CAPSTONE SEMINAR
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This advanced capstone seminar culminates your graduate program at Baruch. The chief
goal of this course is for students to apply the knowledge and skills learned over their
graduate experience toward the development and completion of a capstone thesis project
that focuses on an organization of choice, a specific policy of interest, or a combination of
both.
Upon completion of the course, students will:
1) Identify a research question with social, political, management or policy significance.
2) Design and execute a research strategy using qualitative and/or quantitative methods.
3) Critically assess processes and outcomes.
4) Develop recommendations for action by public institutions or nonprofit organizations.
5) Present research findings, analysis, and recommendations persuasively.
REQUIRED TEXT
1. Creswell, John W. & J. David Creswell. 2018. Research Design: Qualitative,
Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage Publications, 5th ed.
Available at Baruch’s bookstore.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS/PAPERS
• Corbin, Juliet, Anselm Strauss, and Anselm L. Strauss. Basics of qualitative
research. Sage, 2014.
• Elo, Satu and Helvi Kyngas. 2008. The Qualitative Content Analysis Process.
Journal of Advanced Nursing. 62(1), 107-115.
• Krippendorf, Klaus. 2004. Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology,
2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Remler, Dahlia K., and Gregg G. Van Ryzin. (2014) Research Methods in Practice:
Strategies for Description and Causation. Sage
• The Chicago Manual of Style. University of Chicago Press.
Organizational Analysis: Problems and Solutions
This paper option involves identifying, contextualizing and offering solutions to an
organizational problem. In addition to the elements that appear in the “Manuscript
Guidelines” on pages 5-6 of the syllabus, your organizational analysis paper should include:
(1) background information on the origins of the organization, including its mission; (2) a
description of the organizational structure –detailing the number of employees and the
hierarchical levels of the organization. Be sure to include (3) policy recommendation(s): a
series of recommendations specifically designed to target whatever organizational problem
you have identified in the process of carrying out your organizational analysis. Your
proposed policy may be informed by your literature review, the course readings, exercises,
and/or classroom discussions. Your policy recommendations must be realistic and “doable.”
Final recommendations should also reflect your depth of knowledge about the
organizational policy itself and the needs of the organization. To be sure, designing a
tailor-made policy requires creativity, vision, and a talent for solving organizational
dilemmas. Feel free to draw on literature to inform your policy recommendations.
The Seven Wanna Be’s:
Be creative in selecting a topic. Be flexible enough to modify your topic if necessary. Be
tenacious in finding sources in the literature to anchor your topic. Be passionate about your
topic. Be disciplined and systematic when working on the project. Be prepared to collect
information on your topic via one or more techniques including: in-depth interviews,
archival research, participant observation, etc. (see Creswell for details and more
examples). Be receptive to learning something new about yourself as the research process
unfolds.
MANUSCRIPT GUIDELINES
Title Page
Table of Contents
Abstract or Executive Summary (not to exceed 150 words)
• Purpose
• Method
• Results
• Overall Conclusion
I. Introduction (See Creswell–Chapter 5)
1. The research problem.
2. Studies that have addressed the problem.
3. Limitations of prior studies.
4. The importance of the study for an audience.
5. The purpose statement (See Creswell–Chapter 6)
II. Literature Review (In-depth) (See Creswell–Chapter 2) (Be sure to pick a topic that has a
literature to draw from)
1. What does the literature have to say about your topic?
2. Your job is to locate, evaluate, and summarize the key literature surrounding your topic?
3. How does your paper contribute to the existing literature? Are you replicating, extending,
or adding to a prior study? (See Creswell’s discussion of the “literature map” p. 36)
III. Research Questions and Hypotheses (See Creswell—Chapter 7)
1. What specific question(s) do you plan to answer?
2. What hypotheses are you testing?
IV. Methods of Data Collection (See Creswell—Chapters 8 – 10)
1. Discuss the methodological approach you will use to collect your data.
2. You may follow one or more of the strategies offered by Creswell in explaining the method
you have selected or you may cite another legitimate source (see p. 2 of recommended
texts).
3. Be sure to explain why the method is appropriate to address your research questions and/or
test your hypotheses. You may do this by citing research from your literature review or
citing Creswell.
4. Your methods write-up must include a draft of all data collecting instruments (e.g., surveys,
interview questions, content analysis description, etc.).
V. Results/Findings
1. What are the major findings of your study? (i.e., what is the answer to your research
question(s)?). Or, if you started with a set of hypotheses, were they supported or refuted by
your findings? Provide a detailed and systematic discussion here.
Please be aware that your specific outline may slightly differ depending on whether you have elected to write an organizational analysis or policy analysis paper.
VI. Discussion & Conclusions
1. Link your results/findings to the broader literature discussed in section II.
2. Discuss how your results make a contribution to the literature.
3. Briefly explain any limitations of your study.
4. What policy implications or recommendations (if applicable) flow from your study?
5. What major and minor conclusions can be drawn from your study?
VII. Overall Observations
1. What was it like conducting the research?
2. What challenges did you encounter and how did you overcome them?
3. What did you learn from conducting the research that you did not know before you started?
(Please be specific)
VIII. References (see below)
IX. Appendix
1. Place all data collecting tools in this section (i.e., surveys, interview questions, notes from participant observation, etc.). You may also place tables, graphs, and charts here or you may insert them where appropriate in the body of your paper. Tables, charts, figures etc. should all have titles and labels (e.g., Table 1: Percent of Workers in Agreement) and a corresponding discussion in the text.
ADDITIONAL MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION ITEMS:
1. FORMAT: All papers should be typed, double-spaced, on 8½ by 11 inch white paper. Use 12-point typeface and be sure to staple your paper together or provide a secure binder clip.
2. HEADINGS: Use the above section headings for your paper. You may use additional sub-headings if necessary, but be sure to use the main headings listed above.
3. CITATIONS: There are at least two ways to cite authors in the text of your paper. You may give the last name of the author(s) and year of publication (i.e., Jones (1999))—a comparatively easier approach relative to footnoting. Include page numbers whenever you quote directly from a work or refer to specific passages: (Jones 1999, p. 29). Or, you can use a footnote—a more challenging approach. You may go with the first option while using a footnote, note for citations, but, used sparingly, to clarify a point or provide additional information.
4. REFERENCES: All references cited in the text must be listed in the references section and all references must have a corresponding citation in the text. Provide the full reference including full name, title, date, publisher, and page numbers (for periodicals). References may take the following form:
1. Books: Bernard, Claude. 1957. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine.
Translated by H.C. Greene. New York. Dover.
2. Periodicals: Goodman, Leo A. 1947. “The Analysis of Systems of Qualitative Variables
When Some of the Variables Are Unobservable. Part I—A Modified Latent
Structure Approach.” American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 79: pp. 1179-1259.
3. Edited Volume: Moss, Philip and Chris Tilly. 2001 (eds.) Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill,
and Hiring in America. New York. Russell Sage.
4. Websites (use sparingly): //http: www.provide the complete web site address here. Date retrieved.
5. Newspapers: Title Here. New York Times, section 2; A1.
Proofread: All documents should be proofread before handing them in. Asking a friend or
colleague to read your work is a good way to detect errors. Errors: Papers with errors in
spelling, grammar and punctuation will be marked down accordingly. Length: As a rough
guide, your final paper should not exceed 50 pages—not including references and
appendices. Numbering: Your pages should be numbered with the Table of Contents and
Abstract as lower case Roman numeral (i) and (ii) respectively. Your introduction should
begin page 1.
