Teaching Guide
Chapter 9: Psychology and organisations
Topic map
 
Learning
outcome Number of
Sub-topic (number lessons Coursebook
from (suggested)
syllabus)

Section 9.1: Motivation to work

Figure 0.2

Reflections: Rewards (p. 282)

Motivation to Research Study McClelland, 1965

3.2.4.a 2
work

Figures 9.1, 9.2

Self-assessment questions 1, 2, 3, 4

End-of-topic questions A, B, C

Section 9.2: Leadership and management

Reflections: Defining leadership; measuring

leadership (pp. 283, 291)

Research Study Heitetz, 1997; Scouller,

Leadership 3.2.4.b 2 2011; Kouzes and Posner, 1987

Figures 9.3, 9.4, 9.5

Self-assessment questions 5, 6, 7, 8

End-of-topic questions A, B, C

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Section 9.3: Group behavior in

organisations

Table 9.5

Reflections: Groupthink examples (p. 294)

Group
Research Study Janis, 1971; Wedley and
behaviour in 3.2.4.c 2
Field, 1983; Forsyth, 2006
organisations

Figures 9.6

Self-assessment questions 9, 10, 11, 12

End-of-topic questions A, B, C

Section 9.4: Organisational work conditions

Research Study Pheasant, 1991; Knutsson,

2003; Gold et al., 1992; Cowpe, 1989

Organisational Self-assessment questions 14, 16

3.2.4.d 2
work conditions
Figures 9.7, 9.8

Self-assessment questions 13, 14, 15, 16

End-of-topic questions A, B, C

Section 9.5 Satisfaction at work

Research Study Walton, 1974;

Self-assessment question 18
Satisfaction at
3.2.4.e 2
work
Figures 9.9

Self-assessment questions 17, 18, 19, 20

End-of-topic questions A, B, C

Overview

This specialist option is divided into five topics exploring the psychology of organisations
including motivation, leadership, groups and group conflict, working conditions and
satisfaction at work. The Psychology of Organisations option differs from other options on this
specification in that it is heavily biased towards theories (rather than empirical research) and
questionnaire / self report methods of measuring variables. The activities chosen for this
Teacher Guide have been designed to give a flavour of a range of starter activities, lesson
activities and homework tasks which could be easily amended to use with other topics in this
option. There are also activities and exam style questions throughout the chapter in the

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

textbook which could be used as class or homework tasks. As so many of the tasks
suggested in this guide could be amended to use with different parts of the sub-topic, we now
suggest reading through the whole guide before starting to teach.

There are unlikely to be any areas of this section that pose significant problems for students
and students need to be reminded that they do not need to study the named articles in
anything like the same level of detail as was required at AS. Clearly the expectation here is
that students can demonstrate knowledge of a wider range of studies and they should focus
on the key aspects of the method, results and conclusions. Evaluation issues should also be
considered and you should encourage students to identify issues that are significant for a
whole section (or sub-section) rather than for individual studies. For example, questionnaires
are used extensively throughout this topic and students should be able to discuss the
strengths and limitations of this technique.

Motivation to work

This topic covers need theories proposed by Maslow, Alderfer (1972) and McClelland (1965)
and cognitive theories proposed by Latham and Locke (1990), Vroom (1964) and Adams
(1965) as well as considering both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and different reward
systems. This section is largely theoretical rather than experimental although ways of testing
these theories should be considered throughout.

Suggested activities

Possible starters

1. Look for examples of the Thematic Apperception Test online. Choose an image similar to
those used by McClelland (or even make your own!). Ensure that the images you have
chosen are suitable for use with your students. Present the image to your students and
ask them to tell/write a short story based on the picture you give them. You could provide
prompt questions such as:

• Who are the people in the picture?

• What has just happened?

• What is he/she going to do?

• What is going to happen next?

Alternatively, you could give them the first line of a story and ask them to continue the
story.

First lines could be:

• She sat gazing out of the window, thinking about the future…

• He sat at his desk, concentrating on the work in front of him…

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

You could then discuss what might be learned from these activities and how responses
might be scored to measure need for achievement. You could also discuss the strengths
and weaknesses of projective tests and ask students to suggest other ways of measuring
need for achievement.

2. There is a short video here which could be used to introduce the topic of rewards (for
the motivators at work sub-section).

Some examples of unusual company perks:

• Chesapeake Energy Corporations often boasts that it is one of America's best

workplaces, offering its 13,500 employees such benefits as Botox injections, NBA
tickets as well as a fitness centre with an Olympic-sized pool and a rock-climbing
wall.

• One of Airbnb's perks is that employees get to bring their pets to work every day, they
go sailing together, have a ping pong table, have weekly yoga classes at work, and
eat organic lunches on a daily basis.

You could outline these or similar and ask students to consider how these ‘perks’ would
affect the way they felt about their job/the organisation.

You could give each student or group of students a ‘reward’ written on a piece of paper
and ask them to consider how this reward would make them feel – would it increase their
motivation or not? Have a range of rewards: pay rise, extra time off, promotion, ‘employee
of the month’ award, as well as some more unusual ones.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Main lesson content

 
Timescale Activities

Lesson One – Measuring motivation with a questionnaire.

Motivation
Visit this site where you will find a free 12-question quiz which will
Links to: measure motivation.

Hierarchy of needs The quiz will give you a score without you having to sign into anything.
(Maslow, 1970), It also divides the overall motivation score into:
ERG theory
• Self-confidence and self-efficacy
(Aldefer, 1972) and
Achievement • Positive thinking, and positive thinking about the future
motivation
• Focus and strong goals
(McClelland, 1965).
• A motivating environment.

There are several ways you could structure this activity. Students could
be asked to estimate their own motivation scores before taking the test
(between 0–60 where 60 is highly motivated) and then compare their
actual scores to their estimates.

This activity could be extended so that students could collate the data
from the whole class (anonymously on folded pieces of paper) and
then plot the scores on a scattergraph to show if there is a relationship
between the estimated scores and the actual scores. They could also
use a Spearman’s rho test to see if there is a significant relationship.

The questionnaire itself could be the subject of an evaluation task.

You could simply ask students to evaluate the questionnaire or you

could structure this by giving them specific questions to answer. These
might include:

• Do all the questions make sense?

• Do they apply to everyone? (For example, the question ‘I tend

to do the minimum amount of work necessary to keep my boss
and my team satisfied’ may be difficult to answer if you don’t
have a job or work alone.)

• Are the answer choices appropriate?

• Are there any other questions that needed to be asked?

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

• You could extend this by asking students to research one of

the three theories (hierarchy of needs (Maslow), ERG theory
(Aldefer) and Achievement motivation (McClelland)) in more
depth and present their findings.

Lesson Two – The task for students is to design a reward system for a company
Types of reward which is struggling with demotivated staff. Divide the class into groups
systems and read them this summary. Give them a written copy as well or leave
on the screen so that they can refer back to this.

Company X sells electronic equipment including cameras, phones and

computers. They employ all their staff on short-term contracts and
there is little possibility of career progression as the majority of the staff
are simply working in shops selling the products. They are given daily,
weekly and monthly sales targets which are almost impossible to reach
and they are warned by the manager that they may lose their job if
they do not meet them. This has created an environment where the
staff compete for each customer who walks through the door. The
manager spends most of his time in the office and simply judges
performance on whether targets have been reached or not. Staff
turnover is high and morale and motivation is low.

You are a team of organisational psychologists who have been asked

to examine this company to see if you can suggest how motivation
may be improved through the use of reward systems.

You will have [an amount of time] to come up with your idea which you
will then present to the rest of the class.

Useful online resources are detailed in the Recommended resources

section below.

Common misunderstandings and misconceptions

Students often find correlation a difficult concept to grasp and will often mistakenly report a
correlation as if it is demonstrating a causal relationship. Correlating an estimated and actual
score (or even just plotting scores on a scattergraph) is an effective way of displaying to
students that there can be a relationship between variables without one variable directly
affecting the other. Students often also find the notion of projective tests such as those
discussed in the starter activity difficult to understand. Giving them direct experience of these
tests might help them to understand how it might be possible to interpret an answer such that
a psychologist could learn something about the person providing the answer.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Supporting your students

Activity 1 includes the suggestion that you might ask your students to evaluate the
questionnaire. This could be ‘scaffolded’ for them by providing a series of questions such as
those suggested in the activity or not as appropriate. Asking students to work in pairs or small
groups might also support them in completing this task. It is crucial that your students develop
evaluation skills throughout this course as a large proportion of the examination marks will be
awarded for their evaluation of the material that they have covered.

Challenging your students

In contrast to the suggestion above, simply asking students to ‘evaluate’ the questionnaire will
challenge them to come up with their own evaluation issues. You could begin with this
instruction but provide guidance (perhaps on a different table or turned over in front of them)
and challenge them to come up with as many evaluation points as they can before they look
at your questions/suggestions. The questionnaire data could be collated as suggested above
and analysed using a Spearman’s rho. The whole activity could be written up in standard
report format.

Homework suggestions

Lesson One – Motivation

1. Ask students to design their own questionnaire with a maximum of 12 questions which
measures achievement motivation for studying.

2. You could extend this task by asking students to try their questionnaires out on each
other and then write a short evaluation of the one that they designed.

Lesson Two – Types of reward systems

Either

Ask students to design a reward system for studying which could be used in your
classroom/school/college.

or

Design a study to test the effectiveness of the reward system that was designed in response
to the teaching activity above. Encourage students to consider the problems that a researcher
might encounter in conducting this research.

Cross references with other sub-topics

The topic of motivation and motivators links with much of the rest of the Organisations topic
but especially with leadership style, group conflict, organisational work conditions and
satisfaction at work. Wherever possible you should be trying to make links across the five
topics for your students.

Recommended resources

Hayward, S. (1996). Applying Psychology to Organisations. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

McKenna, E. (2012). Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Hove: Psychology

Press.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

This is a useful general outline of motivation.

The suggested motivation questionnaire.

Another useful resources on personality and motivation.

There is a short video here which could be used to introduce the topic of rewards.

If you want to encourage internet research as part of the second activity on reward systems,
these two sites give clear and easy-to-read accounts of organisational strategies designed to
increase motivation: motivating people in the workplace and building a better workplace
through motivation.

   

Leadership and management

This topic covers traditional and modern theories of leadership (Heifetz et al. and Scouller),
leadership style (Fiedler. Hersey & Blanchard and Mucsyk & Reiman) and the relationship
between leaders and followers (Danserau, Kelley and Kouzes & Posner). There is a huge
emphasis on the measurement of leadership style in this section and it is important that
students can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these kinds of measurement.

Suggested activities

Possible starters

1. Ask students to write their own definitions of leadership on cards or small pieces of paper
and collect them in. Go through them one at a time and create a display on the board
which brings all the similar terms/definitions together.

2. Ask students what sort of people come to mind when they hear the word ‘leader’. This
could be specific, named people or roles such as political or religious leaders. Ask them
to think about whether leaders are different from non-leaders.

3. Choose any one of the leadership questionnaires mentioned in the specification (see
Kouzes & Posner or the Recommended resources below for further guidance) and select
some questions at random. Ask students to suggest what the question is measuring and
to see if they can identify one strength and one weakness with this question.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Main lesson content

Timescale Activities

Lesson One – Give students the list of words below (or something similar).
Defining leadership
Ask them ‘What makes a good leader?’ Ask students individually to
choose five of the words which they think are important values for a
good leader to hold. You could also ask them to choose the five least
important.

You could analyse this to see which terms are chosen most often and
which ones the least. You could also look to see if there are any
terms which are not chosen at all.

To vary this, you could ask students to do the task several times with
different sorts of leaders in mind (business leader, charitable
organisation leader, religious leader for example). You could also
vary this by asking them to do this individually first and then in a
group so that they have to argue for the words they chose. Note that
this could become an activity for the group behaviour section which
follows leadership.

ACHIEVEMENT HARMONY FRIENDSHIP

ADVENTURE INVOLVEMENT HELPFULNESS

CHALLENGE ORDER INDEPENDENCE

CONTROL AFFECTION INTEGRITY

CREATIVITY COMFORT LOYALTY

FAIRNESS CONFORMITY PREDICTABILITY

FREEDOM COOPERATION RESPONSIBILITY

HAPPINESS DIRECTNESS RESPONSIVENESS

HARD WORK EXPERTNESS RISK

HONESTY FLEXIBILITY TRUST

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Lesson Two – Make a list of different roles which require leadership skills. This
Measuring might include some, or all, of the following:
leadership
• Manager of a large office

• Manager of a large factory

• Manager of a football team

• Captain of a football team

• Prime Minister

• Army sergeant (or similar military role)

• Religious leader

Ask students in groups to choose one of these roles and to design a

series of questions which would determine whether someone was
ideally suited to this role. These could be EITHER questions to
include in a questionnaire OR questions to be asked at an interview.
Students could be asked to present their questions (with their
reasons for choosing them) to the rest of the class or they could be
asked to role-play an interview scenario.

You could ask students to select one study using a measure of

leadership from this section of the syllabus and produce a summary
of the measure and a brief evaluation.

Common misunderstandings and misconceptions

It is possible that students may believe that there is a definitive list of ‘leadership qualities’. By
asking them to consider the different qualities that might be required of a leader in different
leadership positions, it should become clear that there are different types of leaders (and
followers) and that different skills may be required for different leadership roles. The topic as a
whole requires an understanding of the way that leadership may have changed over time and
so an examination of different contemporary leaders, whether from business, politics, religion
or sport, will be extremely useful.

Supporting your students

You will need to look carefully at terminology used in this section (and throughout this topic).
Terminology is often something that students need support with and unfortunately this section
has quite a lot of terms that may be new. This might be an even greater challenge for
students who are not working in their first language. You could create a ‘word wall’ in which
students are encouraged to identify terms that they are not familiar with and they can then
produce definitions that they understand and these can be displayed in the classroom. You
could replace this for each new section of the specification if you don’t have room to leave this
up for the whole year. If you do not teach in the same room or cannot use wall displays for
other reasons, then the students could keep their own lists of definitions in the back of their
files and be encouraged to keep this updated perhaps by having a ‘terminology check’ once a
week. Remember that there is a glossary in the textbook which should define all the

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

necessary terms. In terms of the first activity suggested here, if students are not working in
their first language, you may need to check their understanding of these terms.

Challenging your students

Both of the activities suggested here have a number of possible variations to ensure that you
challenge your students. A much more challenging version of activity 1 would be to not
provide the words at all and simply to ask the students to suggest five important
characteristics of leaders. You could even extend this further and ask them to design (and
conduct) a survey asking other people what they think the most important characteristics of
leaders are. This could even compare the views of different groups of people (males versus
females, different age groups or people working in different types of organisations).
Presenting their ideas for activity 2 or role-playing the interview might be another way of
challenging students. Throughout the course, it is crucial that you challenge your students to
consider not only the strengths and weaknesses of what they are studying but also the
applications of the theories and research to an organisational context.

Homework suggestions

Lesson One – Leadership

Complete a Paper 3 style question:

a. Describe what psychologists have learned about traditional and modern theories of
leadership [8]

b. Evaluate what psychologists have learned about traditional and modern theories of
leadership [10]

Lesson Two – Measuring leadership

Find some job descriptions that mention leadership qualities and suggest interview questions
that could be used for that job. You could role-play this!

Cross references with other sub-topics

As with the previous section on motivation, there are many links that can be made to other
sub-topics. Key ones would include motivation and satisfaction, although the relevance of
leadership can be seen right across this option. Another way in which this could be cross-
referenced is through a consideration of the research methods used. This section relies
heavily on the use of questionnaires to measure leadership types and styles and this is also
true of many of the other sections.

Recommended resources

Hayward, S. (1996). Applying Psychology to Organisations. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

McKenna, E. (2012). Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Hove: Psychology

Press.

The first activity has been modified from this activity, where you will also find several other
activities relevant to leadership.

The following is a relatively straightforward article from Scientific American in new ideas about
leadership.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

This would be a more challenging read: a paper written in 1926 which looks at different
types of leaders. Students could be challenged to evaluate the relevance of these ideas
today [Bartlett, F.C. (1926). 'The social psychology of leadership', Journal of the National
Institute of Industrial Psychology, 3: 18 8-193].

Group behaviour in organisations

This topic covers group development and the processes of group development and the
different roles found within groups (Tuckman, Belbin). It also looks at the processes of
decision making (Wedley & Field, Forsyth), including the dangers of groupthink (Janis).
Finally, group conflict is examined, along with strategies to manage it (Thomas).

Suggested activities

Possible starters:

1. Video on groupthink and the Space Shuttle disaster would make an ideal lesson starter.

2. Give out the following stages in decision making on slips of paper. Students must
rearrange into the correct order.
 
Gather information Evaluate your decision Consider your choices

Make your decision Identify the problem Consider advantages and

disadvantages

The correct order is:

1. Identify the problem

2. Consider your choices

3. Gather information

4. Consider advantages and disadvantages

5. Make your decision

6. Evaluate your decision.

Extend this by considering a range of decisions that students might make:

• What to eat for lunch

• Where to go on an evening out with family

• What to buy someone for a present

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

• Which mobile phone to buy

• Which college to go to.

You could make some charts like this with different decisions in the ‘Identify the problem’
box and ask students to complete them. Are there any decisions that do not fit this
formula?

Do all decisions need to go through these stages?

 
Stages of making a decision

Identify the problem What to have for lunch

Consider your choices

Gather information

Consider advantages and disadvantages

Make your decision

Evaluate your decision

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Main lesson content

 
Timescale Activities

Lesson One – Ask students to choose one of the following examples of groupthink:
Groupthink (Janis,
• The Space Shuttle Disaster
1971)
• Pearl Harbor

• The Bay of Pigs

Gang membership: This site which includes a whole lesson plan on

gang membership and groupthink.

This site gives some more examples and uses groupthink to explain
the ‘decisions of the Bush administration and Congress to pursue an
invasion of Iraq based on a policy of ‘preemptive use of military force
against terrorists and rogue nations’, but you will need to decide if this
is an appropriate example for your students.

Either individually or in groups (whichever suits your learners better)

ask them to research this and to explain why the groupthink occurred.

You could give them the characteristics of groupthink as outlined below

to help:

Irving L. Janis (1971) identified eight different ‘symptoms’ that indicate

groupthink and these are:

1. Illusions of invulnerability. This leads members of the group to be

overly optimistic and engage in risk-taking.

2. Unquestioned beliefs. This leads members to ignore possible moral

problems and ignore the consequences of individual and group
actions.

3. Rationalizing. This prevents members from reconsidering their

beliefs and causes them to ignore warning signs.

4. Stereotyping. This leads members of the in-group to ignore or even

demonize out-group members who may oppose or challenge the
group’s ideas.

5. Self-censorship. This causes people who might have doubts to hide

their fears or misgivings.

6. Mind guards. These act as self-appointed censors to hide

problematic information from the group.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

7. Illusions of unanimity. This leads members to believe that everyone

is in agreement and feels the same way.

8. Direct pressure to conform. Pressure is often placed on members

who pose questions, and those who question the group are often seen
as disloyal or traitorous.

This means that groupthink can lead to extremely poor decision

making. However, groupthink can also have benefits. When working
with a large number of people, it often allows the group to make
decisions, complete tasks, and finish projects quickly and efficiently.

This could be presented as a poster or a PowerPoint presentation,

written up in essay form or simply reported verbally to the rest of the
class.

Lesson Two – Ask students to read this and then design their own decision making
Decision making flow chart which would explain one (or more) of the following decisions:
(Wedley & Field,
• Where to go on holiday
Forsyth)
• Choosing between two or more possible careers

• Deciding whether to get married.

When they have completed this task ask them to consider how easy or
difficult this was and whether they are happy that their flowchart
accurately describes the decision making process.

You could extend this to consider the topic of group conflict (Thomas)
by asking them to identify possible sources of conflict in the decision
and strategies for dealing with this conflict.

Common misunderstandings and misconceptions

Groupthink is a relatively complex concept to grasp and it will be important to make sure that
students fully understand this. They may confuse this with other social psychological concepts
such as conformity which may actually predict that groups would make less risky decisions or
that there would be a drift to the mean response.

Supporting your students

Examples of groupthink tend to be those that refer to large scale disasters or political events
which may be either distressing or otherwise inappropriate for your students. The link to the
resource linking groupthink to gang membership may be more appropriate. The activities
suggested for this section have both been designed so that they can be varied to suit the
needs of your students. For example, activity 1 could be completed as a poster, or students
with good IT skills could make a PowerPoint or other presentations such as PREZI and if
appropriate, these could be posted around the room, shared electronically or presented to the
rest of the class.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Challenging your students

The activity on groupthink could be made more challenging as discussed above but could
also be extended by asking students to consider ways in which groupthink might be avoided.
Students could work in groups or alone for the second activity and could be challenged to
design a piece of research to test the accuracy of their decision making flow chart.

Homework suggestions

Lesson One – Groupthink (Janis, 1971)

Either

1. Design a study to investigate one or more of the factors that might produce groupthink.

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own design.

or

2. Write a letter or a magazine article explaining the dangers of groupthink.

Lesson Two – Decision making (Wedley & Field, Forsyth)

Either

1. Create a poster on one sub-topic from this section. This should use key words and
images rather than large sections of text to outline one topic.

Or

2. Make up a quiz on one of the sub-topics from this section. Students should provide both
the questions and the answers and you could dedicate the following lesson to students
taking each other’s quizzes. You could guide students in terms of number of questions or
types of questions (multiple choice or open ended for example) or could leave the
decision entirely up to them.

Cross references with other sub-topics

There are links between group conflict and organisational work conditions and satisfaction at
work. There are also links that can be made in terms of the research methods used in this
section and in other sections.

Recommended resources

Hayward, S. (1996). Applying Psychology to Organisations. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

McKenna, E. (2012). Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Hove: Psychology

Press.

Groupthink resources can be found here:

Groupthink

Symptoms of groupthink

Groupthink: definitions and examples

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

A more challenging read

A whole lesson on gang membership and groupthink

Use the team roles outlined on this website to structure a session which addresses both
team roles and decision making. The roles outlined here include Leader / facilitator, Arbitrator
/ monitor, Note-taker / timekeeper and Devil’s advocate.

An alternative decision making activity can be found here; this one is about dieting.

Organisational work conditions

This topic looks at a range of different aspects of working conditions including the physical
conditions such as open-plan offices and the psychological conditions such as bullying
(Wikstrom & Bendix, Einarsen and Oldham & Brass). This topic also looks at temporal
conditions of the work environment including shiftwork and the effects of shiftwork on health
(Phesant, Knuttson and Gold et al.). Finally, there is an examination of health and safety
including techniques for improving safety (Fox, Cowpe).

Suggested activities

Possible starters

1. Use one of the short video clips from the Recommended resources section to start a
class.

2. Ask students to identify as many jobs as they can think of that involve shift working
(Pheasant, Knuttson and Gold et al.).

3. Have a look at some safety promotion campaigns (Cowpe) (see Recommended

resources for some that are available online) and ask students to consider the following
questions:

• Are the campaigns likely to be effective?

• If so, why are they likely to be effective?

You could extend this activity by asking students to suggest how the effectiveness of
these campaigns could be measured. You could also ask them to read the full article by
Cowpe.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Main lesson content

 
Timescale Activity

Lesson One – Research which jobs involve shiftwork (leisure, health, transport, IT,
Shiftwork hospitality, factory etc.).
(Pheasant,
Design an interview schedule to question someone working in one of
Knuttson and Gold
these jobs about the effect that shiftwork has on them. They could
et al.)
conduct this interview if they know someone who works shifts (be
very careful about ethics here – student questions will need to be
carefully checked) or you could role-play the person who works shifts
and the students could interview you. If you had a large group of
students you could identify some to be the shiftworkers and allocate
one to each group of interviewers. The person playing the role of the
shiftworker will need to be briefed on the effects of shiftwork so that
they can give appropriate answers to the interview questions.

You could combine this activity with the group work one and give
them the roles to play as they develop their interview schedule!

Lesson Two – The focus here should be on health and safety. Choose an
Health promotion industry/job and research the health and safety guidelines for that job
campaigns in your country. Students could be asked to do one of a number of
(Cowpe) tasks; design a poster for the wall of the workplace, write a letter to all
employees in a fictional organisation outlining the health and safety
rules – both for the organisation and for the individual – or create a
webpage outlining health and safety rules. Do you have a health and
safety poster in your classroom? Do you need one?

Common misunderstandings and misconceptions

The concepts introduced in this section should not cause any problems for students but it may
be important to spend some time considering the ways in which these issues can be
researched. As with many topics in organisational psychology, and indeed in applied
psychology generally, it is very difficult for both practical and ethical reasons to conduct
experimental research. This means that a great deal of the research is either quasi-
experimental or correlational. This is an important evaluation issue as it is more difficult to
determine cause and effect relationships.

Supporting your students

As with the other sections in this chapter, all the activities have been designed to be modified
to suit the needs of your students. Students could simply be asked to design the questions
that could be used to interview shift workers and need not necessarily extend this to actually
conducting an interview. Similarly, there are a variety of tasks suggested for Activity 2 from

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

designing a poster to creating a webpage. Choose the ones that best suit the skills as well as
the needs of your individual students.

Challenging your students

As already discussed above, the activities suggested here can be modified to create further
support or further challenge. Actually, conducting an interview or role playing an interview is a
more challenging task than simply designing the questions, but a further challenge might be
created by asking students to evaluate one or more aspects of this activity. You could even
ask them to rewrite the interview questions based on their experiences of trying them out. You
could also ask them to write a report on their findings. Activity 2 could be made more
challenging in a number of ways. Rather than simply researching the health and safety
guidelines for a particular job, students could contact local organisations (or use personal
contacts) to obtain health and safety information for that organisation. You could even see if
the local organisation would like some research conducted to see if all their employees are
aware of the health and safety rules. The suggested homework task for this section (design a
study to test the effectiveness of the poster or other intervention) could be used to challenge
not only the students’ research methods skills and knowledge but also their evaluation skills.

Homework suggestions

Lesson One – Shiftwork (Pheasant, Knuttson and Gold et al.)

1. Design an information leaflet for someone starting a new job where they will have to work
shifts. What advice could you give them?

2. Paper 4 style question

a. Design a study to investigate the effects of shiftwork on health. (10)

b. Explain the psychological and methodological evidence on which your study is based.
(8)

Lesson Two – Health promotion campaign (Cowpe)

Design a way of testing the effectiveness of your poster/letter/intervention and identify the
strengths and weaknesses of this.

Cross references with other sub-topics

The most obvious links between topics in the organisational work conditions section are with
the topics of motivation and satisfaction at work. There is far more research (as opposed to
theory) in this section and this will allow you to consider similarities and differences in the way
that each topic has been investigated. The sub-topic on attitudes to work is clearly relevant
here, not only because organisational work conditions will be related to attitudes to work but
also because this is another part of the specification that focuses primarily on research rather
than theory.

Recommended resources

Hayward, S. (1996). Applying Psychology to Organisations. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

McKenna, E. (2012). Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Hove: Psychology

Press.

This short video (2 minutes) is a great introduction to the effects of shiftwork.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

This one also outlines a piece of research into the effects of shiftwork and is also around 2
minutes long.

There are a range of recent European health and safety campaigns.

Satisfaction at work

This topic looks at theories of job satisfaction (Herzberg and Hackman and Oldham as well as
techniques of job design including enrichment, rotation and enlargement) as well a variety of
ways of measuring workplace satisfaction (Smith et al, Weiss et al. and Walton). It also looks
at attitudes to work and this includes workplace sabotage, absenteeism and organisational
commitment (Giacalone & Rosenfield, Blau and Mowday).

Suggested activities

Possible starters

1. Write a definition of Quality of Life

Quality of Working Life (Walton)

2. Ask students to write five things that would make for a good QWL. Ask them to do this
individually and then collate all this information. Are they choosing the same things?

3. Print and cut out these cards to make a matching task.  

Job enlargement Job rotation Job enrichment

more of almost exactly the moving round jobs of the introducing greater interest
same; a horizontal change same skill level; a and challenge to a job to
horizontal change increase; a vertical change.

When you are satisfied that students understand the difference between the different
concepts ask them to think about why an organisation might use these three strategies.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Main lesson content

 
Timescale Activity

Lesson One – There is a fairly simple (and free) QWL questionnaire on this
Quality of working website – students could be asked to take this and evaluate it and
life (Walton) then design their own questionnaire to measure QAL or whatever
acronym they choose to give their questionnaire.

This activity could be extended by asking to students to have a look

at other QWL questionnaires (there are lots online) and choose one
that they like and explain what they like about it.

Design a questionnaire to measure QAL – Quality of Academic Life or

QSL – Quality of School Life. Your students will no doubt be able to
come up with their own acronyms.

Lesson Two – Tell students that they are organisational psychologists who have
Techniques of job been employed to improve worker satisfaction in one of the following
design including organisations:
job rotation, job
• A large supermarket
enlargement and
job enrichment • A large café or a restaurant

• A hotel

• A leisure facility such as a cinema or a gym

They need to suggest how all three techniques (rotation, enlargement

and enrichment) might be utilised in their chosen organisation and
how effective they think each strategy might be.

You could also ask them to consider the following questions:

• Can these strategies be used in all occupations?

• Do some occupations ‘naturally’ involve variety? For

example:

teachers have different classes, different students, doctors

see different patients, many people work in variety of different
locations (plumbers, electricians etc.)

• Are these techniques only suitable for relatively repetitive

jobs?

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Common misunderstandings and misconceptions

It is unlikely that students will have significant problems with the material covered in this
section although there are a number of new concepts and several new pieces of terminology.
This is the final section of the Organisations option and this might be a good time to check
students’ understanding of key terms and ideas.

Supporting your students

Once again, activities have been designed to allow you to modify them to suit your students. It
would be useful for students to at least look at one QWL questionnaire as suggested in the
first activity and to consider the strengths and weaknesses of this. To support students in
completing Activity 2 you could provide them with examples of job enlargement, rotation and
enrichment from a variety of organisations to start them off.

Challenging your students

The suggested activities contain modifications to make them more challenging and you could
choose to extend these even further by asking students to produce written reports or to give
presentations on their findings. The topics contained in this section, in particular the notion of
job satisfaction, have links across the whole of the Organisations topic and you could
challenge students to make links across the five topics for themselves. The first suggested
homework task gives an example of how this might be done.

Homework suggestions

Lesson One – Quality of working life (Walton)

Create a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of using questionnaires in organisational

psychology. Include examples from across all five sections rather than just from Satisfaction
at work.

Lesson Two – Techniques of job design including job rotation, enrichment and enlargement

Make up a quiz (with answers) on one of the topics below:

• two-factor theory (Herzberg, 1959)

• job characteristics theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976)

• techniques of job design: enrichment, rotation and enlargement

• workplace sabotage (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1987)

• absenteeism (Blau and Boal, 1987)

• measuring organisational commitment (Mowday et al., 1979).

The lesson following the homework could be used to complete as many quizzes as possible.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017  

  

Cross references with other sub-topics

The most relevant links are between this section and the section on organisational work
conditions and the section on motivation. Clearly these are closely connected concepts and
students should be encouraged to think about the specification as a whole at this point. Are
there any topics that they feel should have been included in an organisational psychology unit
which have not been covered? What do they think will be the greatest challenges facing
organisational psychologists in the future?

Recommended resources

Hayward, S. (1996). Applying Psychology to Organisations. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

McKenna, E. (2012). Business Psychology and Organizational Behaviour. Hove: Psychology

Press.

A stretch and challenge read on job satisfaction.

This site might be useful for Activity 2.

©  Cambridge  University  Press  2017