Oct 07, 2024  
2024-2025 Academic Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Academic Catalog

Organizational Training and Performance Management, (MA)


Tusculum University offers an online, 12-month graduate program in Organizational Training and Performance Management to prepare professionals with the practical wisdom they need to be effective in helping organizations, groups, and individuals work more effectively. The curriculum addresses the major segments of Organizational Training and Performance Management by focusing on concepts, models, skills and methods. The program is composed of 11 3-hour courses and is designed so that theoretical foundations are complemented with practice and application that enable students to build skills and competence.

This concentration is designed to lead students to:

  • Develop training materials and programs based upon curricular and instructional design best practices.
  • Assess organizational needs for enhancing performance.
  • Apply adult learning theory and the Instructional System Design (ISD) model into practice for organizational learning needs.
  • Evaluate learning and the impact of learning.
  • Apply principles and practices of human behavior in organizations to help groups work more effectively.
  • Develop team behaviors, including team leadership.
  • Develop organizational consultant skills.
  • Develop effective team communication skills; e.g., facilitation, decision-making, conflict resolution, problem-solving.
  • Support organizational development through project management, strategic planning, succession planning, process analysis and improvement and career planning processes.

Program Admission

Applicants to the Master of Arts in Organizational Training and Performance Management program must meet all Common Admission Requirements as outlined in the main Master Degrees  section.

Additional Admission requirements

In addition to the common requirements for admission to all graduate programs established by the University, applicants for this concentration shall possess a minimum G.P.A. of 3.0 from a regionally accredited institution. Satisfaction of the G.P.A. requirement may be met by any of the following methods, as verified by the Tusculum University Registrar:

  1. G.P.A. for the last 12 credit hours of graduate course work, or
  2. G.P.A. for the undergraduate degree, or
  3. G.P.A. for the last 60 credit hours of university coursework

Students with academic credit earned at nationally or specially accredited institutions may request that the Registrar’s Office review such credit with the pertinent academic department, provided the transcript and course syllabi are official and remitted directly from the applicant’s previous institution.

Provisional Admission

A senior at Tusculum University or other four-year institution who meets all other admission criteria may be provisionally accepted with an incomplete transcript. Upon conferral of the undergraduate degree, the student must submit a complete transcript.

Conditional Admission

Applicants for the Master of Arts in Organizational Training and Performance Management (MOTPM) who meet all common graduate admission requirements, but have a G.P.A. between 2.75 and 2.99 will be given conditional acceptance. Applicants for the MOTPM program who meet all common and graduate concentration admission requirements, but have a G.P.A. between 2.5 and 2.75 will provide a cold writing sample in a proctored environment that is evaluated with other application documents by the program faculty for recommendation to the College of Education Dean for conditional acceptance. The Dean may grant or deny conditional acceptance; the decision is final. The writing sample shall be provided in sufficient advance time for the program faculty and the Dean to make a decision on acceptance.

Assessment of Program Coursework

  1. All students in this program are required to have an account for LiveText, a web-based electronic portfolio service. The subscription access code card for LiveText will be emailed to your Tusculum account the third week of your first semester in the program. Your LiveText account is valid for 7 years and will be used throughout your program for submission of course-based Critical Tasks and Key Assignments in your education courses.
  2. Key Assignments: Key Assignments are used to evaluate your progress toward meeting program and applicable state and/ or national standards and to inform program improvement. Once your assignment is uploaded to your portfolio, it will be assessed by your instructor using a 4-point rubric (4=Exemplary, 3=Proficient, 2=Developing Proficiency, 1=Not Proficient). Key Assignments do not require a minimum score but must be uploaded to LiveText to receive a passing grade in the course.

Graduate Research Requirement


Each graduate program at Tusculum University contains a research requirement, which engages students in the study and application of methods of problem identification; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; and recommendation of problem resolutions relative to their professional disciplines. Examples of these graduate studies include empirical research, study of and resolution of an organizational performance gap, or completion of an action research project. For the Master of Arts (MA) in Organizational Training and Performance Management graduate degree program, two courses, MATD 514 - Consultant Project: Analysis Plan  and MATD 516 - Consultant Project: Evaluation And Lessons Learned  serve as its graduate research requirement. Over the span of the two courses, students will conduct a training needs analysis of an existing organization, use professional literature to benchmark the nature of the performance gap, develop and implement a performance gap analysis plan, develop and implement an intervention and client communication plan, and plan for assessment of the efficacy of the intervention.