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LRS 580: Overview | |
| Charles T. Schmidt, Jr. Labor Research Center | Professor Richard W. Scholl |
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Overview Topics
- Seminar research paper
- Comprehensive Exam
Seminar Research Paper
Objectives of the research paper assignment
Give you an opportunity to study a topic in much more depth than the regular curriculum allows.
- To provide other students (current and future) with the benefit of your research.
- To sharpen you writing skills.
- Develop/enhance your ability to learn from critical feedback. This involves development of emotional intelligence.
- To develop and sharpen your critical thinking skills. This includes:
- Forming a clear and answerable research question
- Finding relevant research that addresses your question
- Analysis and interpretation of the research of other
- Developing a logical argument though the organization of your paper and presentation.
- Drawing conclusions and making recommendations (even with incomplete information)
Seminar Research Paper Stages
The research and writing process
Stages
- Topic selection
- Forming a research question
- Developing a research working model
- Developing the paper's structure
- Completing the first draft
- Completing the final draft
Seminar Research Paper Processes
Ongoing processes
- Finding, analyzing research sources
- Responding to feedback
- Writing: Format and style
Research Paper: Topic Selection
How to select a research topic
You should start immediately thinking about and researching you seminar paper topic. There are few limits as to the topic that you choose. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when choosing a topic:
- The topic should be something in which you are very interested. Hopefully, you will select a topic that will help you advance your career, either by helping you perform your current job or giving you an advantage in getting a new job.
- The topic should have interest to a fairly broad audience
- You should insure that there are sufficient resources (literature, data sources) to adequately research your topic
You may start off looking into a couple of topics. As you read general articles and books about the topic, you are likely to shift your focus. Use the summer and the fall semester to read the general literature on your topic(s).
When you a chose to a topic choice, post your idea on the Forum page (you have a topic already set up to post your ideas and questions).
Research Paper: Question
How to form a research question
Your specific research question is your focused area of study which narrows you general topic to a specific issue. Look at the past student papers to see how research questions were framed.
There are a number of types of questions.
- What if questions. These questions attempt to determine the effectiveness of an HR strategy or technique.
- Should questions. Example, should employers monitor the Internet usage of their employees? Should questions must be viewed from three perspectives. These are;
- Legal perspective-what laws and interpretations of laws help to answer this question
- Behavioral perspective/business case-how does this question relate to employee motivation and behavior? What are the likely employee behavioral reactions to the various answers to this question? What are the likely results in terms of organizational performance of the various answers to this question?
- Ethical perspective- What if any, ethical considerations are involved in answering this question.
While your paper will contain some background description material, this paper is not a description of a strategy, technique, or process; it attempts to help the reader make a decision.
Your research question should be answerable by research and data. This means you should avoid asking "How", or "How to" questions such as "How can an HR department get employee to work for below the minimum wage without benefits?" The answer to a question like this becomes a simple list of methods or a set of steps to follow, often without any empirical basis. If you are interested in the topic in the example, you might pose the question as to the relative effectiveness of various HR strategies. For example, Is forced labor more effective than cookie bribes in motivating employees to work on weekends?
