General information

Assignment 3 consists of four parts:

1. 
   Reading scientific articles (see Supplementary literatures).
   
2. 
   Formulating specific research questions (see Exercises 3.1).
   
3. 
   Assess your objectives (see Exercises 4.1).
   
4. 
   Double-check your objectives (see Exercises 4.2).
   

Learning outcomes

After successful completion of this course, students are expected to be able to:

1. 
   Formulating specific research questions.
   
2. 
   Skills on using of Conceptual framework, Path diagram and Tree diagram.
   
3. 
   How to formulate research objectives.
   
4. 
   Assessing of research objectives.
   

Course materials and resources

In this course, our main source of information will be the book by Ranjit Kumar. The details of this book are:


Kumar, R. (2014). Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (4^th edition). London: SAGE. ISBN: 978-1-4462-6996-1


Supplementary literatures:

1. 
   En Hua, Xinyu Wang, Bernie A. Engel, Haiyang Qian, Shikun Sun, Yubao Wang, Water competition mechanism of food and energy industries in WEF Nexus: A case study in China, Agricultural Water Management, Volume 254, 2021, 106941, ISSN 0378-3774, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106941.
   
2. 
   You can find paper for each group and Master Student in the file of Assignment 3.zip
   

Task for group work and independent solution

Exercise 3.1
Formulate at least three specific research questions for each general research question (or: main research question) about your topic. (Note: General questions expand, reduce, or are unrelated to the objective. Specific questions expand, reduce, or are unrelated to the general question).
(Use the tools ‘tree diagram’ or ‘path diagram’ in order to formulate specific research questions, as you learned in lecture 3)
Exercise 4.1
In Assignments 1-4 you have developed the objectives of your study. Take some time to think about them. Be clear about what tasks are involved, what time is realistically required and what skills you need to develop in order to conduct your study. Carefully consider the following aspects of your study.

Exercise 4.2
If your answer to any of these questions is either ‘no’ or ‘uncertain’, re-examine the selected aspects carefully and make the appropriate changes in your objectives.

References

Kumar, R. (2014). Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (4^th edition). London: SAGE. ISBN: 978-1-4462-6996-1