Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
- Generate recommendations for addressing a complex challenge
Scenario
Training opportunities in the workplace (professional development) have become a sound investment for employers. In addition to reducing recruiting and retention costs, they have been demonstrated to boost productivity and job satisfaction. For employees, they also provide the benefit of enhancing skills and offer additional prospects for positioning employees for new opportunities within the organization outside of regular promotions. For the past seven years, your company has sponsored a professional enrichment program (PEP). Each year, a small group or cohort of six to eight employees is chosen to participate in special professional enrichment activities in both group and individual formats. They are paired with mentors from leaders across the company. Employees each submit a letter and career plan that serve as their “application” to the program.
Update: Congratulations! You were one of the seven employees selected for the program this year. You’ve been paired with a supportive mentor. As a result, you feel much more confident about testing out and developing new ideas that have broader implications outside the workplace. You have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to develop recommendations around a challenge you feel very excited and passionate about addressing. Your mentor has offered to help you advance your recommendations and was very clear during the meeting that developing good recommendations for both academic and professional contexts requires the same thorough and objective examination of the research surrounding the challenge.
Directions
Recommendations Brief with Research (2,000–2,500 words)You and your mentor previously prepared and refined a list of opportunities that interested you in the Selecting Your Complex Challenge document. For this challenge, select the research question that most interests you, ensuring you address all elements in the rubric.
- Challenge: Describe your complex challenge and factors that contribute to the complexity of this issue:
- Demographics of the individuals/group affected by challenge
- Magnitude of the issue in community affected by challenge
- Commonly held assumptions or obstacles around this issue
- Social conditions that exist specific to this challenge
- Cultural or societal issues specific to this challenge
- Discipline-specific subject or branch of knowledge
- Research: You and your mentor have discussed the importance of making your case with evidence-based research, as appropriate to the discipline, that informs your recommendations.
- Annotated Bibliography: Select seven resources to analyze that are relevant to your challenge. These primary or secondary sources (conferences, dissertations, patents, journal studies, journal articles, technical reports, articles in scholarly journals, government policies, laws, or legislation) should address the challenge you have selected and inform the recommendations you make:
- Identify the source authors and discuss their place in society
- Discuss the purpose of the piece and why it was written
- Explain the value or ideas behind the content in the source
- Address the credibility of the piece (why or why not)
- Annotated Bibliography: Select seven resources to analyze that are relevant to your challenge. These primary or secondary sources (conferences, dissertations, patents, journal studies, journal articles, technical reports, articles in scholarly journals, government policies, laws, or legislation) should address the challenge you have selected and inform the recommendations you make:
- Recommendations:
- Solution: Propose a specific course of action or actions that represent a reasonable solution for your complex challenge, supported by at least five of the most appropriate sources in your annotated bibliography
- Applicable methods
- Applicable tools or technologies
- Necessary resources
- Interpretation: Discuss the research and how your interpretation supports your recommendations
- What the research says in regard to the challenge you are addressing and recommendations you make
- How you see this research as supporting the recommendations you are making
- Significance: Discuss the significance and limitations of the research in supporting your recommendations
- Geographical global/national/local impacts
- Cultural, technological, scientific, etc., aspects
- Solution: Propose a specific course of action or actions that represent a reasonable solution for your complex challenge, supported by at least five of the most appropriate sources in your annotated bibliography
- Conclusion: Defend the action or course of action you have recommended over the alternatives based on:
- Utility of the type of methods or methodologies in addressing previous challenges of this type
- Necessary resources, tools/technologies to implement proposed recommendations
- Implications of your proposed recommendations
- Ethical effects or consequences
- Any additional concerns around implementing the specific course of action or actions, if applicable
What to Submit
Every project has a deliverable or deliverables, which are the files that must be submitted before your project can be assessed. For this project, you must submit the following:
Recommendations Brief with Research (2,000–2,500 words)Create a research and recommendations brief that explores a complex challenge using evidence-based practices and appropriate methods of a given discipline to inform reasonable recommendations for a course of action or actions.
Challenge: Describes your complex challenge and factors that contribute to the complexity of the issue supported by examplesCriterion
Feedback
9/28/23 – You have a good start in analyzing your complex challenge; however, be sure to specifically state what the challenge is supported by relevant research (don’t forget to provide in-text citations). As it stands right now you have a good basis for pointing out the issue, however it is opinion-based vs. fact-based due to the lack of supporting evidence. Additionally, be sure to clearly state the specific factors that have contributed to the complexity of the issue in order to meet this rubric criteria.
9/26/23 – Niovy, you are making good progress however it does not appear that the previous feedback provided on 9/22 has been applied. Please review the feedback and apply the suggestions provided in order to master this section.
9/22/23 Please…read the feedback carefully.
State clearly your challenge in the form of a question.
9/20/23 Great discussion here.
State clearly your challenge in the form of a question.
Why is this issue important? What is the impact of this challenge? How would you communicate or quantify this impact? Be clear about why it matters and be sure to cite the impact.
Recommendations—Interpretation: Discusses the research and how your interpretation supports your recommendationsCriterion
Feedback
9/28/23 – You have some good information in this section, however you will need to summarize the research and discuss how it aligns to each of the five (5) courses of action.
Try starting a new paragraph that specifically uses the rubric item as a starter. For instance: Based on the research found, X [source] supports my recommendation of______…Y [source] indicated _____, which supports my recommendations of _______For example, you may discuss a survey instrument that provides evidence for your recommendations. In this case, you would explain the research and how it supports your courses of action (i.e. A survey was conducted by Smith (2019) that showed xxxx, which supports my recommendation of xxxx).
The information within your interpretation connects to your solution. Make sure that you go further in explaining the specific elements of the research that aligns from the five sources that support your recommendations.
9/26/23 – Same here, it does not appear that the previous feedback provided on 9/22 and 9/20 has been applied. Please review the feedback and apply the suggestions provided in order to master this section.
9/22/23 & 9/20/23 As you revise your recommendations, you will need to summarize the research and discuss how it aligns to each of the five (5) courses of action.
Try starting a new paragraph that specifically uses the rubric item as a starter. For instance: Based on the research found, X [source] supports my recommendation of______…Y [source] indicated _____, which supports my recommendations of _______For example, you may discuss a survey instrument that provides evidence for your recommendations. In this case, you would explain the research and how it supports your courses of action (i.e. A survey was conducted by Smith (2019) that showed xxxx, which supports my recommendation of xxxx).
The information within your interpretation connects to your solution. Make sure that you go further in explaining the specific elements of the research that aligns from the five sources that support your recommendations.
Recommendations—Significance: Discusses the significance and limitations of the research in supporting your recommendationsCriterion
Feedback
9/28/23 – You have some good information in this section, however you will need to summarize and discuss the research that you have found that have supported your stance and recommendations. I recommend that you dedicate a paragraph that addresses specific significance and limitations that you have found in your research to master this area. What did your sources have to say that was similar or different (significance)? Are there any cultural, technological, or scientific impacts. You will need to do the same for the limitations, for instance what has not been explored? What is missing that would help to solve the challenge that you have addressed (limitations). What areas can be expounded upon that was not present in the research that you uncovered (limitations)? Are there gaps that are not explored in the research? (limitations).
Try starting a new paragraph that specifically uses the rubric item as a starter. For instance: The research from X [source] is significant because…..There are limitations in the research as none addressed _________Again, in the Unit Resources: Interpretation and Integration in the reading: Ethical Reasoning and Analysis presents ethical impacts when interpreting and integrating your sources. In the Unit Resources: Interpretation and Integration in the reading: “Walking the Tightrope: Ethical Issues for Qualitative Researchers” explores different ethical issues related to performing qualitative research.
Conclusion: Defends the course of action or actions you have recommended over the alternatives based on relevant methods, resources, tools, and ethical implicationsCriterion
Feedback
9/28/23 – This section is for you to draw conclusions about everything you discovered along the way as it pertains to the research – not so much about your opinion. For instance address the WHY? Based on what other methods found in research? WHY is this method better than other methods used in research attempting to solve the same/similar issues? What research have you found that would support this method making this the best choice over the alternatives?
Also, once you have addressed the interpretation and the significance/limitation rubric items this area will develop more.Please review the resources Reading: The Conclusion and Reading: Writing Commons, How to Write a Compelling Conclusion to help guide you towards writing a strong conclusion that shows your reflection on your research and what sums up what you’ve learned.
9/26/23 – Same here, it does not appear that the previous feedback provided on 9/22 has been applied. Please review the feedback and apply the suggestions provided in order to master this section.
9/22/23 & 9/20/23
This section is for you to draw conclusions about everything you discovered along the way as it pertains to the research – not so much about your opinion.
Once you revise the recommendations, for your conclusion you will need to defend why your actions and recommendations are the most suitable versus what you have found. Using in-text citations, cite your work that justifies your position and avoid generalizations.
Be sure to address the WHY? Explain why these methods are better than other methods used in research attempting to solve the same/similar issues? What research have you found that would support this method making this the best choice over the alternatives?
Avoid generalizations and cite your work that justifies your position. Be sure to defend why your actions and recommendations are the most suitable versus what you have found. This means including in-text citations to support your position.
