Course Project Guidelines Pekka Malo 30E00500 – Quantitative Empirical Research Spring 2016

Course project Small piece of academic work (report), where you demonstrate your ability to apply suitable multivariate analysis techniques to solve an empirical research problem Project that is to be completed within a given time according to a plan Task that resembles drafting of a short article / conference proceedings paper Project Guidelines 04.01.16

Schedule and deliverables Project kick-off (weeks 1-2): Formation of project groups (1-3 people / group) Start thinking about your topic Project plan (end of week 3): Provide a short description of your project (1 page plan) Final report (2 weeks after exam): Expected length of report is no more than 10-15 pages Project Guidelines 04.01.16

Choice of topic Free choice of topic! Choose something that you find interesting. Ideally you can choose a topic that is relevant for your doctoral thesis (or master’s thesis) Guidelines for selecting topic: Not too broad (needs to fit well in the limits of 10-15 page report) Allows easy access to empirical data (don’t spend too much time on data collection; focus on analysis) Supports use of at least 1 multivariate analysis technique Project Guidelines 04.01.16

Planning the project (1-page) Research problem and Motivation What is the research problem that you are investigating in this project (preferably in one sentence) Why this research is worth doing? Who is going to benefit from it? Why it is interesting? Aims of the study What are the concrete aims of this study? Are there specific hypothesis that you want to test? Or is the study exploratory? Or Both? Methods that you might need What methods are you planning to use (including descriptive, exploratory and predictive techniques)? How do the methods support your aims? Note: At planning stage, you may not have yet fully studied the methods. Therefore, it is enough to give some ideas how you might get started. Project Guidelines 04.01.16

Assessment criteria Each of the following criteria will be evaluated on a grading scale of 0 – 5: I Problem setting of the study Clarity of research problem (objectives, questions) Motivation of the problem Connections to earlier findings when appropriate II Use of multivariate analysis methods Selection and justification of research methods Examination of underlying method-specific assumptions Application of 1 or more multivariate analysis method III Presentation of the study Discussion and interpretation of findings Relevance of results included in the report Style and readability of the report Project Guidelines 04.01.16