The study will concern itself with group differences or relationships among variables. Explain.

EDU-503 Module 3 Assignment: Preview of the Literature & Research Problem

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORM
Research Statement: Workforce Shortages within the Department of Affairs (VA) – Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

The primary function of the VA is to provide psychological and medical services to Veterans.  For this project, I am addressing workforce shortages within Title 38 positions (e.g., psychologists, social workers, pharmacists, registered nurses, and licensed practical nurses).  The average age of a Title 38 category employee is 48.6 years (according to the most recent federal workforce data provided by the Office of Personnel Management). With a significant percentage of those employees reaching eligibility for retirement, the biggest human resource challenge that VA must address is the recruitment and retention of highly skilled and qualified personnel to fill these positions to avoid gaps in the care provided to veterans and their families.

Setting Description: Department of Affairs (VA) – Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

Detailed description of the organization: The Veterans Health Administration is America’s largest integrated health care system, providing care at 1,298 health care facilities, including 171 medical centers and 1,113 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity (VHA outpatient clinics), serving 9 million enrolled Veterans each year.¹

VHA Medical Centers provide a wide range of services including traditional hospital-based services such as surgery, critical care, mental health, orthopedics, pharmacy, radiology and physical therapy. In addition, most of the medical centers offer additional medical and surgical specialty services including audiology & speech pathology, dermatology, dental, geriatrics, neurology, oncology, podiatry, prosthetics, urology, and vision care. Some medical centers also offer advanced services such as organ transplants and plastic surgery.¹

Key Personnel:

Problem Identified in the Literature Preview:

Subjects:

Guiding Question:

Research Question:

• The study will concern itself with group differences or relationships among variables?

Variables used & scale of measurement:

Research Hypothesis:

Purpose of the Study: