Activity 1: Research philosophy assumptions

Jules was a part-time HR student who worked in a public sector organisation located in England. The organisation was struggling with high-levels of short-term sickness absence, which was having a negative impact on customers. Jules decided to undertake a literature review and discovered a number of variables that may be associated with sickness absences. These variables included personal characteristics as well as general work attitudes. After an initial review of the literature, Jules felt that it would be most appropriate to adopt a positivist approach to undertaking research to understand the short-term absences. Jules began by formulating a hypothesis that there was an association between employees' personal characteristics and their levels of sickness absence.

1. Why did Jules adopt a positivist approach to research?
2. What advantages and disadvantages would this approach provide?
3. What data would Jules need to test the hypothesis?

Activity 2: Action research in practice

• Download the following article: "E-mentoring as a HRD intervention: an exploratory action research study within an International Professional Mentoring Scheme" (Sanyal & Rigby, 2017)

• Read the following in this article
• Abstract - at beginning of article
• Research method (setting and approach) - sections 3.1 and 3.2

• Discuss the following questions:
• Why was the action research strategy chosen for this research?
• What skills would researchers require to carry out this action research strategy?
• Identify three criticisms of the action research strategy

Activity 3: Review your case brief

• Review the case brief

• List the possible activities that may be required (this will inform your research plan)
• Discuss possible data that may be required i.e. your research strategy (quantitative, qualitative?), and how this data could be collected (what would be possible research design?) - this will need to be listed in your research plan