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

2. 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

3. 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 pages
Project Guidelines

4. 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 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

5. 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

6. 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