Overview

WFED 582: Assessing and Feeding Back Data will familiarize you with approaches to assessing and feeding back data in organization development (OD) and consulting services. Building on the basic concepts taught in WFED 572, this course will help you develop the specialized competencies essential to diagnosing organizations for change efforts and interventions. In this course, the terms assessment, feedback, and organizational diagnosis will be used interchangeably when necessary. It is important to note that organizational diagnosis in OD works differently than organizational diagnosis in business consulting. As you learned in WFED 572, OD practitioners take the role of facilitators or counselors as opposed to experts or doctors.

You will learn about various organizational diagnosis models, approaches, and methods and then find ways to apply them to your own setting. You will first assess your own needs in terms of the competencies required for organizational diagnosis and feedback. Then, you will investigate various organizational diagnosis models so that you can identify or build a model that best fits your own context. You will gather data through multiple interviews, observations, and surveys and then analyze them. Following the analysis, you will learn how to document results and provide feedback to the client group.

At the end of the course, you will have gained not only knowledge about organizational diagnosis but also practical experience with sharp insights on the topic. Critical reflection, coupled with strong action, will be highly encouraged and valued throughout the course.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you should be able to

• define the terms assessment, feedback, and diagnosis for OD and consulting;
• describe unique issues associated with diagnosis for OD and management consulting that distinguish OD assessment and feedback from training needs assessment;
• summarize key similarities and differences in organizational diagnosis for OD from the standpoint of internal OD practitioners and external OD practitioners;
• clarify core competencies for the OD practitioner and pinpoint appropriate organizational diagnosis strategies for OD services;
• discuss key issues in establishing a strategic diagnostic plan for OD, implementing it, and evaluating the assessment and feedback strategy;
• demonstrate skills to separate problems from root causes during initial meetings and contacts with prospective sponsors and clients;
• prepare assessment and feedback protocols and reports for OD and change-management interventions;
• discuss current thinking and research on organizational diagnosis, assessment, and feedback methods; and
• review ethical issues affecting organizational diagnosis and OD assessment and feedback.

Required Course Materials

Most World Campus courses require that students purchase materials (e.g., textbooks, specific software, etc.). To learn about how to order materials, please see the Course Materials page. You should check LionPATH approximately 3–4 weeks before the course begins for a list of required materials.

Library Reserves (Course Reserves)

This course requires that you access Penn State library materials specifically reserved for this course. You can access these materials by selecting Library Resources in your course navigation, or by accessing the Library E-Reserves Search and search for your instructor's last name.

Library Resources

Many of the University Libraries resources can be utilized from a distance. Through the Libraries website, you can

• access magazine, journal, and newspaper articles online using library databases;
• borrow materials and have them delivered to your doorstep—or even your desktop;
• get research help via email, chat, or phone using the Ask a Librarian service; and
• much more. 

You must have an active Penn State Access Account to take full advantage of the Libraries' resources and service.  The Off-Campus Users page has additional information about these free services.

Software

One of the benefits of being a registered Penn State student is that you are eligible to receive educational discounts on many software titles. If you are interested in learning more about purchasing software through our affiliate vendor, please visit the Buying Software section of the Course Materials page.

Technical Requirements

Student Education Experience Questionnaire (SEEQ)

During the semester you will receive information for completing the Student Education Experience Questionnaire (SEEQ). Your participation is an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback on your learning experience. Your feedback is important because it allows us to understand your experience in this course and make changes to improve the learning experiences of future students. Please monitor email and course communications for links and availability dates.

If you need technical assistance at any point during the course, please contact the Service Desk.

For registration, advising, disability services, help with materials, exams, general problem solving, visit World Campus Student Services!

Expectations

Team Assignments

At the beginning of the course, teams will be formed. Several assignments need to be completed as a team. In that case, each team needs to determine how it will organize work. In most cases, members in each team will exchange their comments on assignments submitted by other team members. Actively exchanging ideas within your team will be critical for learning in this course.

Completing Assignments

All assignments are designed to facilitate your learning of assessment and feedback (organizational diagnosis) in OD. There are mainly three types of assignments: forum discussions, blog reflections, and drop box submissions. Forum discussion posts will be submitted by each individual or by a team after working on the assignment. For individual assignments, a forum space for each team will be created in order to facilitate feedback within the team.

Fieldwork

The contents and assignments in this course are very practically oriented, requiring you to carry out fieldwork in an organizational setting. If it is possible for you to gather data within your organization, that would be greatly helpful. Otherwise, you need to gain access to an organization, which could be a non-profit organization or a community in your neighborhood.

Self-Regulated Learning

You are expected to read the assigned readings, participate in discussions, finish assignments, and build up competency throughout this course. On-time submissions, active participation in the discussions, and communication with your instructor and team members are the keys to success in this class.

Communication

There are two primary communication tools in this course. General announcements to the entire class will be made through the course announcements, and assignment feedback will be sent by the instructor through the Canvas assignment or the Canvas Inbox.

Course Assignments

IMPORTANT: Note that, in some lessons, you may come upon assignments located within the lesson commentary. Be sure to complete the assignments as you come upon them rather than waiting until the end of the lesson. It's important to begin your lessons early in the week in order to support dialogue in the discussion forums. Be sure to check back to add comments and read your classmates' posts throughout the week.

Blog Reflections

Throughout the whole Master of Professional Studies in Organization Development and Change program, you will systematically reflect on what you have learned in each class and what you have done in your career in the blog reflection assignments. In this course, there will be blog reflection activities to help you to reflect on, organize, and elaborate on what you have learned. Your performance for each blog reflection will be evaluated based on your storytelling skills (25%), connection to the course (25%), critical-thinking skills (25%), and quality (25%).

You may write your assignments or videotape your reflections and upload them. Further instructions on how to post and how to upload appear in each blog reflection assignment.

Research-Based Article Abstract

You will prepare an abstract of a research article that focuses on assessment and feedback or organizational diagnosis in the context of organization development or change management. Please find a research-based article that employed quantitative or qualitative research methods, which should neither an essay of the author nor a literature review.

Please use such sources as Organization Development Journal, Leadership and Organizational Change, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Group and Organization Studies, Organization Dynamics, International Journal of Training and Development, Performance and Instruction, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Performance Improvement Quarterly, or other relevant journals.

Using the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), please include bibliographic citation, problem statement, problem and purpose of research, research questions or hypotheses, methodology and/or methods (participants, sampling method, key variables, instrument(s), and data analysis method), findings, implications, limitations, and future recommendations.

You must submit a copy of the article that you abstracted along with the abstract.

CSO Project Assignments

In this course, you will be selecting and working with a Case Study Organization (CSO). The organization that you choose could be your employer or any organization that you have permission to access.

The overarching goal of working with the case study organization is to offer practical experiences with organizational diagnosis in a real-world situation. During the process, you will not only learn about different concepts and tools of organizational diagnosis but also apply them from an OD perspective. Therefore, start thinking about which organization might be supportive of your learning and the OD approach.

There are ten individual assignments related to the CSO that you choose. They are:

• Case Study Description in Lesson 1
• CSO Discussion in Lesson 2
• Great Place to Work Model Application and High-Performance Programming Model Application in Lesson 7
• Focus Group Interview Submission in Lesson 9
• Diagnosis Plan Submission in Lesson 10
• Mini-Interviews and Results in Lesson 11
• SWOT OR ERA Analysis in Lesson 12
• Feedback Report Discussion and Intervention Action Planning in Lesson 13

As you can see, the workload related to the CSO project is quite heavy. Make sure that you review those CSO project assignments as soon as possible. Meet with your CSO sponsor and discuss the scope of the project to get buy-in, and discuss presenting problems.

Group Work Discussions

There are assignments that need to be completed as team, i.e.

• Lesson 4 Group Discussion on McKinsey 7-S Framework,
• Lesson 5: Group Discussion: Critiques of A Case Study That Employed Weisbord's Six-Box Model, and
• Lesson 14 Group Discussion: An Ethical Dilemma Case Study.

Peer Evaluation

The purpose of peer evaluation is to ensure your team's effectiveness by encouraging everyone's active participation. Each student will be evaluated at the end of the semester by his or her team members on the following items:

1. Please rate how [Evaluatee X] showed his/her teamwork.

   Questions

   Response options

   attended virtual team meetings actively without being late contributed meaningfully to team discussions completed team assignments on time contributed to team assignments in a quality manner demonstrated a cooperative and supportive attitude provided regular feedback to my submissions for forum assignments provided quality feedback to my submissions for forum assignments contributed significantly to the success of the project

   1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree

2. Please list the strengths of [Evaluatee X] as a team member.
3. Please list the challenges of having [Evaluatee X] as a team member.

All Other Major Assignments

Detailed directions for major assignments, such as discussions, paper submissions, a professional development plan, and the final exam are provided in the corresponding lessons, including Lessons 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 15).

Final Exam

The final exam is a comprehensive exam to reinforce some of the important foundational lessons learned from the course. It will be available to you at a designated time. Your first access will be logged, and you have 60 minutes to submit your answers to seven essay questions. You will only be able to access the final exam once.

Bonus Point Opportunities

The main purpose of this bonus point challenge is to provide you with an opportunity to weave everything together from the beginning to the end. If you followed this course closely, it will be a matter of compiling your weekly assignments and synthesizing the contents.

Course Grading Schemes

You will be evaluated based on the quantity, quality, and timeliness of your efforts. The table below breaks down point allocations more specifically.

Letter grades will be based on the following scale:

Please refer to the University Grading Policy for Graduate Courses for additional information about University grading policies.

If, for reasons beyond the student's control, a student is prevented from completing a course within the prescribed time, the grade in that course may be deferred with the concurrence of the instructor. The symbol DF appears on the student's transcript until the course has been completed. Non-emergency permission for filing a deferred grade must be requested by the student before the beginning of the final examination period. In an emergency situation, an instructor can approve a deferred grade after the final exam period has started. Under emergency conditions during which the instructor is unavailable, authorization is required from one of the following: the dean of the college in which the candidate is enrolled; the executive director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies if the student is enrolled in that division or is a provisional student; or the campus chancellor of the student's associated Penn State campus.

For additional information please refer to the Deferring a Grade page.

Course Schedule

Note: All due dates reflect North American eastern time (ET).

Activities are due by 11:59 pm eastern time (ET) on Sunday of the week in question.

The symbol identifies readings that are available on E-Reserves through the University Libraries.

Note: If you are planning to graduate this semester, please communicate your intent to graduate to your instructor. This will alert your instructor to the need to submit your final grade in time to meet the published graduation deadlines. For more information about graduation policies and deadlines, please refer to Graduation at the Chaiken Center for Student Success.

Formal instruction will end on the last day of class. Provided that you have an active Penn State Access Account user ID and password, you will continue to be able to access the course materials for one year, starting from the end date of the academic semester in which the course was offered (with the exception of library reserves and other external resources that may have a shorter archival period). After one year, you might be able to access the course based on the policies of the program or department offering the course material, up to a maximum of three years from the end date of the academic semester in which the course was offered. For more information, please review the University Course Archival Policy.

Academic Integrity

According to Penn State policy G-9: Academic Integrity , an academic integrity violation is “an intentional, unintentional, or attempted violation of course or assessment policies to gain an academic advantage or to advantage or disadvantage another student academically.” Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, you must complete all course work entirely on your own, using only sources that have been permitted by your instructor, and you may not assist other students with papers, quizzes, exams, or other assessments. If your instructor allows you to use ideas, images, or word phrases created by another person (e.g., from Course Hero or Chegg) or by generative technology, such as ChatGPT, you must identify their source. You may not submit false or fabricated information, use the same academic work for credit in multiple courses, or share instructional content. Students with questions about academic integrity should ask their instructor before submitting work.

Students facing allegations of academic misconduct may not drop/withdraw from the affected course unless they are cleared of wrongdoing (see G-9: Academic Integrity ). Attempted drops will be prevented or reversed, and students will be expected to complete course work and meet course deadlines. Students who are found responsible for academic integrity violations face academic outcomes, which can be severe, and put themselves at jeopardy for other outcomes which may include ineligibility for Dean’s List, pass/fail elections, and grade forgiveness. Students may also face consequences from their home/major program and/or The Schreyer Honors College.

How Academic Integrity Violations Are Handled
World Campus students are expected to act with civility and personal integrity; respect other students' dignity, rights, and property; and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their own efforts. An environment of academic integrity is requisite to respect for oneself and others, as well as a civil community.

In cases where academic integrity is questioned, the Policy on Academic Integrity indicates that procedure requires an instructor to inform the student of the allegation. Procedures allow a student to accept or contest a charge. If a student chooses to contest a charge, the case will then be managed by the respective college or campus Academic Integrity Committee. If that committee recommends an administrative sanction (Formal Warning, Conduct Probation, Suspension, Expulsion), the claim will be referred to the Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response.

All Penn State colleges abide by this Penn State policy, but review procedures may vary by college when academic dishonesty is suspected. Information about Penn State's academic integrity policy and college review procedures is included in the information that students receive upon enrolling in a course. To obtain that information in advance of enrolling in a course, please contact us by going to the Contacts & Help page .

University Policies

• Accommodating Disabilities:

  Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University’s educational programs. Every Penn State campus has an office for students with disabilities, including World Campus. The Disabilities and Accommodations section of the Chaiken Center for Student Success website provides World Campus students with information regarding how to request accommodations, documentation guidelines and eligibility, and appeals and complaints. For additional information, please visit the University's Student Disability Resources website.

  In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, you must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation. If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus's disability services office will provide you with an accommodation letter. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. You must follow this process for every semester that you request accommodations.

• Counseling and Psychological Services:

  If you have a crisis or safety concern, mental health services are available to you as a Penn State student. Crisis and emergency contacts are available, no matter where you are located:

  • Anywhere in the United States: Call the Penn State Crisis Line at 1-877-229-6400 or text LIONS to 741741. You can also contact your local crisis services or hospital for emergencies.
  • Outside the United States: Please contact emergency services in your current location. You can also use the International Crisis and Emergency Services listings.
  • At University Park: Assistance is available at Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) locations on campus.
  • At a Penn State branch campus: You can search for counseling information at your campus.

• Additional Policies:

  For information about additional policies regarding Penn State Access Accounts; credit by examination; course tuition, fees, and refund schedules; and drops and withdrawals, please see the World Campus Student Center website.

• Military Students:

  Veterans and currently serving military personnel and/or dependents with unique circumstances (e.g., upcoming deployments, drill/duty requirements, VA appointments, etc.) are welcome and encouraged to communicate these, in advance if possible, to the instructor in the case that special arrangements need to be made.

• Privacy Notice:

  Please note that course access is limited to those individuals who have direct responsibility for the quality of your educational experience. The course instructor and any teaching assistant(s), of course, have access to the course throughout the semester. Each course offered via the World Campus has several instructional design staff members assigned to assist in managing course content and delivery. These instructional design staff members have access to the course throughout the semester for this purpose. Also, World Campus technical staff may be given access in order to resolve technical support issues. In addition, mentor, department head, or program chair may be provided with course access in order to ensure optimal faculty availability and access. Each of these individuals will keep confidential all student course and academic information.

• Student Responsibilities and Conduct:
  
  
  1. Students are responsible for online course content, taking notes, obtaining other materials provided by the instructor, taking tests (if applicable), and completing assignments as scheduled by the instructor.  As a general rule, students should plan on logging into the course at least three times per week and spending at least three hours per course credit per week on the course, e.g., if the course is three credits, the student should plan on spending at least 9-12 hours per week on the course, just as they would in a residence course.
  2. Students are responsible for keeping track of changes in the course syllabus made by the instructor throughout the semester.
  3. Students are responsible for monitoring their grades.
  4. Students must contact their instructor (and teammates when working on any collaborative learning assignments) as soon as possible if they anticipate missing long periods of online time due to events such as chronic illnesses, death in the family, business travel, or other appropriate events. The instructor will determine the minimal log on time and participation required in order to meet course responsibilities. In the event of other unforeseen conflicts, the instructor and student will arrive at a solution together.
     1. Requests for taking exams or submitting assignments after the due dates require documentation of events such as illness, family emergency, or a business-sanctioned activity.
     2. Conflicts with dates on which examinations or assignments are scheduled must be discussed with the instructor or TA prior to the date of the examination or assignment.
  5. Students are responsible for following appropriate netiquette (network etiquette) when communicating with their instructor and classmates. For reference, see the Academic Success Kit.
  6. Behaviors that disrupt other students’ learning are not acceptable and will be addressed by the instructor.
  7. For severe and chronic problems with student disruptive behavior, the following will be applied for resolution:
     1. Senate Committee on Student Life policy on managing classroom disruptions: Office of Student Accountability and Conflict Response.
     2. Penn State Values.
• Report Bias:

  Penn State takes great pride to foster a diverse and inclusive environment for students, faculty, and staff. Acts of intolerance, discrimination, or harassment due to age, ancestry, color, disability, gender, gender identity, national origin, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, or veteran status are not tolerated and can be reported through Educational Equity via the Report Bias webpage.