interaction exercises involving ChatGPT and human participants. Students must follow the supplied study instructions, use the specified prompts where required, record the requested activities using a camera such as a phone, and upload the relevant files to a designated OneDrive folder. The briefing also requires students to complete and sign the participant consent form and submit it with their collected data. The reflective account should summarise the methods learned during the module lectures and the methods exercised during the laboratory sessions. Students should demonstrate their overall understanding of how data collection works, why data collection is important in research, and how knowledge of data collection methods can be improved through practical experience. The reflection must address several key research and methodological questions. Students should explain how they would design a research question based on the collected data and identify the PICO elements relevant to the research. They should discuss what type of research could be conducted using the data and define an example of a machine learning problem that could be investigated. The reflection should also consider the participant experience by identifying areas of the data collection process that could be improved. Students are additionally asked to consider how they would design a similar data collection project themselves and whether they would make any changes to the methods, procedures or participant experience. The assessment therefore combines practical experience with critical reflection on research design, data collection, research questions, PICO, machine learning applications and methodological improvement. The final reflective account is a Canvas submission and should remain within the specified 400–500 word range. The assessment briefing states that students are marked based on the submitted report, making the reflective account the primary assessed component of the activity.
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Computer Science / Research Methods
500 words
Interim Report: Systematic Literature Review Research Protocol
This postgraduate computer science assignment requires students to prepare an Interim Report establishing the research protocol for a systematic literature review. The assessment focuses on whether the proposed research question is suitable for computer science research, clearly formulated, appropriately motivated by existing literature, and capable of being investigated through a systematic review. The main body of the report must not exceed 500 words, while supporting evidence may be provided separately where appropriate. The report is structured around three main chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the selected research area and summarises the purpose and structure of the report. Chapter 2 provides relevant background and a brief history of the chosen research domain, identifies the problem being addressed, and supports the discussion with at least two relevant academic citations. Chapter 3 presents the formal Literature Review Protocol, including the research question, its context, and the associated PICO elements: Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome. Students must also develop and test a Boolean search string using IEEE Xplore and report the number of papers returned by that search. The search strategy is accompanied by explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria governing which studies will be considered for the review. The supplied protocol template requires students to document these elements through two structured tables: one covering the research question and PICO framework, and another recording the search string, paper count, and study-selection criteria. The assessment places significant emphasis on methodological consistency. The research question, PICO elements, search strategy, paper count and inclusion/exclusion criteria must align logically with one another. Students are also assessed on the justification and motivation of the research question, document structure, presentation quality, spelling, grammar and academic referencing. The report must include a title page, table of contents, bibliography and the required research-protocol tables. Harvard referencing is required for both in-text citations and the final reference list. Overall, the assignment develops the foundational skills required for conducting a rigorous systematic literature review, including research-question formulation, structured evidence searching, transparent study-selection procedures, academic justification and professional research reporting.
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Computer Science
1,700 words
Systematic Literature Review — Final Report with Data Extraction and Synthesis
A Research Methods final report at postgraduate computer science level is a systematic literature review written to a defined protocol. Unlike an essay, the method itself is assessed: markers re-run the student's search string and check that the number of papers returned matches what the report claims, so the process must be reproducible rather than merely described. The report is typically built in five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the research area and states that a literature review is the chosen method. Chapter 2 gives the background, with citations behind every claim or assertion. Chapter 3 sets out the research protocol — the research question decomposed through PICO (population, intervention, comparison, outcome), the search string, and explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria. Chapter 4 presents the results: a data extraction table holding direct quotations and references from each included paper, followed by a data synthesis table that groups those extractions into cross-cutting themes. Chapter 5 concludes by answering the research question from the Chapter 4 evidence alone. Several requirements catch students out. The word limit applies to the main body only — tables, figures, references and appendices sit outside it, which changes how the argument should be distributed. Screenshots and supplementary search strings belong in appendices, not the body. Where an interim report has already been submitted and marked, the final report must visibly incorporate that formative feedback rather than reproduce the earlier chapters unchanged. File naming and file completeness are often mark-bearing in their own right, with missing files scored at zero. Presentation carries weight too: consistent heading and font usage, labelled tables and figures, and error-free spelling and punctuation. The most common conceptual error is treating Chapter 4 as a narrative summary of each paper in turn. A synthesis groups evidence by theme across papers and answers the question; a summary walks through the reading list. A related error is a research question that the background has not motivated — the introduction and background should make the question feel necessary before the protocol formalises it. Our support on assessments of this type is guidance-based. Typical areas of help include: explaining how to decompose a research question using PICO, reviewing whether a search string is syntactically valid and whether inclusion criteria genuinely follow from the question, showing how extraction tables feed into synthesis tables, clarifying Harvard referencing conventions, checking report structure and formatting against the specification, and reviewing a completed draft against the published marking criteria before submission.
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