M.A. in Applied Industrial and Organizational Psychology Degree Program: Course Descriptions
Guide organizational success. Improve group performance. Enhance individual work life. Those are just a few of the things I/O Psychology practitioners do on a daily basis. By applying principles of psychology to business, you will be able to positively impact a variety of workplace conditions, as well as the lives of scores of individuals.
In order to prepare you for this challenging career, The Chicago School’s online-blended I/O Psychology master’s program offers a proven curriculum based on the most current theories and practices. Most importantly, you will receive instruction by experienced practitioners who are experts in their field.
The I/O Psychology program is comprised of:
• Your choice of concentration (Consumer Psychology, Organizational Effectiveness, Leadership for
Healthcare Professionals, or Workplace Diversity)
• An experienced faculty member who is a personal mentor/facilitator/resource for students
• An instructional environment that recognizes you as a mature learners and welcomes your experience
and expertise into the classroom
• The latest research and reading materials that exposes you to new theories, concepts, and best
practices relevant to your career
• Classmates who provide a broader range of workplace experiences and diverse perspectives on
workplace situations and challenges
Students must successfully complete 35 credit hours to graduate from the program. The competency model of the Applied I/O Program is based on the guidelines published by Division 13 (Consulting Psychology) of the American Psychological Association.
CORE COURSES
EIO 510 Organizational Behavior (3 credits)
This course explores organizations at the individual level, examining the relationship between employees and managers, as well as employees and teams. It examines the factors that drive productivity and success in organizations, including motivation, diversity, work stress, conflict and negotiation, decision-making, personality, and attitudes.
EIO 511 Organizational Culture & Design (3 credits)
This course explores organizations at the organizational level, examining the relationship between culture and organization design, as well as structure and environment. It examines the impact of change in strategy and technology; environmental turbulence and organizational maturity; and reviews organization development as a means to advance the changing nature of organization. Supporting topics include corporate ethics, life cycle and control, organizational climate, and globalization. Students will also develop an organizational change strategy for a company in turmoil.
EIO 555 Organizational Team Dynamics (3 credits)
This course explores organizations at the team level, examining the relationship between employees and teams and organizations and teams. Students practice assessing and facilitating team processes to maximize productivity and results for members and stakeholders. It addresses how to get things done when teams lack leadership or authority. Supporting topics include how to build teams, how to manage meetings, how to build relationships beyond the team, and how to keep teams effective over their life span. The course uses real time teams, both virtual and face-to-face.
EIO 523 Employee Selection (3 credits)
This course provides students with the requirements for creating a legally defensible selection system. It addresses job analysis, fair employment practices, selection validation, and behavioral interviewing processes. Students practice analyzing a job and creating measures for the selection process. Exercises include using learned tools and processes to reduce turnover and to ensure stronger employee retention. Based on theory and best practices, students can evaluate and revise their organization’s selection process.
EIO 525 Management and Leadership (3 credits)
Management and leadership is the heart of organizational life. This course examines how managers and leaders create results by empowering culture and organizational commitment. Leading with the premise that there is no ideal leadership style and that an effective style depends on realistic assessment of the organizational culture, life cycle, and market environment, students apply management and leadership theory to their own work environment, evaluating how specific situations can be effectively addressed.
EIO 522 Performance Management (3 credits)
This course builds skills of measuring and improving business performance at the individual and team level. It focuses on developing a culture of performance and rewarding that performance. Supporting topics include legal issues of performance appraisal, multi-source methods of appraisal and models for multi-year performance management. Students analyze their organization’s performance system, revising it based on theory and best practices.
EIO 512 Organizational Consulting Skills (3 credits)
Every day, I/O psychology practitioners consult countless businesses in multiple ways, whether the role is internal or external and no matter what the service or field of concentration. Consulting is defined as advancing the goals of a client–an individual, group, or organization–by using learned approaches that create mutually rewarding relationships. This course develops skills vital to building profitable client relationships, including acquiring new business, writing winning proposals and expanding one’s referral base. Through case studies and actual projects, students work with clients in real time. Legal, ethical, and financial issues are addressed.
CONCENTRATION COURSES
• Consumer Psychology
• Leadership for Healthcare Professionals
• Organizational Effectiveness
• Workplace Diversity
Consumer Psychology Concentration/Certificate Courses
ECP 701 Consumer Motivation (3 credits)
Consumers today are bombarded by fast-paced, technologically savvy inducements to make spontaneous purchases across media. This course helps students make sense of how potential buyers sort through the stimulus overload. Students learn how to design point-of-sale displays; improve visual merchandising; maintain the integrity of a brand image; and attract and retain customers over time. Individually tailored project work centers on the participant’s own work challenges. Learning outcomes include:
• Understanding the basic motivations underlying consumer purchasing behavior
• Identifying how consumers perceive and respond to product variety and assortment, as well as how
individuals vary in their responses to these choices
• Applying techniques and methods for measuring customer satisfaction, or the degree to which
consumers are satisfied or delighted
• Leveraging how customer goals and identities motivate their buying experiences and preferences
• Using this information as advertisers, marketers, buyers, merchandisers, and store managers to
create increase customer retention and the frequency of unplanned purchases
ECP 702 Reaching the Target Market: Qualitative Research Methods (3 credits)
Reaching a specific target market and building market share requires identifying the characteristics of the people in that group, as well as what they look for in products or services that will make them loyal customers. Techniques for collecting and analyzing data covered in this course include:
• An overview of qualitative research techniques
• Designing, conducting, and managing in-depth interviews; focus groups (on-site, telephone, web) and
on-line bulletin boards
• Ethnographic research
• Hybrid models that combine interviews and focus groups
• Preventing, avoiding, and dealing with products associated with qualitative research
• How to report research findings
ECP 703 Understanding Customer Perceptions: Quantitative Research Methods (3 credits)
Quantitative (survey) research is crucial to an organization’s customer awareness strategy. Surveys make it possible to focus on a specific target market, improve customer satisfaction, and build a brand’s image by understanding the public perception of products and services. Learning objectives in this course include:
• When to use survey research
• Designing, conducting, and managing quantitative research
• How to ask survey questions that get the information you need
• How to conduct mail, web, and telephone surveys
• How to manage, analyze, and interpret survey data
• How to choose the right types of analysis
• The impact of sampling techniques and sample size
• How to report survey findings
Workplace Diversity Concentration/Certificate Courses
EWD 711 Meeting the Challenges of Global Human Resource Management (3 credits)
Managing human resources on a global basis requires an understanding of global staffing issues, including international assignment; compensation/benefits practices and requirements across borders; and culturally influenced differences in ethical practices. This course is intended as an overview of these issues, with the focus selected by the participant using an individualized project. Learning outcomes of this course include:
• Managing the challenge of balancing conflicting values across cultures
• Designing value-added expatriate programs
• Identifying important considerations in international staffing
EWD 712 Beyond Compliance: Building Ethical Organizations (3 credits)
Leaders drive performance in line with their personal values in ways that have far-reaching implications and consequences. The savvy global leader understands the impact of her or his own personal value system on the organization, and uses that understanding to make the organization a responsible corporate citizen that is a valued partner in the global marketplace. This course guides the leader through assumptions about values, understanding their impact on corporate culture and performance, and translating them into a living Code of Ethics used to guide the citizenship behavior of the organization through ethical dilemmas. Learning objectives in this course include:
• Addressing three key assumptions leaders make when setting the moral compass for their
organizations
• Stating and embracing a corporate value system that is based on fundamental definitions of right
and wrong that are somehow universal
• Developing a decision-making strategy based on these definitions that can be applied across cultures
• Creating a Code of Ethics that will ensure employees operate with integrity or face sanctions
EWD 713 Promoting Diversity (3 credits)
Organizational mission, vision, and values statements frequently include language that indicates “diversity” as a guiding principle or a deeply held ideal. Those organizations that want to put these words into meaningful action may find it difficult to apply the principal of diversity to their enterprise. This course is designed to address the adoption of diversity in today’s modern working environments. Learning objectives include:
• Defining diversity in practical, meaningful, and useful terms
• Developing strategies for increasing diversity in leadership ranks
• Exploring implicit bias in contemporary leadership competency models and working to reduce it
• Building a business case for purposefully increasing diversity in the workforce
Organizational Effectiveness Through Human Resources Management Concentration/Certificate Courses
EOE 721 Competitive Compensation and Benefits Systems (3 credits)
A company’s compensation and benefits systems communicate and reinforce the values of an organization. Participants in this course learn how to create a strategic compensation policy that helps attract and retain top talent. Learning outcomes include:
• Structuring a compensation policy
• Understand and use of different job evaluation methods
• Understand the value of compensation surveys and how to use them
• Create market-competitive salary ranges
• Design internally fair salary structures
EOE 722 Development and Deployment of Employee Surveys (3 credits)
Employee opinion surveys are powerful management tools that can help strategically enhance productivity, market share, customer satisfaction, and profitability. Participants will learn how to create effective surveys using appreciative inquiry and action planning to measure and implement organizational performance improvement initiatives. Learning outcomes include:
• Creating effective surveys using appreciative inquiry
• Developing sustainable organizational survey initiatives
• Using surveys to enhance organizational performance
• Leveraging survey data to increase organizational effectiveness
EOE 723 Production Labor Relations (3 credits)
This course focuses on understanding the role of collective bargaining in building strong, effective organizations. Participants will become familiar with applicable legislation; responsibilities around negotiations and contract adherence; managing multiple bargaining units; and partnering with bargaining unit representatives to make corporate initiatives successful. Learning outcomes include:
• Partnering with bargaining unit leaders
• Managing the grievance procedure
• Navigating fair employment and other important labor laws
Leadership for Healthcare Professionals Concentration/Certificate Courses
EHP 731 Legal Issues in Healthcare Leadership (3 credits)
Healthcare administrators must be conversant with the legal framework of the healthcare industry, as well as the ethical issues confronted in various healthcare settings. This knowledge is essential to the operation of an ethical and professional organization. Learning outcomes of this course include:
• Becoming patient-centered
• Effectively administering licensure and medical malpractice/liability, insurance issues
• Legal and ethical standards for care and informed consent
• Protecting medical record confidentiality, patient rights and patient advocacy
EHP 732 Strategic Planning in Healthcare Diversity (3 credits)
This course provides a developmental overview of the current healthcare system in the United States, as well as its organizational structure and operation of the various healthcare organizations. Reflecting on the issues faced by major healthcare delivery systems such as clinics, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and healthcare cooperatives, as well as relevant managed care providers, this course takes a long-term look at the strategic planning necessary for the operation of healthcare services in a competitive market. Learning outcomes include:
• Defining the market position and operational role of an organization within the larger health care
system
• Creating a multi year strategic plan
• Taking a proactive role in planning longer term solutions to current challenges
EHP 733 Quality Management in Healthcare Organization (3 credits)
This course provides basic quality management philosophy and strategies to effect positive organizational change. Healthcare leaders are challenged to have the knowledge and skills to assess, evaluate, and design clinical processes; challenge existing methods; rapidly implement new ideas; direct organizational change; and plan for future innovations in a changing healthcare environment. Learning outcomes include:
• Designing, organizing, and analyzing information related to quality improvement
• Appling problem-solving skills to analyze problems and issues related to quality
• Designing appropriate organizational structures and teams to implement quality solutions
Applied Research Project Courses
EIO 601 Writing and Research for Practice: Professional Proposals
This course covers the basic skills needed for writing at the graduate level, including critical thinking and attention to cross-cultural and multiple perspectives; grammar, writing mechanics, and style; and report formats appropriate for the workplace. Students will become familiar with essential resources needed for continuing the development of these skills. Coursework includes an overview of the applied research project and the project’s relationship to the learning outcomes of the program, and covers the process and procedures for creating a personal electronic portfolio (e-portfolio). Required e-portfolio submission: a proposal for an Applied Research Project that includes the problem statement, background, goal, and an annotated bibliography of three to four articles related to the proposal topic. Approval by the student’s advisor is required.
EIO 602 Writing and Research for Practice: Information Literacy
In addition to a review of electronic and other resources available to graduate students at The Chicago School, including traditional scholarly resources, this course teaches students how to create an effective research strategy to find and evaluate needed information. Students learn to formulate research queries, perform advanced searches using a range of search engines, and critically evaluate information for a particular application. The proper use of reference information to avoid plagiarism is included. Required e-portfolio submission: a revised Applied Research Project if warranted and the Literature Review Section of the project with a complete reference list. Approval by the student’s advisor is required.
EIO 603 Writing and Research for Practice: Professional Ethics
An overview of individual, as well as organizational, responsibilities with regard to ethical issues and requirements related to research and professional behavior. Students will think critically about ethical situations and compliance regulations in their workplace. The research ethics requirements of The Chicago School are included. Required e-portfolio submission: a revised Applied Research Project if warranted, the Critical Analysis of Ethical Considerations section of the project, and IRB approval, if needed. Approval by the student’s advisor is required.
EIO 604 Writing and Research for Practice: Overview of Applied Research Methodologies
An introduction to practical research methods used in workplace settings, including qualitative and quantitative research methods, as well as action research. The course covers the interpretation and presentation of fundamental statistical data used in workplace research. Students will learn to select an appropriate design for a particular research question and become familiar with resources for continuing development of these skills. Student e-portfolio outcome: a revised Proposal (if warranted), the Project Methodology section of the Applied Research Project, and a detailed plan to execute and complete the Applied Research Project. Approval by the student’s advisor is required.
EIO 605 Writing and Research for Practice: The Applied Research Project
Students will complete an Applied Research Project related to their workplace in which they formulate, investigate, and analyze a problem and develop solutions to address the problem. The project will include a section presenting an overview of the problem; a review of related literature and other organizational information; a critical analysis of the ethical considerations; a research methodology appropriate for the problem and organizational context; and a critical analysis of the problem and recommendation for its resolution. Required e-portfolio submission: a report documenting the Applied Research Project in a style appropriate for the workplace, and a PowerPoint presentation of the project. Approval by the student’s advisor is required.
For questions concerning any course, or to inquire about the Master’s in Applied Industrial & Organizational Psychology program in general, please call 866-907-4209 or request more information.
