EMA
Project Guide
How to use the Project Guide
The Project Guide takes you through the steps necessary to complete your project (i.e. the end-of-module assessment, or ‘EMA’) and provides details about how you will be assessed. It will help you reconsider the work that you carried out for TMAs 03 and 04, and use this reflection to develop a research project.
Read the guidance and complete the project preparation grid. As you do so, remember to refer to tutor comments about your research topic and literature review. We suggest that you discuss your project ideas with your tutor before you start to write up your work.
Learning outcomes
On completion of your project, you should be able to:
Introduction to the project
The examinable component for this module is the design of a small-scale research project, focusing on children and/or young people, which builds on the work you carried out for TMA 03, i.e. a small literature review. The project consists of three parts: an introduction (Part 1), a methodology proposal (Part 2) and an evaluation of the potential relevance of your project (Part 3). The introduction to your project will link back to the work you carried out for TMA 03, and your consideration of previous literature and rationale for the project will inform your choice of methodology. This will in turn lead onto your evaluation section. The project length is 3000 words (excluding reference lists but including any appendices).
A small-scale research project should be understood as one which could be undertaken in a period of a year or less by a part-time student, who is employed full-time, taking occasional time off work. It can be compared to the research projects undertaken by some part-time undergraduate and Masters students in other institutions.
Note: you are not expected to include appendices. However, if there is material that you feel would be more appropriate in an appendix, rather than in one of the three parts, remember that the word length of the appendix will contribute to the 3000 word length of the EMA. The appendix should follow the reference list for the appropriate section of the EMA.
The three parts should have different word lengths. We suggest the following as a guideline:
Although the number of words for each section is for guidance only, it is likely that if you choose to ‘borrow’ words from one section to increase the allowance for another you may find it difficult to adequately fulfil the requirements for the section you have borrowed from.
You are strongly advised to keep to the word length of the EMA (3000 words). If your EMA exceeds this length by more than ten per cent, the marker will award a mark based only on content up to that point. No credit can be given for any content more than ten per cent beyond the specified overall word limit. Detailed guidance is provided on how to approach each part of the project later in this guide.
Important note: you will NOT collect any data as part of your project. This EMA is a project proposal ONLY. You will not carry out the project but will demonstrate how it could be carried out in order to answer your research questions.
Submitting your project
Your project will be submitted electronically using the eTMA system. You must upload your work onto the eTMA system by midday on the cut-off date. You can find this date in the Assessment Guide or on the study planner. Four to six weeks before the EMA cut-off date, you will be sent an email to remind you of both the cut-off date, and the advice available on the ‘Submitting an End of Module Assessment (EMA)’ webpage. You should read this advice carefully – it will give you full details of how to submit your work, what to do if serious circumstances have affected your performance, or what to do if you cannot submit the work before the cut-off date.
Full details of how to submit your work, what to do if serious circumstances have affected your performance, or what to do if you cannot submit the work before the cut-off date is available on the Exams and EMAs website.
You will also need to resubmit a copy of your marked TMA 03 when you submit your project. This is so that the Examinations and Assessment Board can check that your project has clearly been informed by the work that you carried out for TMA 03. Ensure that you zip both files together and submit just one file to the eTMA system, containing your marked TMA 03, and your final EMA. Instructions on how to do this are contained within the document ‘Information for Student Submitting Examinable Work Electronically’, mentioned above.
If you find that you are unable to submit your EMA owing to serious circumstances beyond your control, or you think special circumstances have seriously affected your performance, certain options may be available. In these cases you need to submit information to the University, with supporting evidence, by the day after the cut-off date. For further information see the Special circumstances section of the Assessment website and for detailed information see Sections 3.6–3.9 of the Assessment Handbook.
Resubmissions
Please note that if your project does not reach the required standard to pass the examinable component, you may resubmit a reworked version of your original project, taking account of the guidance feedback provided by the Examination and Assessment Board. The resubmission cut-off date will be sent to you with your results if you do not reach the pass standard. Resubmitted projects can only receive a pass grade of 40% unless special circumstances seriously affected performance. For further information see the Special circumstances section of the Assessment website and for detailed information see Sections 3.6–3.9 of the Assessment Handbook.
Assessment criteria
The project will take account of the learning outcomes for the module given in the Guide to EK313.
The project guide outlines what is expected in terms of the content and issues to be addressed in your project. Detailed marking criteria can be found at the end of this guide.
How your project will be marked
Twenty-five per cent of the marks will be awarded for the introduction, fifty per cent for the methodology proposal and twenty-five per cent for the evaluation. An independent marker will mark your project and give it an overall score out of 100. Refer back to Table 1 in Section 2 of the Assessment Guide, which gives the weighting assigned to the EMA when your OAS is calculated.
The University scale (below) shows how scores relate to result statuses. However, the Examination and Assessment Board does have some discretion in establishing the criteria for the different result statuses. The result status that you are awarded for the module (Pass 1 to 4 or Fail (entitled to resubmit)) may ultimately contribute to the class of your honours degree.
You are reminded that plagiarism is taken very seriously by the University and can result in a zero score being awarded. Detailed guidance about what constitutes plagiarism is given in the Assessment Guide. You should note that students who make extensive and unacknowledged use of material from published articles or other sources in their projects, including the work of other students from this year or previous years, will be referred to the relevant disciplinary committee.
At this stage, you should reread your TMA 03 and remind yourself of the topic area that you focused on and the conclusions that you reached. It would also be advisable to reread the guidance given in the Assessment Guide for the preparation of your TMA 03.
Now read through the following planning grid (a Microsoft Word version of the planning grid is also available). Completing the grid will help you to focus your ideas about your chosen project topic and work them into a project proposal that can be written up and submitted for this EMA.
The grid is to help your planning and note taking. You do not have to complete all of the sections at the same time. The grid is linked to the three parts of the EMA:
To help you to choose a relevant research question(s) you should read and complete section 1A ‘Reviewing the literature’, using your findings from TMA 03 to help you. For TMA 03, we asked you to carry out a small literature review on a topic of your choice, relevant to the study of children and young people. It is likely that, when carrying out this review of literature, you realised where there were gaps in knowledge and where you might be able to locate a research study of your own. When you have finished considering your literature review, you should be able to complete section 1B ‘Identifying research questions’ and consider what you could do for this EMA.
You cannot begin designing your methodology (Parts 2A–C) until you have identified specific research questions, since different questions will need different approaches. You will need to refer to the module materials and the literature that you have reviewed when you work through Parts 2A–C of the grid. This is important because you will need to ensure that you make reference to relevant literature throughout your EMA, not simply in the literature review you completed for TMA 03. It is important that you explain and evaluate your methodology in relation to the academic debates you have looked at throughout the module. You will find notes about the process of designing your methodology in ‘Writing up the EMA – Part 2: Methodology proposal’ in this Project Guide. You should read these notes before completing Part 2 of the grid.
Once you have worked through how you propose to collect and analyse the data needed to answer your research questions, you can start thinking about the potential relevance of your proposed research in Part 3. As with your methodology proposal, you should refer to the module materials and the literature you have reviewed in evaluating the relevance of your proposed research. It is important that you cite these materials in your discussion in the third part of your EMA. You will find notes about the process of evaluating your project in ‘Writing up the EMA – Part 3: Evaluation of the potential relevance of your proposed study’ in this Project Guide. You should read these notes before completing Part 3 of the grid.
After you have completed Part 3 of the grid, you should be able to decide on a final title for your proposed research project. It should be reasonably concise and give the examiner a good idea about the focus and aims of your proposed project. You will then be able to use the notes that you have made in this grid (in combination with the more detailed notes you will have made about the materials you have read) to help you to write up your EMA. We recommend that you discuss your plans with your tutor before beginning the write-up process. The planning grid is part of the examinable component (EMA) and your tutor can only offer general advice and not respond to specific detail.
| Planning grid |
| Part 1A: Reviewing the literature |
| What are the strengths of the existing literature?
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| Are there any gaps in the existing literature (areas that have yet to be researched)?
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| Are there any areas where the existing literature can be extended?
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| Part 1B: Identifying research questions |
| What are my research questions?
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| Are these research questions answerable?
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| How do these questions relate to the literature that I have reviewed?
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| Part 2: Methodology proposal
(See the guidance in the following section, ‘Writing up the EMA – Part 2: Methodology proposal’) |
| Part 2A: Collecting data |
| What kinds of data will I need to answer my research questions?
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| How will this data allow me to answer my research questions?
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| What methods can I use to collect this data?
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| What size will my research sample be?
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| How long will it take me to collect this data?
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| Where will I collect this data?
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| Are there any practical problems that might prevent me from collecting this data?
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| What are the ethical considerations in collecting this data?
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| How can I adapt my methods in response to these practical and ethical problems?
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| Part 2B: Age considerations |
| What age will my participants be (from the age range birth to eighteen years)?
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| How can I adapt my methods to make them suitable for use with this age group?
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| What are the ethical considerations when working with children in this age group?
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| Part 2C: Analysing data |
| How will I analyse the data I gather?
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| How will this analysis allow me to answer my research questions?
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| How long will it take me to analyse my data?
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| Part 3: Evaluation of the potential relevance of your proposed study
(See the guidance in the following section, ‘Writing up the EMA – Part 3: Evaluation of the potential relevance of your proposed study’) |
| Why does my research project matter?
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| What are the limitations of my potential findings?
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| Who are the audiences for my research project?
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| What does each of these audiences need to know about the research?
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| How can these audiences be reached?
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| Are there any ethical issues with disseminating this research?
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| Are there any practical issues with disseminating this research?
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| Final title for my proposed research project: |
You are required to introduce your chosen topic area, linking back to your TMA 03 and justifying your decisions. The guideline length for this section is 500 words (excluding references).
The following questions may help guide you through this section:
Your literature review should lead you to one or more reasonably well-defined research questions. You need to identify a question from your literature review, and consider whether it is descriptive or explanatory. You may require hypotheses if you are planning to investigate the area quantitatively; you will not need hypotheses if you are going to design a qualitative project.
So, for example, in the topic area of ‘Children and Young People and Mental Health Issues’, you might be interested in the absentee rates at school of children and young people who experience mental health issues. One way of approaching this question might be to state a hypothesis, e.g. Children and young people who experience mental health issues do not have high attendance rates at school. This is a testable hypothesis and you would need to identify an appropriate (quantitative) method to find out whether the hypothesis is or is not supported.
Alternatively, you may choose to approach the topic area in a more open-ended, qualitative way. You might want to investigate the question: ‘What are the school experiences of children and young people who have a parent with a mental health issue?’ Answering this question would not require a hypothesis because it primarily seeks to deepen knowledge and understanding about the ways in which children and young people experience school if they have a parent with a mental health issue.
The table below sets out the different approaches to research, using the example topic of children and young people and mental health issues. You may find that you can more fully appreciate the differences between approaches by seeing them in table format.
Add a list of references, taking note to use the referencing system ‘Cite Them Right’, as explained in Section 5.6 of the Assessment Guide. The list of references is not counted in the 500 words suggested for Part 1 of the EMA.
You are required to produce a methodology proposal for your chosen research topic. The guideline length for this is 2000 words (excluding references).
The purpose of this part of your project is to design a study to investigate the research questions identified in Part 1 of this EMA. The strategies that you devise and the methods you choose must be appropriate for the task of answering your specific research questions. Ask yourself what you want to achieve. Are you trying to evaluate something, explain something, deepen understanding of something or bring about change? What do you need to find out in order to answer your questions, and what methods will you use to collect this information? Whom do you need to obtain the information from, and where are these individuals to be found? What are the ethical considerations? How long will it realistically take to gather the information, analyse it and write up the report?
In developing your methodology proposal there are several issues that you need to consider. These are set out in the following subsections.
Since the range and scope of research methods is extensive, you should give due consideration to the most appropriate, given your research questions: to help with this, you may want to revisit Block 2 of the module. You could also reflect on some of the research studies described in Section 3 of the Module Reader and in the Research Articles Collection, and try to imagine doing the same study using a different method.
For example, would it have been more or less appropriate for Christou and Spyrou (2012) to have carried out and video-recorded group interviews with Cypriot children in school, rather than individual mapping, drawing and talking methods in their homes? What would have been the advantages and disadvantages of Holland et al. (2010) undertaking their study with 25 looked-after young people, rather than eight? Would increasing or decreasing the length of the data-collection period have made any significant difference to the results of either of these studies? In a similar manner, consider the different ways in which you could explore the questions that you have identified. Is one approach more appropriate than another? Are different approaches likely to offer different information? Should you consider using several approaches or just one? Once you have decided on a particular approach or approaches, make sure you can justify it/them.
Researchers need to consider the context in which they undertake their research and how this will affect the quality of the data they collect. In Clark’s study (described in Chapter 12 of the Guide to EK313), some of her interviews or ‘child-conferencing’ with young children take place on the move as children lead her around their nursery. The child-led tours gave children a second opportunity to talk as they walked around, revealing more details about what was important to them; the children may not have discussed some of these insights if a formal interview had been conducted in a classroom or an office. Think about where you will collect your data and whether the context is likely to have an impact on the research questions or the validity of the data. For example, if you are investigating adult–child power relationships using a focus group, it may affect the validity of the data if the focus group takes place in the head teacher’s office, as the children may feel inhibited in this context.
Sampling is an important aspect of all research, irrespective of the methodology chosen. The size of sample determines the extent to which generalisations can be made from the findings. Therefore, when preparing your methodology proposal, consider how many participants you will need in your sample in order to answer your research question(s). For example, if you want to find out about communication skills in families with deaf and hearing children, you will need to involve more than one family. Equally, you will need to be realistic about what you can achieve. If you chose, for example, to look at bullying and peer mentoring, it would be unrealistic to propose a national survey. However, you could propose a survey involving the same year group in three primary schools in different local authorities.
The way in which a sample is put together also has implications for the outcomes. Snowball sampling, in which participants (e.g. of a small or hard-to-reach group) help the researcher locate further participants whom they know, is likely to yield different data from random sampling.
You also need to consider how you will find and access your sample – for example, you might plan to access participants through schools, youth groups or childcare centres. In each of these cases you would need to consider how to approach the school or organisation. If you work with children or in a related area, you might be able to use your existing networks to help with access. In all these situations, you need to think about practical considerations and ethical issues. For example, if you plan to carry out research in a setting where you work, you would need to consider whether your existing position might affect how children react to you, or whether children or parents might feel unable to refuse to participate in the study.
How will you approach your data collection? You have covered a range of possible tools for gathering data in this module. There are three main strategies for selecting cases for research: case study (in which a relatively small number of cases is investigated in detail), survey (in which a relatively large number of cases is investigated, usually in a standard format such as a questionnaire), and experiment (in which a situation is set up and tightly controlled by the researcher in order to investigate an explanatory question). In addition to considering case selection, you will want to consider which types of data you will use, from the three different types of data available to researchers (observation, accounts elicited by the researcher and pre-existing artefacts like documents). You will also want to consider whether to use a quantitative, qualitative or mixed-method approach. The table at the end of this section highlights some potential differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches to a particular research area, and addresses the sorts of issues that you will need to consider within this section in particular.
You should provide a rationale for your methodology, and it may be that you have a better theoretical understanding of your chosen method than others. Any data-collection techniques you propose must be feasible within the time frame of the study and the constraints of resources. If building rapport with participants is a central feature of your methodology, it must be built into the time frame. Chapter 6 of the Module Reader discusses the different elements of research design in detail, and you may want to return to this chapter and the notes you made for Unit 7 when considering how to design your project.
You may find it helpful to organise your methodology proposal according to the following structure. You will probably find that you need to write more in some sections than in others.
Explain how you will select your sample and why the number of participants you choose is appropriate to your research question(s). Describe where you will find your sample and how you will approach negotiating access to these participants. Discuss whether the proposed sample elicits any ethical issues, either in relation to the participants’ age or status, or in terms of access arrangements. Discuss any implications that the location/context might impose on your study.
Discuss the methodological tool(s) you propose to use to collect your data, and provide a rationale for why these are particularly appropriate, given your research question(s). This could usefully include reference to other studies in the literature that you have read for your project, or to module material in which similar methods have been used successfully or unsuccessfully. It is important to discuss methods that you considered and rejected, since this will strengthen your rationale. Describe how you would adapt (if necessary) any of these tools to suit the participants in your sample. If you are using multiple methods, it is important to state how and why these methods will relate to each other. Is your choice of method ethically problematic in any way?
Although you will not actually collect any data, you should outline how you would need to process and analyse the data required to answer your research questions. You must explain how analysing the data in this way would enable you to answer your research questions. For example, if you are gathering quantitative data, will you use descriptive statistics (as in Camfield’s use of quantitative data that you examined in Unit 16), or will you need to use inferential statistics to investigate relationships between variables (as discussed by Rolleston in Chapter 14 of the Module Reader)? For qualitative research projects, you ought to explain how you would code your data, and what sort of analytical techniques you might use (e.g. the ‘grounded theory’ as used by Smith in Chapter 11 of the Module Reader, or the life history and thematic analysis techniques used by Hearn and Thomson in Chapter 9).
You may find it useful here to review your notes from Units 7.
Indicate how long you anticipate the different stages of the research will take. This might include the time for selecting and/or developing and piloting materials, identifying participants and arranging access and consent, familiarisation, and collecting and analysing the data. You should bear in mind that it is very easy to underestimate how long it will take to collect and analyse data in a research project.
You may prefer to deal with ethical issues as you write each section, or you may prefer to address them in a separate section. At every stage of the research process, however, you should consider the implications of what you plan to do and the effect that it might have on the research participants. You need to include clear and specific details on what ethical issues might arise and how you will deal with them. You may find it helpful to reread Alderson’s chapter in the Module Reader (Chapter 5) before planning your project in detail, as well as review the questions that you completed for Unit 5 Activity 3, which are repeated below.
Add a list of references, taking note to use the referencing system ‘Cite Them Right’, as explained in Section 5.6 of the Assessment Guide. The list of references is not counted in the 2000 words suggested for Part 2 of the EMA. The literature review section of your project is not the only place you are expected to make reference to relevant literatures. In the methodology section you would be expected to refer to appropriate texts, primarily from the module materials (but also from the wider literatures covered in your literature review), in order to demonstrate that your proposed method is not only appropriate and ethical but also grounded in the literature.
Table outlining different approaches to research
The above table gives some examples of issues that you might consider in two different approaches to a similar topic, although it is not meant to cover all relevant issues in detail. If you were carrying out this example project within an early years setting, possible research questions could include: ‘What are the nursery experiences of young children who have a parent with mental health issues?’ (as a descriptive question for a qualitative research topic) or ‘Young children with a parent with mental health issues do not take up nursery places’ (as a hypothesis for a quantitative research topic).
Do remember that this table is provided as an example only. Although you may choose to use the same topic area, you must not choose either of the research questions addressed above.
You are required to produce an evaluation of the potential relevance of your proposed study to policy, practice and research. The guideline length for this is 500 words (excluding references).
The purpose of the final part of your project is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the project you have outlined and to assess its potential relevance to particular groups of research users. You are also expected to design an appropriate and realistic strategy for disseminating the (potential) findings of the project to the groups of research users you identify for it. In a sense, you are asked to write a ‘post-findings’ section to your project, even though your findings are potential rather than actual.
In evaluating your proposed project and developing a suitable dissemination plan, there are a number of issues that you need to consider. These are set out below. You may also find it useful to refer to the general guidance on planning and writing assignments in the Assessment Guide when writing this part of the EMA, in addition to revisiting Block 4 in the Study Guide and rereading the Module Reader chapters by Robb (Chapter 15), Ruxton (Chapter 16), Pascal and Bertram (Chapter 17) and Mann, Liley and Kellett (Chapter 18).
You will need to explain and justify clearly why the research project that you propose to carry out is significant. There is no single, universal set of criteria by which to judge how and whether research matters. Research projects can be important and relevant in all kinds of different ways. You should consider the ways in which the research project relates to:
You will already have begun to explain the value of your proposed topic in the literature review that you wrote up for TMA 03. In Part 3, you will need to evaluate the significance of your proposed topic in more detail and explain how the project is important and relevant to particular groups of research users.
It is important to remember that a research project does not have to relate to all of these areas in order to be significant. For example, a small-scale action research project may set out to explore and improve an aspect of practice in a particular setting. This can still be important, even if the project does not directly contribute to wider debates or set out to change policy. Similarly, a research project might contribute to quite abstract theoretical debates in academia. This kind of research will be useful to other academic researchers and it will have significance in the ways in which it is picked up in future research. This is important, even if the research cannot directly influence policy or practice.
You will have noticed that the authors of many of the research papers you have read (both in the Module Reader and in the research articles you have studied) carefully identify and explain the limitations of their study. The results of a study may be affected by the sample used, the location in which the research takes place, the methods used, the way in which the data have been analysed, or several other factors. Any or all of these factors can affect the extent to which researchers can generalise from their findings and make claims about the relevance of their study to particular user groups. It is only by critically reflecting on the design of your proposed study that you will be able to evaluate realistically the potential relevance of your project. You will have begun to do this as part of explaining and justifying your methodology in Part 2 of the EMA. In Part 3, you will need to think about how the limitations of your project affect its significance.
Just as research can be important and relevant in many different ways, it can be relevant to a range of different audiences. Possible audiences for your project could include:
The findings of a research project are unlikely to be useful to all of these groups in exactly the same way. Different audiences have different needs, interests and agendas. For example, practitioners may be interested in concrete ideas that will help them to improve aspects of their practice; policymakers may be interested in evidence that suggests that a particular policy has or has not been successful in achieving its aims; and academic researchers may be interested in the ways in which a research project develops or challenges theoretical ideas in their field. Each of these different needs, interests and agendas will influence how the research needs to be communicated to a particular audience. You should carefully consider what information would be useful to each of the audiences that you have identified so that you can design a strategy that communicates appropriate information to the relevant audiences in a way that will be useful to them.
Think about the research covered in Section 3 of the Module Reader, and the studies in the Research Articles Collection. All of them have relevance to policy or practice and all, in some way, deepen our understanding of the groups of children and young people who participated. For example, the Mosaic approach developed by Clark (2011[2001]) had particular relevance to practitioners working in early years settings but it is also relevant to other professionals interested in listening to young children’s experiences of their day-to-day lives. Subsequent studies using the Mosaic approach have developed these ideas to work with young children and adults in order to redesign outdoor play spaces (Clark and Moss, 2005) and in the designing and reviewing of schools and children’s centres (Clark, 2010). Clark’s research is also useful to other researchers as it provides a useful methodological framework that can be used and adapted in other projects investigating areas of young children’s lives. It is also important to remember that Clark’s project was designed to benefit the individual children and practitioners who participated in the study and to evaluate the Coram Community Campus. In this way, the project had relevance for the community in which the service was based, as well as for audiences and communities beyond.
You need to have a clear idea of who the potential users of a particular research project are before you can design a strategy to disseminate the results of that project. It is also important to remember that a research project does not have to be directly relevant to everyone in order to be useful and important. A successful dissemination and engagement strategy does not simply try to reach as many people as possible; it tries to reach those to whom the results of the research are interesting and useful. Different audiences will get information in a range of different ways. You need to think about how and where these audiences can be reached. For example, researchers might produce a short research report or a presentation to feed the results of their research to the participants (and their parents). This may or may not be appropriate, depending on the context of the research and the age and/or abilities of the participants. As you have found in your work for Block 4 and in writing TMA 04, dissemination is not just about writing a report. Other methods include oral presentations, online dissemination, using social media to engage with audiences, in-service feedback to colleagues, rewriting policy documents, training colleagues, starting up a support group, and demonstrating your findings through your actions (e.g. by implementing a teaching approach that you have evaluated). The list is almost endless.
You should also consider the problems with and the different agendas within particular avenues for dissemination. For example, media outlets have their own editorial aims (and often political goals) which could ‘spin’ your research in ways in which you did not intend. You need to think carefully about the best way to ensure that the correct information reaches the relevant audiences.
Ethics remain an issue for researchers even after the process of data collection has been completed. Researchers have a dual responsibility to their participants in the process of disseminating research. They need to ensure that they have not wasted their participants’ time unnecessarily. Part of this is ensuring that the results of research are properly disseminated, so that they can be taken up and used in appropriate ways. At the same time, researchers have a responsibility to ensure that their participants will not be hurt, damaged or disadvantaged because of the ways in which the results of their research were disseminated. It is important that information about the research is communicated accurately and that researchers consider the ways in which dissemination will impact on the participants. You need to think carefully about any ethical issues that may arise from your dissemination strategy.
There are many different ways in which you could structure your evaluation. You may find the following structure useful in thinking about how to meet the requirements of the task in Part 3 of your EMA.
You could begin your evaluation by discussing how the general topic area that you have chosen is situated in terms of policy, practice and research. Once you have done this, you can explain the importance of your specific research question(s) within this topic area. It might help to imagine that you are trying to get funding for your project, and that you have to persuade funders of your study’s potential benefits. You will already have covered much of this ground in the literature review that you carried out for TMA 03, so you should very briefly summarise your points here. The suggested word allowance for the whole of Part 3 is 500 words, requiring you to write clearly and succinctly.
In the next part of your evaluation, you should explain the significance of the research project, and identify the audiences to whom the research is relevant. It will not be sufficient simply to describe the significance in general terms; you will need to explain how and why it is significant to particular groups of research users. You may want to use subheadings to indicate clearly who the potential audiences for your findings are. You should also consider the limitations of your proposed research and how these affect the potential relevance of the project. For example, your project may be highly context-specific or limited to a very particular group of people. This will affect the extent to which they can be generalised and, therefore, the wider significance of the project. It is worth remembering that research can still be important even if it is relevant only in very specific ways and to very specific audiences.
You will need to outline and justify clearly a suitable and realistic dissemination strategy for the potential results of your project. Do not simply list and describe each element within the broader strategy. You should explain how and why the different elements within the strategy will enable you to communicate the results of the research effectively and usefully to the audiences that you have identified. You will also need to evaluate critically each of the elements within your strategy. This means that you should think about the strategy’s potential practical and ethical problems, and show that you are aware of the limits of what you can achieve as a researcher. It is important that you remember to include the feedback that you would give to your research participants as part of your dissemination strategy.
You should end your evaluation with a clear conclusion which draws together the points you have made about the relevance of your proposed research to specific audiences, and how you have proposed to reach them. You may also want to highlight any possible aspects of your project that might be further developed in the future.
Add a list of references, taking note to use the referencing system ‘Cite Them Right’, as explained in Section 5.6 of the Assessment Guide. The list of references is not counted in the suggested 500 words for Part 3 of the EMA. As with the methodology section, you should try to ground the discussion of the relevance and dissemination of your proposed research in the appropriate literature. This is likely to be drawn primarily from the module materials.
Alderson, P. (2014) ‘Ethics’ in Clark, A., Flewitt, R., Hammersley, M. and Robb, M. (eds) Understanding Research with Children and Young People. London:Sage in association with The Open University
Camfield, L. (2012) ‘Resilience and well-being among urban Ethiopian children: What role do social resources and competencies play?’, Social Indicators Research, vol. 107, pp. 393–410
Christou, M. and Spyrou, S. (2012) ‘Border encounters: How children navigate space and otherness in an ethnically divided society’, Childhood, 19(3), pp. 302–16.
Clark, A. (2010) Transforming Children’s Spaces: Children’s and adults’ participation in designing learning environments. London: Routledge.
Clark, A. and Moss, P. (2011) Listening to Young Children: The Mosaic approach (2nd edn.). London: National Children’s Bureau.
Clark, A. and Moss, P. (2005) Spaces to Play: More listening to young children using the Mosaic approach. London: National Children’s Bureau.
Clark, A., Flewitt, R., Hammersley, M. and Robb, M. (eds) (2014) Understanding Research with Children and Young People. London: Sage in association with The Open University.
Henderson, S. and Thomson, R. (2014), ‘Inventing adulthoods: A qualitative longitudinal study of growing up’ in Clark, A., Flewitt, R., Hammersley, M. and Robb, M. (eds) Understanding Research with Children and Young People. London: Sage in association with The Open University.
Holland, S., Renold, E., Ross, N. and Hillman, A. (2010) ‘Power, agency and participatory agendas: A critical exploration of young people’s engagement in participative qualitative research’, Childhood, 17(3), pp. 360–75.
Mann, A., Lilley, J. and Kellett, M. (2014) ‘Engaging children and young people in research’ in Clark, A., Flewitt, R., Hammersley, M. and Robb, M. (eds) Understanding Research with Children and Young People. London: Sage in association with The Open University.
Pascal, C. and Bertram, T. (2014) ‘Transformative dialogues: The impact of participatory research on practice’. ibid.
Rolleston, C. (2014) ‘Young Lives: Reflections on quantitative research in education within a longitudinal international study’. ibid.
Robb, M. (2014) ‘Disseminating research: Shaping the conversation’. ibid.
Ruxton, S. (2014) ‘Achieving policy impact: researching children’s issues at EU level’. ibid.
Appendix
Sample EMAs and suggestions for using them
The EMA is a substantial piece of work and students frequently ask if it is possible to see an example of a complete EMA in order to gain a better understanding of what is expected. The two sample EMAs that are provided should not be viewed as examples of what you are aiming to achieve, but rather are provided to give you an opportunity to consider what was done well and what could have been done better. Please note that both EMAs have been through the plagiarism software used by The Open University and you should not use them as templates for your own work.
Using the sample EMAs
There are a number of different ways to use the sample EMAs. The following suggestion is one approach. You may find that your tutor suggests others.
One way to use the sample EMAs is to read them imagining that you are one of the EMA markers. Ask yourself to what extent the authors have met the criteria for each part of the EMA – refer to the marking criteria. Allocate a mark out of 100 for each section of the EMA.
Consider what the authors could have done better. Are there points that need clarifying? Is some material repeated? Is the presentation clear? Could you do the proposed research using the information given?
Look at the notes on the suggested structure for each section of the EMA. How might you have written the section differently? What would you omit? What would you include that is not present?
Look at the format of the EMA. Does it follow the guidelines? Does each section have its own word count and reference list? Do references follow the OU Library Harvard guidelines? Are there any obvious grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors?
Review the mark you allocated for each section of the EMA. Having considered the sample in more depth, would you revise your mark?
Having read and considered the sample EMAs, what will you try to emulate and what will you do differently?
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