AREA OF RESEARCH: EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY
Select five empirical articles from peer-reviewed journals that:
- you consider critical to your understanding of your area of dissertation research
- all address a particular phenomenon and attempt to contribute to theory about it
Part 1
1. Describe each study, including:
- the research problem, questions, or hypotheses
- the research purpose
- type of design and elements of the design (e.g., sample, data analysis, operationalization of constructs)
- threats to validity and if and how they were addressed
- the findings and their implications
2. Critically evaluate each study: Does the author make a compelling case for the meaning and significance of the findings?
Part 2
Write a literature review that explains what is known and not known about the phenomenon based on a critical evaluation of the five studies.
Part 3
Develop a research question that addresses one of the unknowns you identified in Part 2 and sketch a quantitative or qualitative study that can answer the question about what is unknown and contribute to theory (in some sense of theory you discuss in Question 1).
Address:
- the research purpose
- type of design and elements of the design (e.g., sample, the type of data you need to collect and how you will collect it, data analysis)
- the strengths and weaknesses of your envisioned design and methods
- quantitative: threats to validity and how your design will address them
- quantitative: the constructs you will measure and what you will do in order to determine how to operationalize them (you need not identify specific measures)
- qualitative: your means of ensuring the quality of your findings
- justification for why your chosen design and methods are more appropriate for your research question than alternatives you have considered
- your methods of data analysis
- how the data you collect will enable you to answer your research question and contribute to theory