MNA1134 Practicing Organisational Psychology Assignment Brief 2026 | DCU

MNA1134 Assignment Brief

Objectives

On successful completion of this module participants will be able to:

1. Manage internal or external consulting skills situations
2. Engage in career, relationship and decision analysis and management for self and others.
3. Apply understanding of developments in the future of work to career planning and management
4. Understand own consulting skills competence and apply to consulting situations
5. Act in accordance with the Code of Ethics for Organisational Psychologists as set out by PSI

Lectures are conducted using a combination of learning strategies:

• Didactic lecture and didactic questioning
• Skill Building (case studies or activities conducted during lecture sessions, individual assignment)
• Inductive (discussion and exercises conducted during lecture sessions and the case study assignments).
• The learning philosophy of this module is predicated on guided facilitation of your learning and application to your personal, career or leadership development in your role as a practicing organisational psychologist. It is dependent on participant engagement in pre-work, discussions and analysis. The responsibility for learning is with the learner. Advance preparation for lectures, in the form of pre-work, is expected.

Assessment Breakdown & Submission Dates

100% Continuous Assessment as follows:

• 75% Individual Personal Critical Incident Case Analysis o      Due Monday 24^th March
• 25% Consulting Skills in Action Reflection. Practice in Class 3^rd February. Role Play Assessment 3^rd March. Group reflection (the same reflection for all group members) Due within Portfolio by Tuesday 24^th March

Guidelines for written assignments and penalties for late submissions and exceeding the word count are outlined in the programme handbook. Repeat Assessments are available for students who do not pass this module.  Requirements for Repeat Assessments are set out in the programme handbook.

Plagiarism

DCU has a strict policy on plagiarism (the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own) which is outlined in the programme handbook.  This policy will be implemented in this and other modules on the programme. All assignments must be submitted to URKUND, which will confirm the originality of your work. Projects that fail to undergo the originality test through URKUND will not be accepted. This should only be done once for each assignment.

Attendance

Attendance at all lectures is expected.Students should not arrange any appointments that conflict with the requirement to attend lectures.

Reading

Although a reading list is provided for this module, this list is not an exhaustive one in that it should not prevent or dissuade students from seeking extra material from other sources. The main texts are referenced in the lecture schedule, however readings will be recommended for each lecture theme, during the course, so as to complement the main texts or to provide additional information.

Loop

This module has a loop page which should be used as the main source of information including lectures, pre-work details, resources associated with each lecture, assignments and assignment submission, questions about the module and module announcements.

Indicative Module Content

Session

2 Reading List

Recommended

• Block, Peter. 1981. Flawless consulting: a guide to getting your expertise used. Austin, Texas: Learning Concepts
• Barends, E. & Rousseau, D.M. (2018) Evidence-Based Management: How to Use Evidence to Make Organizational Decisions, Kogan Page.

These are just a sample, specific readings will be referenced during lectures or on the module LOOP site. 

Assessments

Individual Assignment

Content 

Individual Personal Critical Incident Case Analysis

Assignment

Identify and critically analyse, using theories and empirical research covered in this module, one personal critical incident related to one of the topics covered on this module. Adopt a ‘practicing organizational psychology’ approach to critically analyse your personal critical incident. Based on the analysis provide a set of recommendations to your future self on how to deal with this incident going forward.

1. Identify and describe a personal critical incident related to one of the topics covered in this module. Submit your critical incident and description to me on the LOOP link provided by Friday January 30^th.
2. Analyse this critical incident using theory and empirical evidence covered and/or related to content covered in this module. (70%)
3. Provide a set of recommendations to your future self on dealing with this incident going forward. These should be directly and explicitly related to the analysis, theory and research discussed in part 2 (30%)

This assignment will be graded according to the School grading rubric which is in the programme manual.

This individual assignment is worth 75% of your overall mark. 

Length of assignment: 3000 words max. Size 12-font, 1.5” Margins, 1” Line spacing. 

Date due: Tuesday 24^th of March 2026 via LOOP

Consulting Skills In Action

The consulting skills in action workshop consists of partaking in a live case-based consulting role-play in teams. Using an assessment centre format, your performance in-role will be observed by peers, a faculty member and the clients (actors). You will be provided with live feedback by observers.

Please note that the live consulting role-play may only be completed during the in-class lecture session as per the schedule on the specified date. Unfortunately, no “make up” assignment can be offered in respect of this component if you miss it, so please make every effort to attend on the day.

This component is worth 25% of your overall mark

The Reflection on the Consulting Skills in Action is at Group level (worth 25%)

Role Play Completed: Tuesday 3^rd of March 2026 during Workshop

Reflection Due: Tuesday 24^th of March 2026 via LOOP

This module outline is subject to change- if changes are made, it will be communicated through LOOP announcements.