OFFICE OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Reference No. : XMUM.OAA - 100/2/8-V3.0

Effective Date : 1 JUNE 2023

DESCRIPTION OF COURSEWORK

Course Code SEM208

Course Name Research Methodology
Lecturer Chenli Yin, Normala S.Govindarajo
Academic Session September 2023
Assessment Title Assessment

A. Introduction/ Situation/ Background Information

This course is to provide the students with a framework for conducting research in systematic
manner in all Quantitative and Qualitative research in all area of business, finance, and
accounting. It will introduce the various research methods and students will be exposed to
practical experience in data collection and data analysis. It is also designed for students to learn
the art of presenting research idea and findings in informative way. Mainly it will help students
to conduct in depth study for their thesis.

B. Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) covered

At the end of this assessment, students are able to:
CLO 1 Develop understanding about research in business, finance, and accounting, finding
existing literature, understanding the research gap, making students to think their own
research topics and explore their research interests.
CLO 2 Enabling students to conduct research work, application and formulating research
report from various methodologies and statistical analysis.
CLO 3 Students should be able to create various kinds of research designs and apply suitable
research methods in research work, preparing for thesis and group project.

C. University Policy on Academic Misconduct

1. Academic misconduct is a serious offense in Xiamen University Malaysia. It can be defined

as any of the following:

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 i. Plagiarism is submitting or presenting someone else’s work, words, ideas, data or
information as your own intentionally or unintentionally. This includes incorporating
published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form
into your work without acknowledging the source (the person and the work).
ii. Collusion is two or more people collaborating on a piece of work (in part or whole)
which is intended to be wholly individual and passed it off as own individual work.
iii. Cheating is an act of dishonesty or fraud in order to gain an unfair advantage in an
assessment. This includes using or attempting to use, or assisting another to use materials
that are prohibited or inappropriate, commissioning work from a third party, falsifying
data, or breaching any examination rules.

2. All assessments submitted must be the student’s own work, without any materials generated
by AI tools, including direct copying and pasting of text or paraphrasing. Any form of
academic misconduct, including using prohibited materials or inappropriate assistance, is a
serious offense and will result in a zero mark for the entire assessment or part of it. If there is
more than one guilty party, such as in case of collusion, all parties involved will receive the
same penalty.

D. Instruction to Students
1. Each student is required to review 2-3 academic papers each week (Week 3 to Week 10)
and discuss the papers with your tutor during tutorial sessions. The papers must be published
(after 2010) in indexed academic journals (English) that exclude thesis, reports, interviews,
news, etc. The paper review must include the following information: Author (year), research
objective, data (or sample), analysis method, variables (independent variables, dependent
variables, control variables if any), findings, limitations, and comments on the paper if any.

2. General instructions about preparing the research proposal such as font size 12, style Times
New Roman, line spacing 1.5, APA style of references, text should be justified, taking care of
English grammar, less than 20% of plagiarism (>20% will not be accepted), and writing 4,000
words (±5%), including main contents such as Abstract, Introduction, Literature review, Data
and methodology, Expected results, Limitations, Contributions and Recommendations, Time
schedule, list of references, and questionnaire if required for data collection. The research

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proposal covers 50% of your marks and should be submitted via Moodle before Week 11
(Sunday Midnight, 26th November 2023).

3. Installation of statistical software in your own laptops/machines, should be able to run them
adequately, may require continuous availability of the internet, and should be able to perform
basic and some advanced statistical models in that software. The data analysis will cover 30% of
your marks and the quiz will be conducted on Week 14 (18th December 2023).

4. Good communication skills are expected among students and other audiences, students should
defend their research proposal with logical and convincing arguments. It will cover 20% of their
marks. The proposal defense (presentation) will start from Week 11 to Week 15 during tutorial
sessions. Each student has 15 minutes to defend their research proposal, including 10 minutes
of presentation and 5 minutes of Q&A.

E. Evaluation Breakdown
Percentage
No. Component Title
(%)
1. Research Proposal 50
2. Data Analysis 30
3. Proposal defense (presentation) 20
TOTAL 100

F. Task(s)
1. Students are supposed to understand why they need to do research, what is research, how it
can be done, what could be the forms of data, what are econometric models, why these are
necessary, how to apply them in a statistical software, what could be the implications of their
research, what steps should they follow from beginning to an end.

2. Students are supposed to prepare the research proposal under the supervision of their tutorial
in charge. And then contact their potential research supervisor for thesis.

3. Students are supposed to defend their research proposals.

4. Students are supposed to perform different analytical data tasks in a statistical software (e.g
RStudio, SPSS, STATA, E-VIEWS any one should be sufficed, preferred is RStudio)

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 APPENDIX 1
Table 1: Assessment Rubrics for Research Proposal
Component Title Percentage (%) 100%

Score and Descriptors

Criteria Excellent (80-100) Competent (60-79) Needs Improvement (40-59) Incomplete (<40) Weight (%) Marks

A fairly well formulated

An intriguing background
background introduction with
Background and the introduction based on facts Background introduction and significance are Lacks a proper background
some evidence to support the
significance of the lead clearly into the research not well constructed, uninteresting, or do not introduction and significance 10
topic leads into the research
study proposal and significance lead into the research proposal. discussion.
proposal and adequate
discussion.
significance discussion.

Lacks a proper statement of

Fairly well posed statement of
States the research problem Statement of the problem is not clearly stated the problem. Evidence
the problem that provides
Problem Statement clearly, and provides evidence and/or lacks quality evidence to support the presented does not support 10
evidence but the evidence is not
for undertaking the research. problem the research proposal or
as strong as it could be.
problem statement.

Very clearly states objective(s) Fairly well states objective(s) of Lacks objective(s) of the
Objective(s) Objective(s) of the study is not clearly stated. 5
of the study the study study

Demonstrates basic knowledge

Demonstrates basic knowledge
of literature in the area, and of
of literature or prior study in the Unclearly mentions some prior study in the Does not mention any prior
Literature Review prior study on the specific 25
area, but does not mention any area. study, literature, or theories.
research problem. Mentions at
theories.
least 1 theory.

Well states research hypothesis Fairly well states hypothesis

States hypothesis is unclear based on the
Research Hypothesis based on the purpose of the based on the purpose of the Lacks a hypothesis. 10
purpose of the study.
study. study.

Description of data, Description of data, Insufficient information on

instrument(s), and analysis instrument(s), and analysis Description of data, instrument(s), and description of data,
Methods Description 20
methodology are clear and methodology are fairly clear and analysis methodology are clear instrument(s), and analysis
appropriate appropriate. methodology

Papers in reference list are

Papers in reference list are No peer‐reviewed/primary
majorly peer‐reviewed. An
mostly peer‐reviewed. All Some peer‐reviewed papers are in reference scientific papers in reference
References occasional reference may be less 10
papers included are relevant. list. Fairly appropriate APA style is used. list or they are not relevant.
relevant. Adequate appropriate
Appropriate APA style is used. APA style is not used.
APA style is used.
 Poorly written paper that
Very well written proposal Well written proposal with few Fairly written proposal that lacks clarity; has
lacks organization. There are
with few grammatical errors. grammatical errors. Adheres to poor transition sentences. There are several
multiple grammatical errors.
Writing Mechanics Adheres to all the proposal most of the proposal writing grammatical errors. Adheres to most of the 10
Fails to adhere to the proposal
writing format requirements as format requirements as presented proposal writing format requirements as
writing format requirements
presented in the guidelines. in the guidelines. presented in the guidelines.
as presented in the guidelines.

Total 100%

Table 2: Assessment Rubrics for Oral Presentation

Component Title Percentage (%) 20%

Score and Descriptors

Weight Marks
Criteria Excellent (80-100) Competent (60-79) Needs Improvement (40-59) Incomplete (<40)
(%)

Good language skills and Fairly good language skills and Poor language skills and 30
pronunciation are used with a pronunciation are used with a Normal language skills and pronunciation are pronunciation are used
Presentation Skill
proper non-verbal normal non-verbal used with a poor non-verbal communication without non-verbal
communication. communication. communication

The presentation includes The presentation includes fairly 30

The presentation includes appropriate visual The presentation includes no
appropriate and easily appropriate and easily understood
aids, but these are too few, or are difficult to visual aids. Or the visual
Visual Aids understood visual aids, which visual aids, which complement
understand, or the presenter does not refer to aids do not complement the
complement and enhance the and enhance the presented
or explain them. information.
presented information. information.

The presentation does not 20

The presentation has a very
The presentation has a clear and have a clear and logic
clear and logic information The presentation has a fairly clear and logic
logic information flow, is information flow, is not
Overall presentation flow, is consistent with the information flow, is partially consistent with
consistent with the proposal, and consistent with the proposal,
proposal, and meets the time the proposal, and meets the time requirement.
meets the time requirement. and does not meet the time
requirement.
requirement.

The student can handle the The student can handle the The student cannot handle 20
The student can handle the questions asked
Q&A questions asked with a logic questions asked with a fairly logic the questions asked with a
with a barely logic answer
answer. answer answer

Total 100