Assessment Briefing – 2024/25 Module Code and Module Name Assessment Type and Weighting Deadline or Assessment Period

Assessment Briefing – 2024/25

Module Code and Module Name

MPSY4180 Wellbeing and Work

Assessment Type and Weighting

Case Study, 100%

Deadline or Assessment Period

19^th June 2025

Word Limit

3,000 words

Module Lecturer

Dr Ivy Cheung

Feedback Date

17^th July 2025

Assessment Description

Background of the case study

Ambulance services are the primary emergency care provider in the healthcare services. The service has played an essential role in shaping emergency care, is often the first port of call for medical emergencies and responds to millions of incidents each year. The central role of ambulance services is the emergency assessment, treatment and transportation of patients with a variety of acute and lifethreatening illnesses and injuries.  

Ambulance services usually consist of local organisations, which are receptive to patients’ needs where local community members are able to have their say in the running of the service. Within ambulance services, there are a variety of different roles and responsibilities ranging from front-line staff who have direct contact with patients to support staff. 

For your assessment, choose one of the following options:

Option 1: Stress and resilience 

You have been approached by a Chief Executive at an ambulance service due to the pressures mounting on staff because of budget cuts, responding to the COVID19 pandemic and organisational changes. Front-line ambulance staff (such as paramedics) have reported feeling increased stress due to increasing job demands. These job demands have included workload, particularly the increasing number of emergency calls that staff are required to respond to and the time pressure of meeting response times. As a result of these job demands, staff have reported feeling dissatisfied with their role, which has led to an increase in sickness absence and staff turnover. The HR department have approached you, an established Consultant, for advice on dealing with these challenges. With reference to academic literature on stress and resilience, critically discuss the approach you would take to improve employee wellbeing and provide clear justifications for your recommendations. 

OR

Option 2: Bullying and emotional intelligence 

You have been approached by a Chief Executive at an ambulance service due to reports of bulling and harassment amongst staff. Front-line paramedics have reported feeling intimidated, blamed, and unsupported by their Team Leaders. Reports have included excessive monitoring individual performance targets, increasing workload for junior employees and practical jokes being made on staff in the ambulance station. Staff have complained to the HR department on numerous occasions with some staff resigning from their role or transferring to other ambulance services. The HR team have suggested that there is ineffective leadership amongst Team Leaders, which has resulted in this type of behaviour. Moreover, the Team Leaders have reported that they are feeling overwhelmed with the role and lack support from their peers. With reference to academic literature on bullying and emotional intelligence, critically discuss the approach you would take to improve employee wellbeing and provide clear justifications for your recommendations.  

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to demonstrate:

1.     A systematic knowledge and practical understanding of factors affecting wellbeing within the context of work including the ability to critique current theoretical frameworks and analyse problems.

2.     A critical understanding of the practical and ethical issues that face business/ occupational psychologists in the areas of work and well-being, such as the ethical balance between working for the client organisation whilst respecting the employees’ rights to confidentiality.

3.     Conceptual understanding to enable synthesis and application of appropriate theoretical concepts in the contexts of well-being interventions in the context of work.

4.     Conceptual understanding to identify needs, analyse needs, formulate solutions and evaluate strategies within the contexts of well-being in the context of work.

Why this assessment?

This assessment has been chosen to help develop your skills and knowledge of wellbeing and work in Business/Occupational Psychology. The assessment has been designed to focus on a current problem for organisations that is at the forefront of the discipline.  

 Required Sections

For this assessment, you will need to include: 

•        A literature review:

•        Ensure that you identify the factors within the organisation that might be contributing to the current lack of wellbeing and the relevant theoretical frameworks, linking this back to stress and resilience OR bullying and emotional intelligence

•        Critically discuss the research evidence regarding these theories as a basis for an intervention

•        Intervention recommendations:

•        Synthesise the key themes from your discussion to formulate an approach to improve staff wellbeing. This might take the form of training, coaching, counselling, or a combination of these

•        Consider ethical and practical issues

•        Discuss how you would evaluate your approach 

Advice for Success

    Advice from Module Team

•        Review your seminar content and activities and demonstrate how you can apply what you have learned to your assessment critically.

•        Read information about your assessment (e.g., assessment brief) and ask questions promptly. Do not wait till days/hours before your assessment deadline to do so.

Tips for success:

•        Support for this assessment will be provided during teaching sessions, directed study and tutorial support with the module team. Please make the most of this support whilst completing your assessment

•        Read through and highlight key information from the case study that you think will be useful to refer to in your assessment 

Students who have done a similar assessment before recommend that you…

•        Make sure you plan time to work on your assessment. This includes allocating time for reading, writing, editing, and formatting.

   Advice from your Academic Librarian 

•        Use Library Services to search for relevant books, conference proceedings and journal articles 

•        Book an appointment with an Academic Liaison Librarian to discuss library services search terms, advice on referencing software and support with understanding and applying APA referencing 

Important information about your assessment 

You must submit an individual report that is YOUR OWN WORK. It is essential that you abide by the University Regulations on Academic Honesty, and any form of cheating will be dealt with in accordance with the University Regulations: https://www.worcester.ac.uk/registryservices/681.htm

This module will be using Turnitin via the Blackboard module for assignment submission. Students will have the opportunity to view their own originality report, make amendments and re-submit up until the due date. Academic tutors will also be able to view the originality reports and occasionally they may be used as part of the process of investigation into suspected cases of academic misconduct.

To submit your work, go to the Blackboard site for this module and submit your work via the Turnitin submission portal under the ‘assessments’ section. Do not forget to click ‘Accept submission’ to save. You can also generate a receipt. You should always check that your work has been correctly uploaded following submission.

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT YOUR ELECTRONIC ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION:

•        Assignments not submitted via Blackboard will not be accepted and a NS mark will be entered in such cases. 

•        It is your responsibility to ensure that you up-load your assignment in good time before the deadline and to the correct drop-box or gateway.

•        It is your responsibility to ensure that you up-load the correct file with your assignment. Double copies of assignments will not be accepted and in such cases the first submission will be marked. 

•        Assignments submitted incorrectly (i.e.: in the wrong place, empty file, work simply pasted into a window on Blackboard) will not be marked and a NS grade will be entered.

•        Assignments submitted after the deadline will be subject to the usual penalties for late submission.

•        If you experience difficulties with the IT systems, please contact the ILS helpdesk tel@worc.ac.uk and NOT the module team.

•        Mitigating circumstances citing reasons such as “Blackboard did not work” will not be accepted unless ILS issues a formal notification of system failure on the relevant days.

•        Please use Arial 12pt font and double space your work. Remember to use APA format for citations and references. 

You must adhere to the word limit for the assessment. There will be a +10% margin, beyond which nothing will be marked. The word count refers to everything in the main body of the text. Everything before (ie abstract, acknowledgements, contents, executive summaries etc) and after the main text (ie references, bibliographies, appendices etc) is NOT included in the word count limit. Tables in the main body of the assignment are included in the word count. The marker will not consider any work after the +10% word count has been reached, within the allocation of marks. Students may therefore be penalised for a failure to be concise and for failing to conclude their work within the word count specified. For

CRITERIA

Grade A

Grade B

Grade C

Grade D

Grade F

Grade G

Relevance

(relationship to the assessment

criteria)

Does the work answer the

question set to

show attainment of the learning outcomes?

Exceptional response to all

the assessment criteria for the task

Very strong response to the assessment

criteria for the task

Good thorough response to

assessment

criteria for the task

Sufficient response to assessment

criteria for the task

Weak response to main

assessment

criteria for the task

Very poor response to main assessment

criteria for the task

Advanced

Knowledge and

understanding

Exceptional systematic mastery of advanced

knowledge,

principles and

concepts in area of study,

together with very strong

independent critical and

evaluative

understanding

of current issues and insight at

the forefront of the discipline

Highly developed

systematic

advanced

knowledge and

critical

understanding of area of

study, including

independent critical

awareness of

current issues

and insights at the forefront of the discipline

Good systematic advanced

knowledge and

understanding of area of study including

awareness of

current issues and insights at the

forefront of the discipline

Adequate sound advanced

knowledge and

understanding of

the area of study,

some of which is informed by

developments at

the forefront of the discipline

Limited advanced

knowledge and

understanding of area of study

Very limited advanced

knowledge and

understanding of area of study

Analysis (Critical analysis)

Does the work provide evidence of conceptual

understanding,

applied analytical

interpretation and evaluation?

Goes well beyond what is taught in

insightful, advanced

study/research, to develop

original critical analysis and

evaluation that shows

exceptional

initiative and an authoritative independent grasp of issues

Evidence of systematic

breadth and depth of critically

appraised and insightful

advanced

study/ research to develop

independent

original critical

analysis and evaluation

Evidence of systematic breadth and depth of

independent

engagement with advanced study and research to

develop relevant

critical analysis to inform good response to task

Evidence of independent

engagement with

advanced research and study to inform satisfactory

response to task,

but limited in range and depth of critical analysis

Insufficient evidence of

independent

engagement with advanced

research and

study and/or of

relevant current academic references

Significantly inadequate

evidence of

independent

engagement with

advanced research and study

Understanding of techniques of enquiry

Exceptional ability in

accomplished

and innovative application of

comprehensive critical and

practical

understanding

of techniques of enquiry to

provide original solutions to

complex

problems in the field of study

Well developed competent critical and

practical selfdirected

application of

techniques of enquiry to

provide original solutions to

complex

problems in the field of study

Comprehensive critical and

practical

understanding of

techniques of enquiry and

independent

application to

research/advanced

scholarship in field of study

Comprehensive critical and

practical

understanding of

techniques of enquiry and

application to

research/advanced

scholarship in field of study

Evidence of critical and

practical

understanding of techniques of

enquiry for area of study has

significant gaps

or flaws resulting

in limited ability to critique advanced

scholarship in

field

Evidence of critical and practical

understanding of techniques of

enquiry for area of study is

significantly lacking

Quality of argument

(Argument/

Communication)-

Is the work presented

logically, with

themes and links made between

sources of theory and evidence?

Exceptional skills in

constructing academic

arguments and communicating complex ideas/ viewpoints/

information/ evidence to advance

knowledge and understanding

Very well developed

communication/ presentation of

complex ideas/ viewpoints/

information/

evidence to sustain

scholarly

arguments that advance understanding

Effective logical and coherent

communication/ presentation of

complex ideas/ viewpoints/

information/

evidence to

sustain informed arguments

Competent logical and coherent

communication/ presentation of

complex ideas/ viewpoints/

information/

evidence to

sustain argument with some

weaknesses, eg in structure,

coherence or

currency, but

generally sound if standard judgement

Argument/ explanation is weak/poorly

constructed,

unsubstantiated

or significantly lacking in

coherence or validity

Little evidence of an independently constructed

argument with

appropriate supporting

analysis or evidence

Evaluation &

Conclusion

(Skills

development)

How well is the information

evaluated & is there a conclusion?

Exceptional demonstration

at a professional level of

competency in relevant

evaluation skills

The work shows that different and complex views have

been discussed, leading to a justified,

independent conclusion/s based on an

evaluation of the evidence.

Relationships between

knowledge

derived from different

contexts are

demonstrated

as appropriate (e.g.  information from different modules)

Capable and effective

application at a

professional level of

competency in relevant

evaluation skills

The work shows that

different and

complex views

in the

information

have mostly

been evaluated to reach a coherent

conclusion/s.

Consistent and effective

application at a

professional level of competency in

relevant evaluation skills

The work shows some recognition

of the complexity of academic

debate and

conflicting views in the information

have, in general,

been discussed and some

conclusion/s drawn.

Effective demonstration at a professional level of competency in

relevant evaluation skills

The work shows limited recognition

of the complexity of academic

debate. Conflicting views in the

information are presented in a simplified  

unevaluated way. 

Any conclusion/s are limited.

Insufficient evidence of

demonstration at

a professional level of

competency in relevant

evaluation skills

Very limited evidence of

demonstration at a professional level of competency in

relevant evaluation skills

Format and style

(Skills

development)

Is the format and style in line with subject

conventions? E.g.,

APA for

Psychology

Exceptional demonstration

of format and style

An appropriate format and style including

language, layout

and referencing has been

consistently applied.

Capable and effective

demonstration

of format and style

An appropriate format and

style including language,

layout and

referencing has been mostly applied.

Consistent and effective

demonstration of

format and style

An appropriate format and style including

language, layout and referencing

has been partially applied.

Effective demonstration of

format and style

An appropriate format and style including

language, layout

and referencing is apparent in places

Insufficient demonstration of

format and style

The work has an inappropriate format and style

Very limited demonstration of

format and style