A low-risk high-return dissertation project topic: a note

 A low-risk high-return dissertation project topic: a note

An illustration:

Project title: A study of consumers' acceptance of the new XXX products using the XXX technology acceptance model

Project background: the XXX products constitute a big product market; need to find out how to make new product acceptance in the marketplace; the XXX technology acceptance model is useful but it needs improvement.

Project objectives: 

1: to understand why consumers are interested in new XXX products

2. to find out and test the the XXX technology acceptance model in the topic of new XXX product acceptance.

Research methodology: to conduct a questionnaire survey and do hypothesis testing & correlation analysis with regard to the XXX technology acceptance model application.

The underlying process of literature review and research design is depicted in the following diagram:

Main features of the underlying process:

1. One primary research method to use: e.g. questionnaire survey

2. Two or more data analysis to use: descriptive statistics + multiple regression analysis (supportive of hypothesis testing) + multidimensional data analysis (e.g. using Excel pivot table)

3. Literature review primarily focuses on 1 academic theory

4. Business concern and research gap identification are made via literature review (1), plus some topic contextualization based on some preliminary secondary research (2), e.g. using newspaper article study and local business magazines.

5. Not doing single case study research and thus no gatekeeper consent is required.

Why attractive: 

(1) easy to do idea and research cloning with low turnitin similarity index (with sufficient writing skills)

(2) not difficult to write a dissertation report in 12,000 words.

(3) not difficult to earn very high dissertation report mark from some dissertation project markers

(4) not very time-consuming and "reasonable" research effort; low-risk and high-return.

So, what can be the "issues" with doing this type of dissertation projects?

Answers: 

1. no problem at all

2. no problem under certain conditions

3. no problem to achieve certain clear study goal, especially on short-term goal.

Then, why should we learn the more complicated approaches, such as the ALRA??

e-resources: a Facebook group on relevant academic literature; the low-risk, high-return dissertation project is is based on positivism primarily.