ADMICP: Individual Capstone Project

Module code: ADMICP

Module provider: School of Agriculture, Policy and Development

Credits: 60

Level: Postgraduate Masters

When you'll be taught: Full year

Module convenor: Ms Sandra Preciado, email: s.l.preciado@reading.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s):

Co-requisite module(s):

Pre-requisite or Co-requisite module(s):

Module(s) excluded:

Placement information: NA

Academic year: 2024/5

Available to visiting students: No

Talis reading list: Yes

Last updated: 20 May 2024

Overview

Module aims and purpose

The Capstone Project is an opportunity for students to actively integrate and apply all they have learned to the development, implementation, and analysis of a practical, hands-on project that has and consumer behaviour focus. The Capstone Project will require you to take the knowledge you have acquired throughout this MSc and put it into practice. The broad goal of the project is to bring improvement to the student’s current professional and academic sphere of influence, for example, by critically addressing a problem or issue encountered within the student’s profession, institution, or organization – something that needs an innovative and creative solution. To do this the student can either: 

Identify a consumer behaviour problem that is occurring in a particular sector or industry  

OR 

Identify a consumer behaviour problem which may be occurring within any organisation that the student has had a relationship with over the course of their professional or academic career. 

The main element is the project itself and this will provide a narrative about the project with sufficient detail to allow a reader to be able to accurately describe the goals of the project, position the project within the existing body of peer-reviewed literature, apply the suggested methodology of the project, and explain how your goals for the project relate to the methodology you chose and to the project outcome and conclusions. An innovative but realistic solution will be presented in the conclusions element of the project. A part that is very important because it refers to the course of action to take to address the problem.  

Aims: 

• Conduct an independent investigation of an issue relevant to the content of the MSc programme of which it forms a component, under the guidance of an academic member of staff.  
• Effectively apply theories and concepts learned on the programme to real life consumer behaviour issues. 
• Provide an opportunity to study a particular consumer behaviour related topic in depth.  
• Combine relevant theories and suggest alternatives in order to solve real consumer behaviour issues.  
• Enable the student to show evidence of their ability to plan and manage a project within deadlines. 

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, it is expected that students will be able to:

1. Apply the fundamentals of research taught in the Research Methods module and other theories and concepts learned throughout the year
2. Research specific literature on issues relating to the selected area of enquiry
3. Select and justify an appropriate research design that will enable the student to reach their objectives and analyse any data collected effectively
4. Write a report covering an introduction, a review of the relevant literature, the research questions, an explanation and justification of the design, a description of the conduct and analysis of the research, and a discussion of the findings in relating to the literature and methodological issues, drawing insights and/or conclusions

Module content

• Introduction to module  
• Generating a research idea and identifying a consumer behaviour problem  
• Developing your research proposal 
• Critical thinking  
• Context of research  
• Reviewing the literature  
• Formulating the research design 
• Methodologies in consumer research  
• Outcomes, conclusions, insight and implications  

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

The above topics will be presented in a series of lectures, videos, seminars, and discussions. Teaching will incorporate examples, discussions, debates and exercises that will be covered in a series of seminars. Teaching will include a mixture of face to face and online activities. 

Study hours

At least 44 hours of scheduled teaching and learning activities will be delivered in person, with the remaining hours for scheduled and self-scheduled teaching and learning activities delivered either in person or online. You will receive further details about how these hours will be delivered before the start of the module.

Please note the independent study hours above are notional numbers of hours; each student will approach studying in different ways. We would advise you to reflect on your learning and the number of hours you are allocating to these tasks.

Semester 1 The hours in this column may include hours during the Christmas holiday period.

Semester 2 The hours in this column may include hours during the Easter holiday period.

Summer The hours in this column will take place during the summer holidays and may be at the start and/or end of the module.

Assessment

Requirements for a pass

Students need to achieve an overall module mark of 50% to pass this module.

Summative assessment

Penalties for late submission of summative assessment

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

Assessments with numerical marks

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of three working days;
• the mark awarded due to the imposition of the penalty shall not fall below the threshold pass mark, namely 40% in the case of modules at Levels 4-6 (i.e. undergraduate modules for Parts 1-3) and 50% in the case of Level 7 modules offered as part of an Integrated Masters or taught postgraduate degree programme;
• where the piece of work is awarded a mark below the threshold pass mark prior to any penalty being imposed, and is submitted up to three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline), no penalty shall be imposed;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessments marked Pass/Fail

• where the piece of work is submitted within three working days of the deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): no penalty will be applied;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): a grade of Fail will be awarded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/qap/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf

You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is any task or activity which creates feedback (or feedforward) for you about your learning, but which does not contribute towards your overall module mark.

Feedback on the development of activities and discussions will provide the basis for formative assessment. 

Reassessment

Additional costs