University of Brighton
Faculty of Management and Information Sciences
Brighton Business School
Module Report Template
Module Title Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management
Module Code: HR315
Courses/ Years Taught: 2012/13
Module Leader: Dr Stephanos Avakian
Other members of the teaching team: Dr Sue Greener and Sue Ridley
Semester (or weeks taught if block mode) Semesters 1&2
Academic Year 2012/2013
Introduction
Employee Selection and Development (HR315) is a year three elective module that runs from
October to May.
The module is taught in two sites, namely, Mithras House in Brighton, and at the Brighton University
campus in Hastings. The total number of students taking the module over the last year was 41.
The first part of the module focuses on the field of Recruitment and Selection whilst the second part
focuses on the field of Training and Development.
The delivery of the module slightly varied between the two sites and because of the way modules are
organized. However, in total the sessions comprised of 20 lectures and 20 seminars.
The delivery of the module has gone well over this last academic year. One of the innovations we
introduced concerns the peer review feedback in which the students had to complete an initial draft of
their summative assignment well before the designated deadline. This has been a new undertaking
and after experimenting how a similar peer review exercised that was introduced to the students the
previous year.
Youtube videos (particularly the Harvard Business Publishing videos) provided a good opportunity for
students to have the information communicated to them in different ways. In particular, the ‘interview’
features contained in the Harvard videos proved particularly useful as the video participants were able
to discuss the topic in an approachable language and though conversation..
Overall, the students had the opportunity to use their textbook for studying concepts as they were
academically situated in the literature. At the same time, they were able to make more direct use of
interactive resources. A key feature in the learning material has been the accessibility but also
portability of the taught resources. All material were accessible online and the students could revisit
them at their own leisure.
Online help with the summative assignment
An online lecture was created in order to assist student with the completion of their peer review as
well as summative assignment. The online lecture was created by using Camtasia Relay and can be
accessed from the following link. The lecture was made available online which meant that students
were able to watch it at their own leisure.
https://media.brighton.ac.uk/CRS/Untitled_-_Flash_%28Medium%29__20121221_05.44.23AM.html
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Guest Lecture
Students had the opportunity to listen to two guest lecturers. The first lecture titled Developing
employees: The „can do‟ and the „will do” was delivered by De Ilke Inceoglu, from the SHL Group.
The lecture focussed on the importance of resourcing employees with specific talents The second
lecture titled ‘Equality e-learning project at the University of Brighton’ was delivered by Annie Carrols
and addressed a large e-training program that was implemented across the university of Brighton
recently. Hence students were able to have some exposure to real projects which helped exemplified
some of the material taught.
Module Handbook
The module handbook proved a useful resource for containing all the important information that
students need to be aware during their studies of the module. The handbook acted like a baseline
document that helped answer similar questions students had. Attention was paid in the module for
offering comprehensive advice to students for tackling their summative assignments. So specific
mention was made to the expected featured contained in the assignments’ structure, content, and
presentation.
Assessment
For this year the peer review became part of the students’ summative assessment and counted for
20% of their total grade. The students were assessed on the quality of their constructive feedback to
their colleagues.
This exercise had a number of interesting benefits that we seek to maintain and for the following
academic year.
Firstly, the students had to formally review the work of a colleague which meant that students needed
to demonstrate good planning skills with making progress with the assignment.
Secondly, the students needed to reflect and assess the quality of their colleague’s work providing
them with the opportunity to also assess the quality of their own performance. Thirdly the students
were assessed on the quality of feedback that they communicated to their colleagues. To some
extent, this activity replicated the ‘performance review exercise’ as the students needed to
communicate strengths and weaknesses in a professional manner.
The second part of the students’ assessment took place by producing a summative assignment that
focused on a particular firm. The students had to collect and analyse primary empirical data. The aim
of this assignment was to encourage the students to become familiar with the process of gaining entry
to an organization. Moreover, to exercise their data collection skills by handling qualitative or/and
quantitative data. Some of the students had access to data outside the UK and we allowed them to
access the data in their retrospective countries.
Online Marking and Feedback
All assignments were submitted and marked electronically using Turnitin. The Grademark tool was
useful in offering comprehensive feedback to students. This is because comments were produced by
tutors on the main body of the assignment but also accompanied by more comprehensive feedback
focusing on strengths and areas for development. Moreover, the use of the ‘rubric’ tool allowed the
students to have brief snapshot of their performance. Students were able to have a good summary of
comments about their performance which has been one of our core objectives at the Business
School.
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Statistical data including passes and referrals
The following table provides a summary of the performance produced by the total number of students
taking the module (Mithras and Hastings). As it can be seen from the table below the overall
performance is satisfactory with the average grade being 62. We strongly believe that the students
were able to perform better in their assignments as a result of our introducing the peer review
assessment exercise.
62.0
No of
Attempts
Average
Mark
74.0
Max Mark
48.0
Min Mark
7.2
St Dev
41
0
< 35
0
35 - 39
2
40 - 49
12
50 - 59
19
60 - 69
8
>= 70
Attendance:
Overall attendance has been mixed between the two sites, namely, Mithras and Hastings.
Whereas at Hastings attendance was not particularly good in the first semester, attendance
at Mithras started to decline during the second semester. Students faced a number of
mitigating circumstances that affected their performance with two students not fulfilling
their work. However, despite the adversaries the tutors are generally satisfied with the
students’ performance and output.
Student Feedback:
Some of the feedback received by the students is the following
From: James Cannon [J.Cannon1@uni.brighton.ac.uk]
Sent: 23 April 2013 10:53
To:
Stephanos Avakian
Subject:
HR 315
I feel that you have been an inspiration and an absolute credit to my learning. You have highlighted
the issues and challenges and the risks associated to this module. You have motivated me to
research your module in greater depth which has enhanced my understanding of the current issues
and future trends.
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I would like to thank you for all your efforts for helping me to achieve my potential. Your help and
support across the two past years has been remarkable and has always been appreciated.
It is likely that we will not meet again as I intend to finish my education after graduation.
Thank you for providing your valuable time, it has always been of great appreciation.
I hope you enjoy reading my summative assignment.
Best wishes for the future.
Sincerely
James Cannon
Module/component organisation
A possible change of topic concerning the summative assignment is considered for the next academic
year as the existing topic has remained relatively the same for the last two years.
More interactive activities are envisaged to be introduced with regards to recruitment and selection. A
possible change concerns the development of different scenarios in which the students need to play
role exercises. Such exercises will include the students needing to submit their CV and go through an
interview while being assessed for their performance.
External Examiner Comments
Action Plan
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