In your paper, continue your examination of the scholarly and professional literature associated with your field of study (Organizational Development and Leadership) and/or your specialization for themes and contemporary topics relevant to scholar-practitioners. Relevant topics are those that represent challenges or opportunities for scholar-practitioners in your field, or areas in which research could help improve service delivery to clients or provide greater understanding of key concepts to scholar-practitioners.

Your exploration of the literature may lead you to identify a wide range of themes and topics in your field, and you should mention the primary themes and topics briefly. Then, for purposes of this assignment, narrow your focus to one broad theme or topic of interest to you, and tailor your paper around answering the questions below based on this narrowed focus. (Must be at least 1000 words)

For example,

• If you are intrigued with the topic of adolescent learning (research topic), you might be interested in the influence of media on an adolescent’s development of critical-thinking skills (research focus).
• If you are interested in recidivism among juvenile offenders (research topic), you might be interested in focusing on the influence of educational achievement on recidivism rates (research focus).
• If you are interested in the relationship between sports participation and future leadership success (research topic), you might want to focus on the concept of team leadership in collegiate basketball (research focus).

In your paper,

• Identify contemporary themes and topics you found in both the academic and professional literature as you prepared your Discussion Forum post earlier in the week and as you searched the scholarly literature for this assignment.
  • Speculate about why these themes and topics engage the practitioner community.
• Based on your research and your own personal experience in your field of study,
  • Identify some of the contemporary challenges that confront practitioners in your field.
  • Examine the kind of information that would improve service to clients or advance the understanding of practitioners in your field.
  • Assess what you, as a scholar-practitioner, would like to know about your field of study.
• Justify a topic of interest and a specific research focus (a general area of interest, not a specific question) you would like to pursue for purposes of work in this class (and, potentially, as a topic for your doctoral research project).

The Topic of Interest and Research Focus paper (Organizational Leadership & Development)

Must use at least two scholarly sources.