v:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
Normal
0
false
false
false
false
EN-US
JA
AR-SA
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Georgia”,serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:1;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:1;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
border:solid white 1.0pt;
mso-border-themecolor:background1;
mso-border-alt:solid white .5pt;
mso-border-themecolor:background1;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid white;
mso-border-insideh-themecolor:background1;
mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid white;
mso-border-insidev-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-shading:#D5E8EA;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:51;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Georgia”,serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Georgia;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Georgia;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21FirstRow
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:first-row;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#438086;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-border-top:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-left:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-left-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-right:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-right-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-insideh:cell-none;
mso-tstyle-border-insidev:cell-none;
color:white;
mso-themecolor:background1;
mso-ansi-font-weight:bold;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21LastRow
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:last-row;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#438086;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-border-left:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-left-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-right:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-right-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-insideh:cell-none;
mso-tstyle-border-insidev:cell-none;
color:white;
mso-themecolor:background1;
mso-ansi-font-weight:bold;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21FirstCol
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:first-column;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#438086;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-border-top:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-left:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-left-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-insidev:cell-none;
color:white;
mso-themecolor:background1;
mso-ansi-font-weight:bold;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21LastCol
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:last-column;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#438086;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-border-top:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-top-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-bottom-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-right:.5pt solid white;
mso-tstyle-border-right-themecolor:background1;
mso-tstyle-border-insidev:cell-none;
color:white;
mso-themecolor:background1;
mso-ansi-font-weight:bold;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21OddColumn
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:odd-column;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#ACD2D5;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:102;}
table.GridTable5Dark-Accent21OddRow
{mso-style-name:”Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 21″;
mso-table-condition:odd-row;
mso-style-priority:50;
mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-tstyle-shading:#ACD2D5;
mso-tstyle-shading-themecolor:accent2;
mso-tstyle-shading-themetint:102;}
This assignment has three parts.
1. Literature Review
2. Professional Report
3. Personal Reflection
Additional files you will need for your assignment –
– Criteria Sheet
– Survey & Scoring Instructions
– Assignment coversheet
– Readings/Weekly workshop slides
– Articles and textbooks (from the library databases)
Length:
– 2,000 words maximum
– You can choose how to divide the word count between the three sections, however it is recommended that the literature review and report be about the same length and the reflection be much shorter (for instance 800 words literature review, 800 words report, & 200 words reflection)
– This course will follow the Redbook policy on word count, including when the word length is exceeded.
– As per the Redbook – in-text references, tables, figures & headings, will be included in the word count. The reference list is not part of the word count.
Submission:
– Submit assignment as a single document.
Ethical Practice:
It is expected that you will complete this assessment and write the report in a professional and ethical manner. The individual who agrees to participate must not be forced or coerced into completing the assessment. You must consider the type of assessment used and the appropriateness of this for the individual. Any information you provide to the individual must be done so sensitively and with the understanding that this is a learning exercise. Ethical practice will be discussed in workshops, and you are encouraged to speak to course staff if you have any questions or concerns. If in doubt avoid providing any feedback.
General Tips:
– Refer to the Criteria Sheet to ensure you can address each of the requirements
– Submit as one document to Turnitin
– You will need to include a cover sheet –
– If you require an extension please complete the extension request form –
– There are two ways to combine separate sections into one document ready for uploading to Turnitin
1. Create separate pdfs and use Adobe Acrobat (available in computer labs if you don’t have it at home) to combine pdfs
2. Use section breaks to create one document in word with different formatting for each section (lots of info online about how to do this – we have provided links to youtube videos below
Literature Review
Purpose:
Your literature review should demonstrate your understanding of your chosen topic and should provide a critical discussion of the literature. This is the ‘science’ half of the scientist-practitioner approach.
Expectations:
– Based on your chosen topic
– Demonstrate your understanding of the topic
– Incorporate critical discussion: Compare and contrast the research, show that you understand the limits of the research
– Following a standard critical essay structure, address the following points:
1. Provide a brief introduction of your chosen topic (including definitions) and outline your essay
2. Explain why it is important for organisations (i.e. what are the outcomes or consequences)
3. What do we know about factors that build/predict your chosen topic (i.e. what are the antecedents, what can organisations do to build this factor)
4. Provide a brief conclusion/summary of essay
Formatting:
– The literature review should be double spaced, 12-point font, and should be formatted according to APA 6 style (i.e., for headings, in text references, and reference list etc.)
– Please follow the ‘Redbook’ for all formatting requirements e.g.
• Indent first line of each paragraph
• No space between paragraphs
• Hanging indent in reference list
Tips:
– You do not need an abstract for this assignment
– Use empirical research, meta-analyses, review articles, and theoretical papers from the organisational psychology literature.
– No requirement on the number of references – marks are based on quality not quantity! (You will end up reading more than you include in the final essay)
– Should be a stand-alone literature review – no mention of your report or your ‘employee’. The literature review and report are separate documents that serve different purposes
– Do not mention the report in the literature review.
– Do not review literature (or mention literature review) in the report.
– These documents are written for different ‘audiences’ so they should make sense if read alone.
– Start reading the literature before interviewing your employee for the report
– Write your literature review before you interpret the results and write the report
Structure – Elements of a good lit review:
– Introduction
– Clear focus of paper
– Key terms defined
– Outline of paper (“Tell them what you’re going to tell them”)
– Body (“Tell them…”)
– One paragraph per major point/idea
– Key theoretical/empirical research
– Critical discussion
– Conclusion (“Tell them what you’ve told them”)
– Summarise findings/main message
Critical Analysis
– Specific, clear focus/aim/argument
– Present and compare research both theoretical and empirical on this topic
– Strengths/weaknesses/are the results consistent/other factors to consider
– It is NOT describing one paper after the other, rather integrate multiple papers to create an argument and make comparisons
Useful databases
– Psychinfo
– ScienceDirect
– Business Source Premier
– Proquest
– Web of Science/Web of Knowledge
– GoogleScholar
If you are stuck these are some high quality organisational psychology journals
– Journal of Occupational & Organisational Psychology,
– Journal of Organizational Behaviour,
– Leadership Quarterly,
– International Journal of Stress Management,
– Journal of Applied Psychology,
– Personnel Psychology,
– Annual Review of Psychology,
– Academy of Management,
– Journal of Occupational Health Psychology,
– The International Review of Industrial/Organisational Psychology.
Report
Purpose:
Conduct an assessment of someone currently employed and write a professional report for the organisation.
Expectations:
1. Introduction
– Clearly introduce report, including topic
– Outline the rationale of the report
– Background information concerning the position, the organisation and the person completing the job
2. Assessment & Results
– Describe how you collected relevant information
– Explain your results in text, graphs/tables/diagrams (identify positive results (strengths) and areas for development)
– Provide an interpretation of the results
– Include a discussion of key issues
– Identify strengths and areas for development
3. Recommendations/Strategy
– Based on your results provide some recommendations for both the
individual and the organisation they work for
Formatting:
– Not APA!
– Double spaced,
– Use headings and subheadings
– Professional and consistent
– Freedom with title pages, headings, colour!
– Bullet points are ok when used appropriately
– Graphs/tables/figures – all ok
Tips:
– Your topic must be the same as your literature review
– Download assessment materials and scoring
– Consider your employee. Does the topic seem like a good fit for their workplace (e.g. don’t choose commitment for someone who works for themselves)
– Do not include survey questions/interview questions/or transcripts in the report do not include them as an appendix
– Consider the audience for your report, e.g. you could be writing to the business owner/CEO/HR director “Kate said… She feels…” etc.
– You will invent the rationale (reason for conducting the report). A clear rationale will help connect each section of your report:
– the report should be addressed to a specific person/reviewer within the organisation; the report should outline why the organisational contact/organisation has requested the report from you – i.e. why did the organisation want the assessment done?
– at the end, your recommendations should enable the organisation to address/implement solutions to address the objectives of this work (i.e. outlined in the rationale).
– Use the scoring document to help correctly score the survey responses and to help interpret and describe results (low, average & high cut-offs). See below for more scoring tips
– When presenting your results as a graph or a table consider how you can include the benchmarks/cut-offs
– Ask yourself – can I interpret this graph/figure/table correctly without reading the text? Are the benchmarks (low, average & high) clear in the figure?
– Use colour appropriately to make the figures meaningful
– Avoid 3D figures as they are more difficult to read
– Recommendations must be related to/address the areas identified in the results section
– It is ok to list the recommendations (dot points) but even better if you can explicitly draw the connections to the results, and perhaps even link to the rationale – its perfectly acceptable to use your own ideas to complement ideas you have picked up from research.
Survey Tips
– Follow instructions for each scale – but most will ask you to average responses to get a global/total score and to average responses for each subscale
– Look for sub-scales
– Is it appropriate to calculate a global/total average?
– Check for reverse scoring before calculating averages
– Any interesting results or inconsistent responding – could indicate an area to follow up in the interview
– Interpreting results (in practice you might have norm groups to refer to) – for this assignment you will use “low, average & high” as a rough guide (cut-offs provided in scoring documents)
– Present the average scores (following scoring instructions provided for each scale), do not present scores on individual questions/items. [Occasionally, single items may help guide your interview questions that will help with the explanation of the results.]
Interview Tips
Preparation
– Spend some time thinking and planning your questions
– Are most of the questions open ended?
– Are the questions sensitive/appropriate?
– Consider what is assessed in your survey and what else would you like to know about
– Think about how long it will take – over estimate so your interviewee has enough time
– Plan your interview questions
– You will need to ask about the job tasks/responsibilities and the organisation (for your introduction)
– You may want to score the survey first so you can prepare relevant questions based on results
– You will want to know both why they scored the way they did (antecedents) and what are the implications of their score (consequences)
– Consider your topic and what you know from the literature review, e.g. you have written a section on what factors predict your topic – could you ask questions about any of these
– Your results will include both strengths/aspects that are working well/things they enjoy and areas for development/things that need improvement. So when you plan your interview questions make sure you cover both of these as well.
– Open vs Closed Questions
– Open-ended questions:
– A good way to let the respondent answer in their own words and ideas
– But you have to make sense of it all, need multiple raters to be confident we have reliably interpreted the answers
– Takes respondents a lot of time to answer
– Close-ended questions:
– Allows for fewer variations in responses, which may limit respondents’ ability to relay their ideas
– Faster and easier to respond to, more reliable to code
– You will need to develop questions to help you understand their job and questions relevant to your chosen topic, see below for some suggestions to help your planning
The start of the interview
– Setting up expectations
– Explain the purpose of the project and the interview
– Learning experience – can not provide them with the report
– Establishing trust and confidentiality
– Voluntary involvement
– Providing an opportunity for people to reconsider their involvement
During the interview
– Ask about general job information (for your intro) + questions specific to your topic
– Use open ended questions
– Consider your nonverbal/attending behaviours
– Positive encouragement
– Take lots of notes and consider recording (if given permission to)
Some examples of general questions
– What is your position title?
– What does your job involve? (tasks/expectations)
– + other job specific questions
– How long have you worked in this organisation? In your current job?
– How satisfied are you with your job?
– What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most/ least?
Combining survey and interview results
– Some of the information may overlap à you might use some of the information collected in the interview to complement your interpretation of the survey (i.e. integrate your discussion of results with your interview)
– But there may be additional issues/problems/suggestions that you can discuss separately – you can put this under a different heading e.g. ‘additional information’ or using headings that represent the topic e.g. ‘role clarity’
Useful youtube tutorials
– This is a useful video on using section breaks to help format your document – if you untick ‘link to previous’ you can have different formatting between the literature review and the report
In word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhAFhfyeVKk
In word on a mac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGUp4V8Sl48
Reflection
Purpose:
Begin to practice reflection as a process to guide continuous development.
Expectations:
– Write a short reflection about your personal experiences completing the report component of the assignment, including:
(a) How you found the process of assessing someone (what did you do, what where you thinking, how did you feel, how did they feel?),
(b) What you would do differently if you could do it again,
(c) How you found the process of writing the report,
(d) What you have learnt from this assignment.
Formatting:
– Double-spaced, 12 point font, APA style
Tips:
– Written from the first person (I did…, I found…)
– Keep it short and concise, maximum 150-200 words
– Depth of reflection is important – consider your preparation, your interpersonal skills, your
– Stating that ‘I should have written the literature review first’ and ‘I should have interviewed someone I was/wasn’t more familiar with’ are not acceptable reflections.
– Cover all four points listed above
Criteria Sheet
|
|
|
Description |
Mark |
|
|
Literature (1) |
A clear introduction, including outline of essay. Topic is clearly defined and explained. |
/5 |
|
|
Literature (2) |
Clear discussion of the importance of topic and its relevant outcomes for organisations
|
/10 |
||
|
Literature (3) |
Factors that build/predict topic are accurate and clearly presented.
|
/10 |
||
|
Literature (4) |
Accurate summary and conclusion of essay |
/5 |
||
|
Critical analysis
|
Consistently demonstrates critical analysis of the topic Clearly integrating research and drawing conclusions based on range of research Recognises limitations of research |
/5 |
||
|
Clarity of expression, APA format and referencing |
Very fluent writing style, grammar and spelling accurate. Formatting and referencing follow APA guidelines. |
/10 |
||
|
Introduction
|
The rationale for the report and job information is clearly and concisely described.
|
/10 |
|
|
Assessment |
Questionnaire items and interview questions were explained clearly and appropriately.
|
/5 |
||
|
Results |
Responses/results were clearly explained. Results were presented correctly in text / table / figure. Results included strengths & areas for development.
|
/15 |
||
|
Recommendations / Strategy |
Recommendations for individual and organisation are clear and consistent with areas identified in results.
|
/5 |
||
|
Clarity of expression, format of assignment, referencing |
Very fluent writing style, grammar and spelling accurate. Headings are appropriate. Assignment is formatted professionally, consistently, & clearly. Any referencing in text is accurate and style is consistent. |
/10 |
||
|
Reflection on learning / process of report writing |
Clear and comprehensive reflection, covers key points, demonstrates learning. |
/10 |
|
|
Total mark: /100
Total percent: /50% |
||||
This assignment will be marked in accordance with School of Applied Psychology policy, the course profile, and Redbook; this includes penalties for assignments over the word count or those submitted late.