Equality and Diversity Assignment | Online Assignment

Credit value 30

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P2 Examine appropriate research methods and conduct primary and secondary research.

P4 Apply appropriate analytical tools to analyse research findings and data.

P7 Consider alternative research methodologies and lessons learnt in

view of the outcomes.

This should be written in a concise, formal business style using 1.5   spacing and font size 12. Students are required to make use of headings, sub-headings, paragraphs and subsections as appropriate and all work must be supported with referenced sources using the Harvard referencing system. A bibliography should be provided using the Harvard referencing system. The recommended length is 5,000 – 6,000 words, but you will not be penalised for exceeding this.

Students must ensure their content and findings are supported by graphical illustrations.

Findings should be tabulated to present and compare the sampled cases.

Students are to submit as evidence for the unit in addition to their project findings, the research proposal, and appropriate appendices.

The aim of this research project brief is to make the project feasible, novel and relevant.

Equality is about ensuring that everybody has the same access to the same opportunities without any discrimination. It is relevant in all workplaces, regardless of whether the business employs two people or two hundred people, irrespective of whether they work remotely, in an office, a warehouse or on a shop floor.

Diversity takes into account differences between people and groups of people, by placing a positive value on those differences. A diverse and inclusive workplace values people’s different backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and experiences, and uses these differences to create a productive and effective workforce.

Managing both equality and diversity is equally important as it impacts on all the employees working in an organisation. Business cases have proven that biases and discrimination within the workplace can impede business growth and productivity and therefore, many businesses look beyond any legal considerations and policies to effectively promote equality and diversity to improve productivity, opportunity, and competitiveness.

In order to complete this assignment, students are required to adopt the role of a business consultant for Doha Consultancy. This consultancy has been approached by a client, ‘City College’(CC), in Doha, to conduct a study on a policy area of their business.

The focus of this study is on CC’s equality and diversity policy. City College wishes to ascertain, if it needs to revise its equality and diversity policy, to reflect the policies of other international Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). City College is aware that it operates within a different cultural environment to that of the USA and UK and seeks guidance from the consultant, as to which recommendations are valid and justified, if any, and are the most appropriate to add to its policy.

Students will coherently and logically, communicate the findings of their critical analysis to the intended audience at City College.

Students role as the consultant:

Students are to conduct a comparative study on equality &/or diversity. Students will review The City College Equality & Diversity (E&D) policy and compare it with the review of 4 other pre-allocated Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) policies, 2 in the UK and 2 in the USA.

Students will then compare and critically evaluate the findings of the E&D policies of these HEIs with those of City College E&D policy. When a review and analysis has been completed, you will make appropriate recommendations to City College of any improvements they could make to their Equality & Diversity policy.

It is important that students’ recommendations are appropriate for local culturally acceptable norms.

This type of comparative analysis provides awareness of other systems and cultures and may provide alternative solutions to policy questions. Conducting this study should enable students to broaden their understanding and widen their perspectives on other HEIs policies.  The study will enable students to explore, argue, prove, or disprove a particular objective / recommendation.

Once students have completed their review of the web sites and analysed all the findings, students will compare the results. The findings will be presented in the form of a research report for City College.

Students need to define both E&D in the literature review and discuss the importance of both to all companies, but they may choose to perform their research on both Equality & Diversity, or just Equality or Diversity for the data analysis. The choice made and reason for that choice, must be clearly reflected in the project report.

It is important to recognise that this project is reliant on gathering information/data that can be analysed.

An advised model for the project would be to use secondary research e.g. reflection on the literature review to provide a context for the study and then to conduct the review of the web sites, and interpret the data collected from the allocated web sites.

Academic staff / tutors recommend that students begin the review of the assigned web sites to locate the data that is required for the study, as soon as possible. Time is short for term 3 so review and analysis should begin as soon as you can.

The Research Title: A comparative study of the Equality and Diversity policies of two USA and two UK Higher Education Institutions in order to make appropriate recommendations to the Equality and Diversity policy of City College Doha.

Word count: 6000 words for report.

Through undertaking secondary research, students are required to provide information on their allocated universities and collect data about the HEIs diversity and equality policies.

The data collected is to be analysed to provide an answer to the research question.

Students will communicate with their allocated project supervision tutor during the duration of

the project in addition to formal classes.

A scheme of work will be presented to students.

Submission Format

The submission is in the form of an academic business report which includes the following components- 6000 words:

●       Executive summary

●       Contents Page – page numbers – subheadings

●       Introduction to the topic and question

●       Aims and objectives

●       Critical review of the Literature on Equality and Diversity

●       Review of research philosophy and a critical evaluation of methodologies which is relevant to all research studies.

●       Justification of the research method adopted, data collection and analysis used in the project.

●       Data analysis and presentation of results – graphical representation may be in the main body of the report or referenced to the appendix.

●       Conclusions to summarise outcomes and findings.

●       Recommendations that may be appropriate for CC policy, observing local cultural norms.

●       Reflect on the research process, methodologies and concepts and recommended actions for any future improvements. Students may wish to refer to Gibb’s or Klob’s reflective models.

●       Bibliography

●       Appendix

Please note: –

Students are to submit as evidence for the unit in addition to their project findings, the research proposal. This will cite the four universities that were pre-assigned.

As the data collection is desk research and face to face questioning will not be required, an ethics form will also not be required.

Students should highlight that an ethics form, which is normally used to protect participants in research studies, was not used in this case, as there were no participants/interviewees involved.

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