Week 8 Assignment: Research Article

During the course of this program, you have deepened your expertise in the field of hospitality and developed your skills as a researcher. For this assignment, you will apply what you have learned by writing a research article that contributes new knowledge to the field of hospitality.

This document provides detailed guidelines for this assignment, outlines a timeline for completing it, and identifies key resources that will support your work.

 

Guidelines

For this assignment, you will write a research article on the topic of your choice within the field of hospitality. Your article should be of publishable quality. Although you are not required to publish your article, you will have an opportunity at the end of the course to submit your article to the Johnson & Wales Scholars Archive.

Your research article should be approximately 10 to 12 pages in length, and it must follow APA format.

Your article should include the following sections:

• Abstract. The abstract serves as a summary of the entire article, providing an overview of the article’s major elements: the purpose of the study, as well as its methodology, major findings, and conclusions.
• Introduction. This section establishes the rationale for the research topic by providing background information. It also states the research problem and hypothesis. Finally, it outlines the structural format of the article.
• Literature Review. The literature review provides an overview of sources that informed your research and also demonstrates how your research is part of the larger field of study relating to this subject.
• Methodology. The primary purpose of this section is to discuss and justify the rationale for data collection procedures and analysis of this information.
• Findings. Simply stated, this section is where you report your results in a logical and sequential manner.
• Limitations. Limitations are any elements of the research design or methodology that might impact the interpretation of your findings.
• Implications. This section includes a discussion of your findings—moving beyond reporting your findings to interpret what they mean. This section should also explain the next steps, in terms of where your results can lead future researchers.
• Conclusion. A good conclusion should restate your thesis and summarize your main points to demonstrate the value of your research.
• References. This is a list of the sources you cited in your article.

To learn more about how your research article will be evaluated, please see the rubric.

As you begin thinking about the topic you would like to explore in your research article, please remember that this is an 8-week course. With that limited timeframe in mind, please consider this guidance about how to approach this assignment:

• To get a running start on this assignment, consider building on a line of inquiry that you started in an earlier course. Think back to projects you completed in other courses and ask, “What would be an interesting next step to explore that topic further?”
• You may be excited about the opportunity to conduct primary research, which would involve doing original data collection to explore your topic. Unfortunately, conducting primary research would be very challenging on our short timeline in this course. As an alternative, you are strongly encouraged to pursue secondary research, which would involve analyzing existing data or critically analyzing the existing literature about your topic. If you are considering pursuing a doctorate in the future, think of this assignment as an opportunity to deepen your knowledge about your topic, in preparation for primary research you might conduct as part of your eventual dissertation. 
• If you have your heart set on conducting primary research for this assignment, you will need to work closely with me to design a study with a very limited scope. Rather than plan to conduct a full-blown study, you may be able to undertake a pilot study and then include a plan for a full-scale study in the implications section of your research article.

Timeline

To help you stay on track to complete a high-quality research article by the end of the term, you will submit a series of deliverables at key checkpoints during this course:

• Week 1: Submit research topic.
• Week 2: Submit research proposal.
• Week 3: Submit research proposal presentation.
• Week 6: Submit first draft of research article.
• Week 8: Submit final draft of research article.

Resources

To support your progress on this assignment, the following supports and resources are available—and in some cases required—in this course:

• Week 2: One-on-one check-in with instructor about research topic.
• Week 3: One-on-one check-in with Instructor about research proposal.
• Week 6: Peer review of first draft of research article.
• Available anytime: One-on-one support from librarians.
• Available anytime: One-on-one support from Student Writing Support Specialist.

Because each student in this course will be pursuing a unique research project, I expect to work closely with you to develop a plan for your project and help you complete it successfully. I strongly encourage you to contact me any time you have questions or concerns regarding your project. I want you to feel well supported as you undertake this capstone experience.