Time, Cost and the Practical Design
Chapter
Syllabus topic 7, "Preparation of the Research Design"
Pages 502 to 504 of 543
In one line
A design that cannot be executed in the time and money available is not a design, and the commonest reason a dissertation is thin is that the researcher started the fieldwork two months too late.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the practical or operational aspect of a research design settles the time available and its allocation between the stages of the work, the cost of the work and its sources, the permissions required and the time they take to obtain, and the contingency to be allowed for the parts of the work that depend on other people; it is settled at the outset by working backwards from the date of submission, since every other decision in the design depends on what can be done in the time that remains.
Counting backwards
Start from the fixed dates, which are not the researcher's to choose.
MU's own calendar for Semester IV, from the Department of Law notice of 1 July 2026, gives the shape: the dissertation and the interdisciplinary project are submitted on notified dates, in that year on 17 and 18 July for different groups, and the viva voce examinations follow within weeks, the dissertation viva being scheduled for 30 and 31 July and the interdisciplinary project viva for 3 and 4 August, chapter 120.
So the fixed points are the submission date and the viva, and everything is counted back from the first.
A worked backward count from submission.
Submission. Day zero.
Binding, printing and the plagiarism check. Two weeks before. The Turnitin report must be enclosed in an appendix, chapter 1380, so the final text must exist before that.
Final revision, including rewriting the introduction. Three weeks before, chapter 1260.
Complete first draft. Six weeks before.
Analysis and findings written. Eight weeks before.
Data collection complete. Ten weeks before.
Fieldwork begins. Sixteen weeks before, for six weeks of collection.
Pre-test. Seventeen weeks before.
Instrument drafted and design settled. Nineteen weeks before.
Permissions sought. Twenty-three weeks before, because they take longer than anybody expects.
Literature review and problem settled. Twenty-six weeks before.
Which is six months, and a student who begins the design in the month the dissertation is due has already lost the empirical option.
The four things that consume time unexpectedly
Permissions. Always longer than expected, and sometimes refused, chapter 1090. Seek them first, and design a fallback.
Access to records. A register may exist and require somebody's authority to inspect.
Non-contact. Respondents who are not at home, days the court does not sit, an office closed for a festival.
And the researcher's own other obligations, which are real and should be counted.
A design that allows no contingency will overrun, and the part that gets cut is always the analysis, which is the part that matters.
Time, Cost and the Practical Design
Cost
The time and cost of research are small but real, and worth listing so that they are not discovered late.
Travel, which is usually the largest item in field research: the number of journeys multiplied by the fare.
Printing and copying, including the instrument, and two hard copies of the dissertation as MU requires.
Binding, hard black cover with golden embossing for the dissertation and spiral or stapled for the project, chapter 120.
A pen drive, since MU requires soft copies attached inside the last cover page.
The plagiarism check, if the institution charges.
And database access, if the free sources are insufficient, chapter 940.
The design should say what the study costs, because a study that cannot be paid for cannot be done, and because a student who has counted can ask for help in time.
Sequencing what depends on other people
A rule worth stating. Start the things that depend on other people first, and do the things that depend only on you while waiting.
Applied. Seek permissions, request records and approach institutions in week one. Read the literature and draft the instrument while the requests are pending. If a permission arrives, the fieldwork can begin; if it is refused, the design changes while there is still time, chapter 1090.
The opposite order, doing the reading first and asking for permission afterwards, is what produces a student in month five with a completed literature review and no access.
The practical design in the dissertation
Most of it does not appear. A reader does not need the timetable.
What does appear. The period of the fieldwork, in the methodology; and anything that constrained the study, in the limitations, chapter 1280: the season, the refusals, the records not received, the days missed.
And in the synopsis it does appear, chapter 1350, because a supervisor approving a proposal needs to know that it can be done.
A worked example
A student in Semester III planning a dissertation for Semester IV.
Month one. Choose the problem, chapter 1090; write to the District Legal Services Authority for permission to inspect clinic registers and to the college for its examination records; begin the literature review.
Month two. Literature review completed; the permission arrives for the registers and is refused for the examination records; the design is adjusted to use published examination patterns instead, which need no permission, chapter 990.
Month three. Instrument drafted; pre-tested on two clinics; design settled and the synopsis written.
Month four and five. Fieldwork.
Month six. Analysis, writing, revision, plagiarism check, printing, binding.
Time, Cost and the Practical Design
And the viva two weeks after submission, chapter 1430.
Notice that the refusal in month two cost nothing, because it arrived early enough to change the design. That single fact is the argument of this chapter.
Quick revision
Count backwards from the submission date, which MU notifies, with the viva following within weeks.
A backward count: binding and plagiarism check two weeks before; final revision three; complete draft six; analysis written eight; collection complete ten; fieldwork begins sixteen; pre-test seventeen; design settled nineteen; permissions sought twenty-three; problem and literature twenty-six. Six months.
Four unexpected consumers of time: permissions; access to records; non-contact; and the researcher's other obligations. Allow contingency, because the part cut by an overrun is always the analysis.
Cost: travel, printing and copying, binding, a pen drive, the plagiarism check and database access.
Sequence: start everything that depends on other people first, and do what depends only on you while waiting.
In the dissertation only the fieldwork period and the constraints appear; the whole practical design appears in the synopsis.
Test yourself
1. From what date is a research timetable counted, and how far back does an empirical study reach? From the submission date the University notifies, with the viva following within weeks. An empirical study reaches back about six months, since permissions should be sought around twenty-three weeks before submission and the problem and literature settled around twenty-six.
2. Name the four things that consume time unexpectedly. Permissions, which take longer than expected and may be refused; access to records, which may require somebody's authority; non-contact, including respondents who are absent, days a court does not sit and offices closed; and the researcher's own other obligations.
3. State the sequencing rule and show what it prevents. Start everything that depends on other people first and do what depends only on you while waiting. It prevents the student who completes a literature review in month five and only then discovers that the access their design requires will not be granted, when there is no time to change the design.
4. Which parts of the practical design appear in the dissertation itself? Only the period of the fieldwork, stated in the methodology, and anything that constrained the study, stated in the limitations, such as the season, refusals, records not received and days missed. The full timetable and costing belong in the synopsis, where a supervisor approving the proposal needs them.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.