BH6017 Psychology for Business and Management Assignment Brief (level 6) | KUL

Overview

This module is assessed by (1) an individual presentation worth 50 % of the module mark, and (2) an individual report carrying the remaining 50 % of the module mark.

Assignment Task: individual presentation

(1) The 1st assignment is a presentation and carries 50 % of the module mark. In this presentation, you need to present recommendations, as to how well-being could be improved, and how the effectiveness of such an intervention could be evaluated.

Presentations need to be recorded in Microsoft Teams. Both presentation slides and presenter need to be clearly visible throughout the presentation. The recording of the presentation should not exceed 20 minutes, and it needs to be submitted, along with the set of slides, through CANVAS.

Background/Context

According to a popular framework (Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project, 2008, p. 21), there are five ways to well-being that are considered the well-being equivalent of “five fruit and vegetables a day”: ‘connect’, ‘be active’, ‘take notice’, ‘keep learning’, and ‘give’.

Now imagine the following ‘scenario’:
Kingston Students’ Union and Kingston University’s student well-being services would like to implement this well-being framework, in order to further improve student well-being. They feel that this would be well aligned with the United Nations’ (2015) sustainable development goals to ‘promote well-being’ (goal number three) and to ‘promote […] decent work’ (goal number eight).

Before going ahead with implementing any well-being recommendations, Students’ Union and well-being services want to know, whether such an intervention would be well grounded in relevant theory and empirical evidence, they want examples of what such an intervention would look like, and they want to know, how the effectiveness of such an intervention could be evaluated.
You are running a consultancy specialising in using behavioural science knowledge to positively influence well- being, and to evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions.

Students’ Union and well-being services need your advice, and ask you to deliver a 20 minute presentation at an upcoming meeting.

In this presentation, you need to address the following:

(a)    Provide an overview of what your presentation is about and what will be covered, in which order.
(b)    Explain for three of the five ways to well-being, how their positive effects on well-being could be explained. In this section, you need to refer to relevant literature sources to support your suggested lines of argument.

Ensure that you discuss both theoretical ideas as well as empirical evidence.

(b)  Present three recommendations (i.e., one for each of the three chosen ways to well-being), concerning what the University could do to encourage students to engage with the ways to well-being.

These recommendations need to clearly follow on from the earlier discussion, and they need to be both specific and realistic.

(c) Suggest a way to evaluate the effects of your suggested recommendations (i.e., intervention). The University is willing to pay for an intervention, but as a first step, they want a pilot project, and evidence that the interventions are actually working. Refer to this section of the presentation as ‘intervention study design’. It is important that you discuss, which information (or data) is needed, how it can be collected, and how this information can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your suggested intervention. Experimental designs, that allow to compare people who underwent an intervention with people who did not, may be particularly promising.

(d)    Bring your presentation to a close. There are various ways of doing this, but ensure that you highlight a main message, and that you encourage your audience to get in contact with you, should they have further questions.

A complete list of references, comprising all literature sources that have been referred to throughout the presentation, needs to be provided on the last slides of the presentation. Students don’t need to talk the audience through the list of references, but the list of references will be taken into account, when the presentation will be marked. (Both the recording of the presentation as well as the set of presentation slides, including references, will need to be submitted through CANVAS.)

(b)    Present three recommendations (i.e., one for each of the three chosen ways to well-being), concerning what the University could do to encourage students to engage with the ways to well-being.

These recommendations need to clearly follow on from the earlier discussion, and they need to be both specific and realistic.
(c)    Suggest a way to evaluate the effects of your suggested recommendations (i.e., intervention). The University is willing to pay for an intervention, but as a first step, they want a pilot project, and evidence that the interventions are actually working. Refer to this section of the presentation as ‘intervention study design’. It is important that you discuss, which information (or data) is needed, how it can be collected, and how this information can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your suggested intervention. Experimental designs, that allow to compare people who underwent an intervention with people who did not, may be particularly promising.

(d)    Bring your presentation to a close. There are various ways of doing this, but ensure that you highlight a main message, and that you encourage your audience to get in contact with you, should they have further questions.
A complete list of references, comprising all literature sources that have been referred to throughout the presentation, needs to be provided on the last slides of the presentation. Students don’t need to talk the audience through the list of references, but the list of references will be taken into account, when the presentation will be marked. (Both the recording of the presentation as well as the set of presentation slides, including references, will need to be submitted through CANVAS.)

You can choose three of the five ways to well-being for your presentation. Choose the focus according to your personal interests, in order to make the assignment more stimulating for you. Nevertheless, you need to refer to relevant literature sources, when discussing, why the ways to well-being may have positive effects.

Your recommendations may well be based on your personal experience as a University student. This, too, may make the assignment more interesting for you, personally.

It is important, however, that your recommendations describe, what the University should do, in order to encourage students to engage with the ways to well-being. This is about, what the University should offer, as opposed to encouraging students to engage with the ways to well-being in their personal lives.
Particular attention needs to be paid to supporting your suggested lines of argument with references to relevant literature sources. This may include practical reports, but you need to ensure that you also reference academic journal articles.

Your presentation needs to be convincing, specific, and realistic. This requires to find a balance between referring to relevant literature sources, accounting for specifics of the organisational context, and not promising too much.

References

Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project (2008). Final project report. London: The Government Office for Science.

United Nations (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. New York: United Nations.

Assignment Task: individual report

(2) The 2nd assignment is a report and carries 50 % of the module mark. The report will be about topics that were covered throughout the academic year. Similar to the 1st assignment, you will need to present practical recommendations, that have been informed by the literature. Additionally, however, you will need to demonstrate data-analytical skills, and derive conclusions from your findings.

Background/Context

You will need to prepare a 1,500 word report. The report requires you to review some relevant literature (i.e., theoretical ideas and empirical evidence), to address two research questions using a set of number data that will be made available to you, and to discuss your findings.

The different sections of the report are described in more detail below:

(0)    Educational attainment, job satisfaction, and job performance
This is the title of the report. You can add something to it to make your report more appealing to the reader.

(1)  Introduction (~400 words)

Introduce and explain the concept ‘job performance’ with references to relevant literature sources. Then discuss what the research literature suggests about potential differences in job performance between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher educational attainment. Ensure that you not only describe potential differences in job performance between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher educational attainment, but that you also discuss how such potential differences could be explained.
Introduce and explain the concept ‘job satisfaction’ with references to relevant literature sources. Then discuss what the research literature suggests about potential associations between job satisfaction and job performance. Ensure that you not only describe potential associations between job satisfaction and job performance, but that you also discuss how such potential associations could be explained.

(2)  Research questions (~100 words)

(a) Is there a difference between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher edicational attainment with regards to their job performance?
(b)  Is there an association between job satisfaction and job peformance?

For each of these two research questions, present a hypothesis, describing what you are expecting to find. These hypotheses need to build on your review of the literature in the first part of the assignment, and they need to clearly specify what you are expecting to find (i.e., a difference in which direction?; an association of which nature?).

(3) Sample description (~100 words)

The set of number data contains additional variables (i.e., gender, age in years, job role, tenure with current employer, and working hours per week). Using descriptive statistics, characterise the study sample.

In social-scientific studies, samples are rarely representative. Therefore, it is important to describe, in detail, the study sample.

(4) Findings (~300 words)

For research question (a) present a bar chart, illustrating the potential difference between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher educational attainment with regards to their job performance. Furthermore, examine the potential difference between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher educational attainment using a t-test. This technique will tell you, whether the potential difference between people with lower educational attainment and people with higher educational attainment is statistically significant, or whether it could have emerged at random. Present the statistical finding, following style conventions as to how such findings should be presented, and describe the finding in words.

For research question (b) present a scatter plot, illustrating the potential association between job satisfaction and job performance. Furthermore, examine the potential association between job satisfaction and job performance using Pearson correlation. This technique will tell you, whether the potential association between job satisfaction and job performance is statistically significant, or whether it could have emerged at random. Present the statistical finding, following style conventions as to how such findings should be presented, and describe the finding in words.

(5)   Discussion (~300 words)

For each research question, discuss whether your finding is in line with or in contrast to the literature. Clearly state the literature sources here, even though you presented them in the introduction already. Discuss how your finding could be explained. If your finding is in line with what the literature suggested, this will be relatively easy. If your finding is in contrast with what the literature suggested, you will need to offer explanations, as to why your finding might be different.

Keep the discussions of both research questions separately, and ensure that both discussions are presented in similar detail.

(6)  Conclusions (~300 words)

Moving on from your discussion of findings, present the practical implications of your findings. If someone wanted to increase job performance, based on your findings, what should they do? Ensure that you prioritise certain people over others when trying to increase job performance (research question (a)), and that you specify what, exactly, could be done (research question (b)).
If you want, you could try to develop a recommendation that accounts for both of your findings in conjunction, but this isn’t a requirement. Similarly, feel free to explore the set of number data further, but, again, this would be beyond the scope of this assignment.

Lastly, present suggestions as to what a future study about the same variables should take into account additionally, in an attempt to arrive at more relevant insights and better practical recommendations.

(7)  References

Present a complete list of all literature sources that you referred to in the report. The formatting of the list of references should be consistent throughout, and could follow, for example, Harvard style or APA style.