Susan has completed a concept map, assisted by her colleagues, and has recently returned from her meeting with her manager. Her manager is very concerned about the high attrition rate and poor performance in the department. His feeling is that employees are simply disengaged – he is quoted as saying that "feedback and coaching are not taking place and I believe these are the key drivers of employee engagement with their work and our departmental objectives".

Susan is intrigued by his comments and decides to look further into the problems of employee engagement. Her preliminary research reveals that “4 out of 10 employees globally are currently not fully engaged” (Hewitt, 2013).

Susan adds these findings to her concept map and sits back to reflect. She knows that time is limited and that she must narrow her research down. She jots down some questions that are starting to emerge around her topic – “what employees value” – focusing specifically on these key words: feedback, coaching, and employee engagement.

• What value do employees place on feedback and coaching?

• Do feedback and coaching lead to improved employee engagement?

Susan jots down her preliminary delimitations: I am choosing not to include the many factors that could be included in a study on what employee's value such as leadership, rewards, and working conditions and instead to focus my research on feedback and coaching to allow for a more in-depth understanding of the value that employees place on these two concerns, including how they might lead to improved employee engagement.

1. Help Susan to develop four research questions for her topic, “what employees value”, focusing specifically on the keywords feedback, coaching, and employee engagement.
2. Critique the questions provided by each group using the Goldilocks Test: too big, too small, too hot, or just right.
3. What have you learnt from this approach?
4. Apply the Russian doll principle to Susan’s research questions.
5. Formulate research objectives for her topic, “what employees value”, using the research questions you developed in the previous task.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

a Here are four research questions for Susans topic focusing on feedback coaching and employee engagement How do employees perceive the impact of feed... View the full answer