Take My Liberty PSYC 716 Class

Instead of a textbook, each week assigns a cluster of journal articles, from classic theoretical statements to recent empirical studies, with one or two short presentations.

The early weeks examine the foundations of the field, including its history, its research methods and the major theories of work behavior and organizational effectiveness.

The middle weeks turn to workplace attitudes such as job satisfaction, commitment and engagement, and to personnel research on selection, performance and training.

Later weeks cover organizational development and change, leadership and management research, and newer areas of study such as employee health, well-being and the changing nature of work.

The week-four presentation on employee health and well-being ties several of these strands together, and the research paper in week seven lets you go deep on a topic of your own.

A summary is due every week, the forums in weeks two and five, the presentation in week four and the paper in week seven.

Methods appear throughout, since judging an article means judging how it was done.

Theories that recur across the weeks include job demands and resources, social exchange, person-environment fit and organizational justice, each tested in several assigned studies.

Research designs vary too, from meta-analyses that pool hundreds of studies to multilevel field studies of teams, which the summaries must read with care.

Workplace attitude weeks examine how satisfaction, commitment and engagement are measured and whether they predict behavior as strongly as managers assume.

Personnel weeks review what the evidence says about selection tools, training transfer and performance ratings, and where practice lags behind research.

Each week's presentations frame the articles and suggest what to look for.

PSYC 716 is carried week by week, because the summaries depend on that week's assigned articles and carry most of the grade.

Each synthesis is organized around ideas rather than authors, tracing links and disagreements among the week's readings, their meaning for scholars and practitioners, and how they square with Scripture. Every article is cited and appears in the references.

Week four's narrated deck offers four evidence-based ways to protect workers' health, safety or flourishing, at least two of them defended from Scripture, citing four or more studies. Recommendations might include protecting sleep for shift workers through scheduling, redesigning physically demanding jobs, strengthening employee assistance programs and encouraging job crafting. Slides and a script are prepared; you record.

The research paper, eight to ten pages, reviews what is known about a focused I/O topic you choose, such as abusive supervision, the onboarding of military veterans or the effects of gig work on commitment, and analyzes it from a biblical perspective, with five or more peer-reviewed articles.

Each forum post argues a position with research behind it, and replies bring a further study.

Each summary also notes one question the week's research leaves open, a habit doctoral instructors look for.

PSYC 716 work goes to an I/O psychologist with a doctorate who reads and publishes research and has taught graduate seminars.

That experience shows in the summaries, which treat articles as arguments to be evaluated, noting design, sample and the strength of the conclusions, rather than as content to be retold.

It shows in the research paper, which is organized as a review with themes, gaps and directions for future research, the way a doctoral literature review should be.

It shows in the biblical analysis too, which engages the research seriously and identifies real points of agreement and tension.

A second doctoral reviewer reads each piece, and one scholar covers the whole seminar.

They also know how to frame research questions that could grow into a dissertation.

They write clearly enough that a busy instructor can see the argument at a glance.

Reading volume is the first difficulty. Some weeks assign six or seven articles, and each must be discussed.

Synthesis is the second. Summaries that march through articles one by one fall short of what a doctoral seminar expects.

Biblical integration is the third, since each summary must weigh the week's research against Scripture with care rather than adding a verse.

The presentation in week four is the fourth: eight to ten narrated slides with four recommendations and four studies.

The paper in week seven is the fifth, coming in a week that also has a summary due.

Many students also find it hard to keep summaries within three pages when a week assigns seven articles.

A summary is due in week one, so the course is best handed over before it opens.

Each summary reaches you two days before its week ends.

Forum threads arrive early in weeks two and five, with replies once classmates post.

The deck and script reach you as week four opens, and the paper several days before week seven closes.

Taken together the syntheses cost most; individually the deck and the paper are the biggest items.

Students who join partway send their graded summaries so later weeks continue the same line of argument.

Each synthesis is priced by its week's article count.