BCM212 Project design and management

Name Saskia Platzer

Student number 6814190
Tutor Pete Goderie
Project title Sustainable Fashion

Aims and significance

In no more than 200 words, describe the project that you’re undertaking, and the value you think it will
have. Who are your key stakeholders? This is the current version of your project pitch.
More specifically, I want to understand who are the major factors that contribute to the influence

The project I’m undertaking focuses on university students and their ethical consumption of
fashion. More specifically, my research will help me understand what factors influence and
contribute to a students purchasing intention for sustainable fashion items. The overall value of
this report lies in the understanding of uni students as fashion consumers, and the thought
process when deciding between fast fashion and sustainable fashion. The key stake holders of
this project include individuals interest in fashion and sustainable fashion, environmentally
conscious individuals, students who participate, tutors analysing and making, and potential wider
audience of Twitter as well as past and future students interested in this impact as it becomes
more popular over the years. My methodology approach through focus groups and questionnaires
encourage a deeper understanding and discussion of the harm from non sustainable/ fast fashion.
I plan to conduct my research ethically by being transparent when administering the focus groups
and questionnaires, ensuring that my participants do not feel discomfort or exploited in any way.
My research focuses on university students' ethical consumption of fashion and is significant
because it aids in growing a sustainable future.

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BCM212 Project design and management
Method and justification
In no more than 300 words, describe the method you will use to undertake this project, and explain
why this approach is a good fit with the topic.
The main objective of this study is to understand the thought process and factors that influence a
student's consumption of sustainable fashion. As part of my key objective to understand why
students decide to purchase sustainable or fast fashion items, I will be conducting two focus
groups on discord as well as an anonymous online questionnaire.
The two focus groups will be divided on discord; (ethical practice of comfortable not being filmed
or voice recorded). The hypothesis being that a main factor that influences a students purchase
intention of sustainable clothing is their education of the sustainable fashion items and the
financial situation.
1. The first group will be given a summary of sustainable fashion and the effects of
purchasing fast fashion. Then they will have the decision to decide between a sustainable
clothing item and a replica from a fast fashion industry. Both will items will also have their
retail pricing on it.

2. The second focus group will NOT be given a summary of sustainable fashion. They will
only be given the choice to decide between a sustainable clothing item and a replica of
this tem from a fast fashion industry. Both will items will also have their retail pricing on it.

The questionnaire will be anonymous, sent out on twitter and facebook.

• Participants were included only from bcm212

• Included demographic items, such as age, gender, and geographic location (living at
home or out). The geographic location will provide support for the hypothesis of financial
situation being a leading factor.

• *optional* Questions regarding their monthly apparel expenditures, types of second-hand

clothing stores they had shopped at and their shopping frequency at those stores.
• Anonymous remove any potential shaming of particapants choices
Overall, this questionnaire consists all aspects of the topic being, environmentalism, perception of
second hand clothing, price sensitivity, need for variety, and ecological and social consciousness.

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BCM212 Project design and management
Ethical research practice
In no more than 500 words explain how your project addresses the obligations of ethical research in
relation to your method, approach and communication plan. What are these obligations? Are there
risks or harm to participants, to you or to UOW? What have you done to manage these risks? How
will you reach out to participants? What are you doing to ensure informed consent and ongoing
communication with your participants, including when you write publically about your project?

When planning and designing my questionnaire, it is crucial that ethical research practices
are employed. These ethical research practices allow me to have a non-bias and an open
space for the respondents to answer freely and confidently. The obligations of an ethical
method consist of a professional, co-dependent relationship allowing the respondents to
feel confident with their answers, and trust my credibility to effectively portray their intended
response.
To imply ethical recruitment of research participants, the manner in which I approach people
online will be respectful, fair to their time and professional. When conducting these
questionnaires and focus groups, I am to respect the consent and boundaries of
participants when sharing their unfiltered responses.
Research participants will be publicly reached online via the BCM212 hashtag, as well as
the BCM212 Facebook page. As a result, I aim to have an ongoing relationship with my
research participants, and this will be done through respondents having the ability to
privately message me, when in doubt of their answers or further elaboration to their
response. The overall effect with this will allow a transparent relationship between the
respondents and myself, and this open-ended questionnaire allows a further discussion on
my topic.
However, there will be sensitivities and risks that will arise. Questions and hypothesis of my
research report could prompt offences of questions that hint at the respondent’s politics or
finances, as I do not want to be shaming them in their clothing choices. It is important that I
remain tolerant to the responder’s sensitivities and be prepared for ambiguity in the
answers, this reflects me respecting individuals boundaries. Ethically speaking, to respect
the individual’s boundaries I would make sensitive questions optional,and
in order to minimise these risks, I should be prepared for ambiguity in responses.
When interviewing and questioning other students, it is obvious that the power lies with me.
So, it is important the respondents know and see that I understand there is a codependent
relationship between us. This is because myself and the research participants should trust
me in the credibility of the research.
When respondents are completing my questionnaires it is critical that I am considerate and
am thankful for their time. Being grateful for my respondent can be through a non-
personalised thankyou, keeping and personalised and respectful relationship as the
questionnaires will be anonymous. To compensate my respondents, they can have the
option to, not stay anonymous and, link their questionnaires in a dropbox so I can
participate in their research.

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BCM212 Project design and management
Risk and time management planning
1. What are the key risks to you getting this project done? Include a visualisation (e.g. risk matrix)
of the process you have used to evaluate which risks are likely and which are serious.
2. What is your strategy for completing this project on time? Here you should show your time
management visualisation (e.g. Gantt chart) of all the phases of the project up to the deadline for
submission. Your time management plan should show awareness of your risk analysis: if you have
identified a risk, does your time management plan show us how you’ll manage it

There are a number of risks associated with the design and planning of my research method.
Below I have summarised five key risks that are a potential harm to my report and issue it to a
3x3 risk matrix to recognise the severity of the risk.

In a simple manner, the risk matrix I have made identifies the likelihood of my risk and the
severity of the risk. The likelihood and severity scaling from 1 (as low), 2 (as medium) and 3
(high) will be multiplied to highlight the seriousness of the risks.

Risk-
1. Lack of research participants (low sample size of research participants) resulting in low
variability and decreases the support and value of the report.

2. Poor design of questionnaire (Length and clarity) resulting in loss of attention and
misunderstood answers.

3. Emotional Risk (how sensitive the questions are) resulting in ambiguous responses

4. Exploitation (Responders participations), resulting in how will they be compensated

and respected and not exploited for their time.

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BCM212 Project design and management
Risk and time management planning

My strategy for completing this project on time is by keeping a close alignment with my Gantt
Chart. This chart will help in determining the time, resources and plan in order to complete tasks in
time. It will also be helpful in the manner of managing the dependencies between tasks, for
instance, I have broken up the dates for questionnaire prep duration being 9 days, the
questionnaire sent out the duration of 11 days and the conclusion of the duration being 6 days.
This management essentially assists me in having a large fraction of the report split to cater for
any risks or opened responses privately messaged to me from research participants. This Gantt
chart also allows me to complete my task by the 17th of May, for it to be presented as a draft in
my tutorial that week.

Please note, this is a small preview of my Gantt chart, link is provided here: https://
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/
1E4MdPyaPjHBb0V4LnKxLtZdo_IQbz3yDZ78KeiBMT6A/edit?usp=sharing

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BCM212 Project design and management

Reference list

List here any background sources (for example, sources you have consulted
on method, ethics, risk or time management) in your project plan, put your
bibliography below. This does not sit within the 3 page limit.

Gantt chart:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/
1E4MdPyaPjHBb0V4LnKxLtZdo_IQbz3yDZ78KeiBMT6A/edit?usp=sharing

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