Research Paper on Training and Development (Interview Research Paper)

Interview Term Project Instructions

MGMT 6364: Training and Development

Over the duration of this 8-week course, you will individually complete a term-long project comprised of several deliverables with due dates across the weekly modules. The culmination of the project will be a training and development report delivered through a video presentation (Module/Week 7) and paper submission (Module/Week 8).

The intent of the term project is to provide you with a structured mechanism to build a comprehensive training and development (T&D) report based upon a specific organization through qualitative interview, interview transcription, and individual research.

Module/Week 1 & 2 Requirements:

· You will contact a professional responsible for delivering or managing training and development programs for an organization and set up an interview with the individual for a time during Module/Week 4 or 5.

· You will submit a short profile (such as a LinkedIn profile) of the interviewee and confirmed interview date. This profile should include the following information about the interviewee:

· Name

· Occupation

· Current role and responsibilities

· Previous roles and responsibilities if applicable

· You will submit the Informed Consent Form with signature from the interviewee. You must fill out the highlighted portion of the form (and remove the highlight) before sending the form to your interviewee. An e-mail from the interviewee acknowledging the details of the Informed Consent Form is acceptable in lieu of the signed form.

· This portion of the assignment is worth 50 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview Contact Rubric.

The interview contact documents (profile, consent form, and confirmed date of when the interview will be held) must be submitted as separate Microsoft Word documents via the provided assignment link by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Sunday of Module/Week 2.

Module/Week 3 Requirements:

· You will provide the list of interview questions intended for the interviewee. The questions should be open ended questions and, at minimum, cover:

· Background of the interviewee

· Background of the interviewee’s organization(s)

· Some historical/prior organization experience may be relevant

· Current responsibilities of the interviewee

· Training at the organization

· Employee development at the organization

· Current events/issues at the organization (T&D related)

· Challenges at the organization (T&D related)

· Successes at the organization (T&D related)

· Interview questions will be evaluated and approved by the instructor

· The instructor may provide feedback on modifications to the interview questions.

· If your instructor provides feedback to you, he or she will communicate with you by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Sunday of Module/Week 3. This will allow you time to review and modify the interview questions before conducting the interview.

· This portion of the assignment is worth 50 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview Questions Rubric.

The interview questions must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document via the provided assignment link by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Thursday of Module/Week 3.

Module 4 & 5 Requirements:

· You will conduct and record an interview at some time during Module/Week 4 or 5.

· Interviews can be in-person, via phone, or via web (e.g., Skype, Zoom, etc…)

· Interviews should cover, at minimum, the questions developed and approved during Module/Week 3.

· Interviews should be recorded for later transcription in Module/Week 6.

· Below are recommended methods to record your interview, depending on how you conduct the interview. It is always wise to record the interview on two devices (e.g., record the audio using your mobile device in addition to the primary recording method). If you have questions about a recording method, please clarify with the instructor before you conduct the interview. Test all recording methods independently before you conduct the interview to make sure they work. It is not acceptable academic protocol to ask an interviewee for a ‘do-over’ due to faulty equipment or due to lack of preparation.

· In-person: You could use a mobile device for audio plus a second audio recording device. Alternately, if you know the interviewee well, both of you can face a computer webcam and record the audio/video on your laptop. A simple application such as Windows Media Player is a good option.

· Phone call: You could use a mobile device for audio plus a second audio recording device. If the recording is only audio, you may be limited to using a speaker phone and recording to a mobile device or other recording device. Plus, be sure you are recording in a quiet environment away from noises and distractions.

· Skype: Use a mobile device for audio plus your video conference application. There are several options (gotomeeting, Skype, Zoom, etc…). However, it is critical that the application you utilize for the recording must allow viewing of the video to individuals without an account to that application. Most of these types of applications allow you to record to the cloud and share the video via hyperlink.

· This portion of the assignment is worth 50 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview Conducted Rubric.

The interview recording file must be submitted via the provided assignment link by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Sunday of Module/Week 5.

Module/Week 6 Requirements:

· You will transcribe the interview recording into a Microsoft Word document.

· The interviewee profile information you gathered in the first step of the interview process should not be included within the transcript. The transcript should be anonymized. An anonymized transcript will not state the interviewees name, current or previous company names, or organizational affiliation names. Use generic masks such as “Jane” or “John” (assuming the person’s name is not really Jane or John), company one, company two, etc…

· This portion of the assignment is worth 50 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview PowerPoint Presentation and Video Rubric.

The interview transcript must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document via the assignment link by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Sunday of Module/Week 6.

Module 7 Requirements:

· You will create a Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation summarizing the interview.

· There is no slide limit (maximum or minimum). However, with the recording being approximately 10 minutes in length, the average amount of slides will probably fall around 8-13.

· You will create a narrative video and deliver the PowerPoint presentation.

· The video should be approximately 10 minutes in length.

· You are welcome to be creative with the video and produce it in your preferred medium as long as the end result can be accessed and viewed by your professor as a file or a link. A suggestion for creating the video is to record a narration of your PowerPoint presentation slide-by-slide and then convert the presentation file into an MPEG-4 Video file. For a tutorial on how to complete this task, please refer to the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=selYsj94RQg

· This portion of the assignment is worth 100 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview PowerPoint Presentation and Video Rubric.

The PowerPoint presentation file and corresponding narrative video must be submitted via the provided assignment links by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Sunday of Module/Week 7.

Module 8 Requirements:

· You will individually write a training and development report detailing the full term project and related insights and findings from research you conduct.

· The report should be a minimum of 15 pages including the title page, abstract, table of contents, content, all figures/tables, and references.

· This report should follow current APA 6th edition format for all elements of the paper:

· Double-spacing

· 12-point, Times New Roman font

· Title Page

· Abstract

· Table of Contents

· References

· Textbook

· Internet sources (websites, articles, etc…)

· ** Note: Remember to cite your interview as a source

· Please refer to the APA resources found in the "Start Here" section of your course for guides and examples of APA formatting.

· This portion of the assignment is worth 100 class points. For a break-down on the expectations and grading of this section of the term project, please refer to the Interview Research Paper Report Rubric.

The final term project report must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document via the provided assignment link by 11:59 p.m. (CT) on Friday of Module/Week 8.