CIH Level 4: H409 - Research Skills for Housing, assignment, UK

The assessment task (in the shaded box below) is designed to enable you to show that you meet all of the assessment criteria for this unit; you should make sure that you cover every element of the assessment task clearly.

Assessment task:

You have been tasked by the Senior Management Team of an affordable housing organisation with:

(a) Designing a small-scale questionnaire for tenants, and

(b) Submitting outline details of your research project for approval.

In this assignment you need to justify your approach by submitting your answers to a series of questions which demonstrate your ability to plan housing research. To do so, you need to use and submit the ‘Assignment Template’, attached at the end of this brief. See also guidance note 3, below – ‘organise your project’. Whilst you could provide one sentence answers to many of the questions in the template, this would not allow you to meet the ACs. You need to provide comprehensive responses that reference relevant theory and demonstrate critical thinking.

Your response to all questions in the assignment template should be no longer than 2500 words in length. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Guidance for this assignment:

1. Choose a topic 

A starting point would be to agree a topic for your questionnaire, for instance, you may be interested in undertaking a survey to gain a tenants’ perspective to:

• understand the impact of the welfare reforms;
• help make decisions about the future of a piece of land;
• find out whether tenants are satisfied with the repairs service;
• understand their experience of claiming Universal Credit.

It may be easier to choose a topic that you already know something about because it is related to your professional practice or you have covered it in another learning unit.

2.  Access useful resources

In addition to the learning materials, a list of ‘useful websites’ and ‘more useful resources by topic’ can be found in the opening section of the unit on Moodle.  Useful website links are embedded throughout the materials, and you may also wish to refer to the list of sources at the end of each Moodle eBook.  If you need guidance on which resources to use - and where to find them - contact your tutor.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Your assessment will be marked against the assessment criteria set out in the table below. To receive a pass, you must have addressed all of the assessment criteria; if you have completed all of the requirements of the assessment task, you will have addressed the following assessment criteria.

Learning Outcome  & Assessment Criteria

1  Understand why research is important for planning housing and housing services.

1.1 Explain why research is important for planning and evaluating housing and housing-related services.

2. Understand different research methods and research ethics.

2.1 Explain the difference between primary and secondary research data. 

 2.2 Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each.

2.3 Explain qualitative and quantitative research methods and their uses. 

 2.4 Discuss the ethical and data protection considerations associated with different research methods.

3.    Be able to plan a research study.

3.1    Develop a plan for a research study which includes:

• aims and objectives, and predicted outcomes,
• an analysis of the ethical considerations of the proposed study
• a literature review on your chosen topic, an evaluation of the effectiveness of your chosen research methods.