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Survive, and Maybe Even Thrive, in a Group Project

UPDATED 12/5/09 – Scroll to end to see update. [Originally published on 9/2/09]

Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept by lumaxart.

“Oh, no . . . you mean we have to work in GROUPS in this class?” Though my PR Research students didn’t lament this out loud, I wondered how many of them dreaded the thought of ever working in a group project in a class. I bet many of them did (or do).

In today’s PR Research class, we collaborated, using Google Docs, on tips for how to survive a group project. Here’s a summary of what our class recommended:

  1. Communicate regularly
    • Mass messages….so all are on the same page
    • Praise often; it will motivate the team to work harder to achieve a common goal
    • Summarize at the end of each team meeting to ensure that each person leaves the meeting knowing what’s expected before the next meeting.
    • Send out a weekly update (with what’s been accomplished and what’s left to do)
    • Communicate as a whole, by using group text messages
    • Form a Facebook group
  2. Ensure that you’re aiming to achieve the same goals
  3. Manage your time.
    • Consider making a group calendar filled with internal deadlines that you set for yourselves. (Google Calendar might work well for this.)
    • Show up on time for group meetings (let people know if you’re running late)
  4. Meet regularly, even it’s only to touch base and confirm you’re where you should be in your project work.
  5. Delegate task based on strong points, and make sure you complete what is delegated to you
  6. Remember the platinum rule: Do unto others as they want done unto them
    • Be considerate of others
    • Be patient with your group members
    • Be flexibile
    • Have a good attitude
    • Be respectful
    • Work together
    • Contributing the same amount of work and time

Finally, before you begin working together in earnest, make an inventory of the skills of each group member. Also find out what each person would rather NOT do, if given the choice. This will help you divvy up the work more effectively. And exchange cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses, Twitter usernames . . . whatever will help you stay in touch effectively.

UPDATE: Ensure that every member of the group thoroughly reviews the entire project before submitting it. (And reviewing is more than simple proofreading.) You don’t want any unpleasant surprises based on information that was primarily written by another group member.

What other tips do you have for working together successfully in teams?

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Public Relations Research Final Exam

New pens and crochet-in-progress by hddod.PRCA 4330 Students

For your final exam in Public Relations Research, we’ll do something a little non-traditional. Create a list of the five most important things that public relations students need to know about conducting research, and explain why these things are important. Be sure to touch on a variety of the topics we covered in our PRCA 4330; the only required topic to discuss is the role of ethics in PR research. This exam (as noted on your syllabus) is worth 15% of your grade in the class.

Format (your choice)

  • Create a PowerPoint & upload it to SlideShare (should have at least 7 slides, with detailed notes in the Notes panel)
  • Create a podcast (audio recording) using Utterli (should be ~5-10 minutes long)
  • Create a video & upload it to YouTube (should be ~5-10 minutes long)
  • Write a blog post of ~500 words
  • Write a traditional paper and post it in GeorgiaVIEW as an attachment to the Final Exam assignment

DUE: No later than Wednesday, December 9 at 5pm. Reply to this blog post with a hyperlink to where I’ll find your final exam. (My preference is for you to embed it in your own blog.) Remember, if I can’t find it, I can’t grade it.

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Social Media Monitoring Report :: PRCA 4330

For Prof. Nixon’s PRCA 4330 Public Relations Research Class:

This assignment gives you an opportunity to learn how to monitor blog and other social media content in a way that provides similar insight offered by more traditional environmental scanning methods.

Many people will discuss your client or organization and its products/services on their own Web sites or on social media sites, outside of realm traditional media. Just as it is important for you to know what the media and your community are saying about your organization and its products/services, it is important to know what is being said in social media sites like blogs, social networks, and message boards. For this assignment, you will

  1. monitor the online conversation that has occurred about an organization or brand of your choosing since November 1, 2009
  2. create a table for your data
  3. write an analysis of the conversation with suggestions for action.

You might find bloggers who are blogging about your client organization or brand, people who are creating Web sites about it, message board members who are discussing it in forums, Twitter users who are twittering about it, social networking users who are commenting about it, or online video producers who are posting YouTube videos about it.

Let me know by November 15 how you choose to complete the project (individual or in pairs) and which organization you are choosing using this Google spreadsheet. NOTE: The first person (or pair) to “claim” a Fortune 500 company “gets” the company. No duplicates, please.

For details on the report, see below.

Social Media Monitoring Report

Many thanks to Kelli Burns, from University of South Florida, for allowing me to slightly modify a project posted at her Social Researcher blog.

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TED :: Peter Donnelly shows how stats fool juries

In today’s PRCA 4330 (PR Research) class, the instructor PC didn’t seem to have the correct version of Flash to show this video. It’s a fascinating talk where “Oxford mathematician Peter Donnelly reveals the common mistakes humans make in interpreting statistics — and the devastating impact these errors can have on the outcome of criminal trials.”

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How to Lie with Design Research

“Dan Saffer at the sixth annual IIT Design Research Conference, held September 21-22, 2007 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Chicago. ABSTRACT: How to Lie with Design Research: Same Data, Different Findings “There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Thus said Mark Twain. Should we add “Research Findings” to the list? Experience shows that, especially with qualitative research like the type designers often do, two researchers can look at the same set of data and draw dramatically different findings from them. How do we deal with this? If the findings are in conflict, who is correct? Is there a way to make our findings more objective, or is the nature of qualitative research such that subjectivity (what some might call lying) is always necessary?”

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Statistically Speaking, That’s Funny!

Statistics can scare even the bravest PRCA 4330 student . . . so let’s look on the lighter side. Using your best search skills, find one or more funny cartoons (or YouTube videos) on the topic of statistics or math.

Here’s one of my favorites, from the PhD (Piled Higher & Deeper) comic strip:

fun with statistics

Reply with a comment to this post, giving a link to the cartoon or video — or if you’d prefer, a link to your own blog, where you’ve embedded the funny item. We’ll share the best ones in class on Wednesday afternoon.

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PRCA 4330 Research Project Format

The Trap... by clicksense.Students in my PRCA 4330 class asked for more details on the format for their Public Relations Research Projects that they are completing for Georgia Southern University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching.

Cover Page

  • Client name & logo (if available)
  • Research team name (if you have one) and list of all members
  • Date

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

  • Written for client’s senior management team
  • No more than one page

Introduction

  • Research problem
  • Importance of the problem to the client
  • Purpose statement (use script from Creswell to write this)

Literature Review

  • Should accomplish two purposes
    • make an argument for the need to conduct this specific study (identify a gap, or a need in previous literature)
    • present the previous theories, concepts, etc. that this study uses and builds upon
  • Usually, each paragraph or small section of the literature review covers a body of literature. The best literature reviews are organized thematically; clearly identify and label these themes.
  • Typically, this section will be several pages long and will reference a dozen or more sources

Methods

  • Explain the research methods and procedures used for the research study, and your rationale for choosing said method(s)
  • Include your specific research question(s), not survey or interview questions, but the question(s) that your research attempted to answer

Results

  • Present your data, along with your (statistical or interpretive, etc.) analysis.

Limitations & Suggestions

  • What constraints were on your team?
  • What additional research is recommended based on your results?

Discussion

  • What do your results mean, in the context of the literature you reviewed?
  • Explain how the problem from the introduction is solved, how the research questions are answered, and whether the purpose of the study was accomplished.

Conclusion

  • Summary of the entire project (in a paragraph or two)

References

Appendixes

  • Number and content varies by project
  • All projects must include
    • High-level project plan (Gantt chart format works well for this)
    • PowerPoint slides used in presentation to client (printed six to a page)
    • Consent agreement
    • Your team contract
      • Provide a signed copy of your team’s contract (the contract you turned in during the week of October 5)
    • Agreement re: final version
      • Each team member will sign a page agreeing that the version you are submitting for a grade is your final version
  • Typically also includes
    • Complete survey, just as the participants saw it
    • Survey results, raw
    • Questions/scripts for focus groups or interviews
    • Verbatim transcripts of focus groups or interviews

NOT PART OF THE PAPER

Finally, each team member will individually submit in GeorgiaVIEW:

  • Team Member Evaluation Form (this will count as part of your team members’ grades) Coming Soon; not yet available
    • Will include
      • Client service
      • Meets deadlines, keeps promises
      • Quality writing
      • Creativity
      • Quality of presentation capabilities
      • Research capabilities
      • Participates in all activities
      • Takes initiative
      • Is accessible & responsive
  • Personal Reflection on Research Project (this will count as part of your own grade)
    • Roughly 500 words
    • Answer these questions
      • What did you learn from doing this project? (You can discuss what you learned about research in general, PR research, working with clients, working with teammates, what you learned about yourself through this process, what you might do differently next time . . .)
      • What surprised you?
      • What do you want to know more about?
    • This reflection is between you and me; your team members will not see it

NOTE 1: This information will be discussed in depth in class during the week of October 5. I will update this blog post after our discussion to add any necessary clarifications.

NOTE 2: Use APA Style for formatting your paper for citations, margins, headings, etc. The expectation is that you will use the most current version of APA Style (6th edition) unless you clear it with me beforehand. (Using 5th edition is fine, as long as you tell me ahead of time.)

NOTE 3: You will submit a PDF of your final project in GeorgiaVIEW (one per team), plus a professional-looking hard-copy for both your professor and your client. For your own portfolio, you may also want to print & bind your own hard-copy; it’s usually easiest if all the printed copies are created at once. The Eagle Print Shop on campus will have the best local prices for printing.

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Writing Research Purpose Statements

One of the most useful books I purchased as part of my doctoral program at Capella University is Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (2nd Edition). Though I rely heavily on several of the chapters when embarking on a new research project, the one I come back to most often is Chapter 6: The Purpose Statement. Creswell shares “scripts” that can be adapted for qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches.

Below is a PPT (created by Chris Anderson) that I discovered at DocStoc today.  You can view the slides here at my blog, or visit Chris’ page at DocStoc to download or print the presentation.


Chapter Six The Purpose Statement –

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Ethical Research: Protecting Human Participants

123/365 by This Year's Love.For this semester’s PRCA 4330 (PR Research) class, students will complete the online training offered through Georgia Southern University’s Office of Research Services and Sponsored Programs. This training, created by the National Institutes of Health, consists of seven modules, four of which are followed by quizzes. The NIH suggests that this training takes approximately three hours, and you do not need to complete all the training in one sitting.

Take the “Protecting Human Research Participants” training.

Once you’ve completed the training, print the certificate. Make two copies: one for your own files and one to hand to me in class.

Then, write a one-page reaction paper to the NIH training, using the format we often use in my classes:

  • What did you learn?
  • What surprised you?
  • What do you want to know more about?

Please save your reaction paper with your name as part of the filename AND put your name on the paper itself. Turn in the paper via GeorgiaVIEW no later than 5:00 PM on Friday, September 25. The total assignment is worth 100 points, 75 for the training and 25 for your reaction paper. (To get the 75 points for the training, hand me the certificate in class no later than Monday, September 28.)

Questions?

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