Cultivating student craftsmanship through OD interventions: a case study of the student union at Beijing polytechnic

Abstract

This research aims to determine whether the organization development interventions (ODI) helped cultivate student craftsmanship in the Student Union. Through the new job design of the Student Union, students enhanced their commitment to their work and became more conscientious. The researcher adopted quasi-experimental design by using qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct the BPI case study. Based on the pre-and post-test design, 24 students in the Student Union from College QC participated as the intervention object, while the 28 students of the control group were from College HK. The quantitative part included survey questionnaires in pre-test and post-test stages, while the qualitative method included interviews. First, the researcher applied the Shapiro–Wilk test and found that the data was non-parametric type. Next, the researcher applied the spearman Rank correlation, Wilcoxon signed rank, and Mann-Whitney U tests to test hypotheses based on none parametric situations. After the ODI, all hypotheses’ tests confirmed statistically significant improvement in work engagement, students’ career commitment, and conscientiousness. The qualitative findings also supported that students' career commitment and conscientiousness significantly improved. In conclusion, the findings showed that students’ career commitment and conscientiousness could be improved by enhancing students' work engagement.