DELIVERABLES AND GRADING
The course uses a mastery [rather than performance] orientation as the underlying philosophy. The course deliverables are designed to help students learn and master the content, and to apply the concepts through exercises. Participating in classroom discussions, classroom activities, and assignments aims to facilitate learning. All assignments (deliverables) are expected to be submitted on time. Feedback will be provided with an eye toward improving the work; individual assignments will not be assigned a grade that contributes to the final evaluation, but indicative grades will be provided to give students an understanding of their progress. However, each late submission or missed assignment will result in a 5% penalty to the overall grade (i.e., missing one assignment will reduce the maximum course score from 100 to 95). But all assignments, even if late, must be submitted and graded to be satisfactory.
Paper and presentation:
The final paper and associated presentation will be graded and are the only two graded deliverables in this course. Additionally, although not graded, each student will be required to review and provide feedback on a few (no more than 3) peer presentations—failure to do so results in a 10% grade penalty. The paper, the presentation, and the peer review are individual assignments.
The paper is the front end of a typical empirical journal article—i.e., introduction, literature review, model development, and an abbreviated discussion section. In this type of paper, you will conduct preliminary research (focused on practical motivation, scientific motivation, literature review, and model development) on a problem of interest to you and write this in a traditional journal article format. This paper can be written under the supervision of another professor, for instance, with whom you are working, but they need to be made aware of the work being used as a course deliverable and should thus keep at arm’s length during the course. Nonetheless, this course instructor’s decisions on all matters, including the quality and direction, are binding and final.
The recommended length is a maximum of 20 pages double-spaced (Times New Roman, 12-pt, 1” margins), not including tables, figures, and references. A longer paper is permitted but will be subject to a length-to-contribution ratio assessment (do not load up important content into tables/figures to make the paper conform to the length requirements). The paper should include appropriate references and a complete and formatted bibliography, or the deliverable will NOT be graded and an F (grade) will be assigned. Note that writing a paper that conforms to length guidelines is important, given that several journals strictly enforce length guidelines. The paper must conform to the formatting guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA). If a paper does not conform to the guidelines, it will be docked at least one letter grade. Beyond the journal format for the bibliography, including DOI links at the end of each reference is required, even if it is not part of the current APA bibliography format.
Absent exceptional circumstances, late submissions will be scored as a 0.
Grading of the paper is subjective. Exceeding expectations earns an A, and meeting expectations earns a B. As noted earlier, working on various assignments and receiving and responding to feedback will be critical to earning a better grade.
In general, time is better spent using the feedback to learn than arguing about the assigned grade. Nonetheless, students can appeal their grades, and all such appeals must be submitted to the instructor in writing within 7 days of receiving the grade and will result in the entire deliverable in question being regraded, which may in turn result in no change, a change up, or even a change down. Independent grade appeals to the instructor; students can, of course, appeal grades on deliverables or their final grades in compliance with VT policy on grade appeals.
Students must submit 20-minute video presentation of their paper. Presentations longer than 20 minutes will not be reviewed and will receive a score of 0. The presentation must adhere to the highest professional standards and be compliant with the Executive PhD branding.
Details on the structure, format, and other aspects of the paper (both types) and the presentation will be discussed later in class.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this course are:
a) Learn the basics of theory development.
b) Learn how to do effective literature reviews.
c) Learn hypothesis development techniques and become familiar with various alternative techniques to theory development.
d) Learn different approaches to problem definition.
e) Learn contextualized, indigenous theory development, and opportunities for research in different contexts.
f) Learn how to write a paper.