Final Project

Sample Template

[Please note: This template assists you with style and format of your Final Project for PSYC 8579: Job Attitudes, Measurement, and Change. All components of the Final Project must follow APA format, per the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual.]

[Project Title]

[your name]

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the course

Job Attitudes, Measurement, and Change

Walden University

As part of the requirements for the assignment, you construct an executive summary and introduction. The introduction includes background, a literature review, a problem statement, and a purpose statement. Using the information provided, consider the necessary information for an executive summary and introduction.

Executive Summary

Summarize problems with job attitudes within the fictional organization Walden Sports, Inc.; the methods that might be used to measure job attitudes, and your recommendations to the organization to improve job attitudes. Be sure to include the following:

A few statements related to the specific nature of the problem or opportunity for change targeted in this project. Be sure to present a brief overview of the organization; discuss what problem or opportunity your project addresses and examples of symptoms observed.
A statement or two summarizing your literature review and what your review revealed to you in terms of the important factors, antecedents, consequences, and issues related to the problem/opportunity your project addresses, including how it may have been addressed by others, within your organization and elsewhere).
A clear statement as to the purpose of the project. Please be specific and to the point.
One or two statements regarding the methodology used in conducting your analysis, including participants, instruments, procedures, etc.
A brief summary of your findings and recommendations.
One or two statements regarding the implications for the organization and social change initiatives. That is, based on what you learned about your organization, what implications exist for other organizations.

Introduction

The introduction should provide an overview of the organization and problem or opportunity associated with the organization. It should also include some background on the organization, including previous attempts at organizational change.

Background on the Organization

Here, indicate the name of the organization you will be working with and provide some background information about the organization, including its size, history, structure, products and/or services offered, et cetera, as well as the mission/vision of the organization, current priorities and strategic goals.

Problem (or Opportunity for Change) and Purpose Statement

Here, describe the nature of the problem or opportunity. What is not working or could use improvement? What are they key symptoms of the problem? What are the consequences for not “solving” the problem? What are the potential and real costs of the problem? What are the potential benefits of the opportunity for improvement? This section should also include a brief statement as to the purpose of the project. Please be specific and to the point. For example, “The purpose of this project is to identify the factors that are influencing absenteeism and turnover so as to offer recommendations on how to reduce absenteeism and turnover in [company name].”

Literature Search Strategy

After you have introduced the topic or issue, the next section incorporates a search on relevant literature in the field. With a literature search strategy, discuss exactly how you conducted your search of the literature. That is, very specifically, describe your search strategy. What keywords did you use to conduct your search? What databases did you search? What additional methods did you use to uncover relevant articles, books, et cetera? (For example, did you examine the reference section of the articles you located for additional articles?)

A Literature Search Strategy Includes:

A description of accessed library databases and search engines used
A description of key search terms and combinations of search terms (with more detailed search terms located in an appendix if appropriate)
A description of the scope of literature review (years searched, types of literature and sources searched, including seminal and current peer-reviewed)
A description of additional search methods in cases where there is limited current research, dissertations, conference proceedings, etc.

Literature Review

Here, you present your literature review. Your review of the literature should include both theoretical and empirical articles from peer-reviewed journals. Your review should also demonstrate your knowledge of the material. It is with this review that you demonstrate that you are both a scientist and a practitioner and that the manner in which you will conduct your analysis/diagnosis of your organization will be based on solid scientific principles and drawn from the vast body of literature that is relevant for your proposed project. For example, suppose you are interested in examining factors that are contributing to job satisfaction. If so, you will need to learn more about both theories of job satisfaction and empirical research examining job satisfaction. By reading all of the theoretical perspectives and empirical studies, you will learn that there are many factors that influence job satisfaction, ranging from poor working conditions and low pay to a lack of top management support to goals that are misaligned with one another to bad hiring decisions, et cetera. In addition, you also become aware of the many consequences of low job satisfaction, including increased absenteeism, turnover, low productivity, et cetera.

A literature review includes:

A discussion of relevant theory or theories that form the basis for your literature review
A description of major theoretical propositions and/or major hypotheses of those theories
A review of the literature that describes studies related to the topic and/or theory of your choosing
A review and synthesis of studies related to the key independent, dependent, and covariate variables to produce a description and explanation of what is known about the variables, what is controversial (i.e., mixed findings by researchers), and what remains to be studied

Methods Section

Participants

Describe all of your participants from whom you collected data. Include information such as number of participants, age, race, tenure with organization, organizational level, job title, et cetera. If you used focus groups, what was the size of the groups?

Measures

Here, describe and list, in detail, all of the quantitative measuring instruments and data collection tools (e.g., survey instruments) and/or qualitative forms and data collection tools (e.g., interview and focus group questions). Please include all forms used in an Appendix. Please be sure to also provide an explanation and justification of these instruments. Finally, be sure to properly cite any sources for your instruments and questions.

Summarize the three instruments you used to measure job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement in the organization as well as the diagnostic instruments you selected.
Please describe the items and scoring method from each instrument you used as part of your diagnostic survey.
Provide an example item from each scale you selected and describe the scale anchors used to score the instrument.
Describe the psychometric properties (reliability and validity) of the instrument.
Justify your use of these instruments.
Summarize the psychometric properties of the instruments.

Procedures

Here, describe exactly how the data were collected.

Data Analysis

Here, describe how you analyzed your data. If you collected quantitative data, how were scores on items computed? Did you aggregate scores on specific items to create a variable score (e.g., a score for job satisfaction)? Did you compute means and standard deviations? Did you compute frequencies of responses? For qualitative data, how did you generate themes and did you use specific software to do so?

Results Section

For Week 8, you developed the Results section for your Final Project, which was a statistical analysis. Here you submit a summary of data results; include a narrative of findings (descriptive statistics and correlations). Your analysis should include the following:

Computation of coefficient alpha estimates of reliability of the items within each of the instruments
Computation of overall scores based on individuals’ responses to the specific items from a specific instrument (compute the mean rather than the sum of the set of items)
Computation of the mean and standard deviation associated with each instrument’s overall score (and subscales, if appropriate)
Computation of frequency distributions of each item from each of the selected instruments
Computation of Pearson’s Product Moment correlations all of your variables (each instruments’ overall score and/or subscales [if appropriate])

Include a narrative of your findings (descriptive statistics and correlations). Include two tables in APA style: Table 1 includes the overall means and standard deviations for each instrument, a correlation matrix showing the correlation coefficients between each pair of instruments, and the coefficient alpha estimates of reliability (on the diagonal). Table 2 includes the frequency data associated with each item from each scale that you analyzed.

In Week 10, you write the Executive Summary and Introduction for your Final Project. See the descriptions provided above regarding the content of each. Your Final Project should be about 20–25 pages (excluding title page and references). You also complete the Recommendations and References sections (see below).

Recommendations to Walden Sports Inc.

Provide your recommendations to Walden Sports Inc. Recommendations should also be based on your findings and be supported with citations. Include the following:

A summary of your findings
A set of recommendations for improving the job attitudes at Walden Sports.
- For example, you may list each key finding separately, followed by appropriate recommendations.
The rationale for each recommendation, which should be clear and linked to the findings and supported by the empirical literature (provide citations)

For example, if the results show that Person-Job fit correlates positively with job satisfaction, but that P-O fit does not, then when presenting the recommendations (for example, hire people with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are suited for the job), the link between the findings and the recommendation should be clear and be supported by the literature.

References

In this section, you cite the work of scholars in the field that contributed to your paper. Additionally, this section allows for the retrieval of information. For a detailed guide on constructing citations, refer to the APA Publication Manual (6th edition).

For the Final Project, the References section (1–2 pages) includes the following:

Title of the section (e.g., References)
Each scholarly journal or scholarly resource used in your research or preparation of your research.