Business Administration – Common topics within the School of Management & Technology at Walden include researching best practices for leadership development, strategic planning, operations management, financial management, and marketing efforts at organizations. Sample projects analyze change management strategies during mergers or restructurings, evaluate return on investment of new technologies/process improvements, compare performance metrics at competitor companies, and recommend plans for international expansion.
Education – Education majors often develop teacher training programs, curriculum designs, or professional development workshops as part of their capstone research. Examples are developing online course modules on classroom management techniques, analyzing the impact of tutoring interventions for at-risk students, proposing multi-tiered systems of supports for special education programs, and evaluating methods for integrating technology into lesson plans across subject areas.
Health Sciences – Public health, healthcare administration, and nursing students regularly conduct needs assessments of community health issues or evaluate patient outcomes at clinical sites. Representative topics include exploring barriers to preventive care in underserved regions, comparing rural vs urban access to substance abuse treatment, assessing hospital readmission rates after implementing chronic disease management programs, and proposing staff wellness initiatives to reduce nurse burnout.
Criminal Justice – Research in forensic psychology, criminal justice leadership/management, or homeland security fields may estimate costs of recidivism and recommend re-entry programs, critique community policing strategies, propose cybersecurity preparedness frameworks for critical infrastructure, or analyze systemic racism within the criminal legal system. Recent capstones have proposed novel approaches like restorative justice courts, anti-human trafficking task forces, or community supervision models for juvenile offenders.
Clinical Psychology – The psychology programs draw from research methodology, counseling theories, and assessment/intervention courses. Representative examples involve developing evidence-based protocols for treating conditions such as PTSD, depression, or eating disorders using modalities like CBT, DBT, or art/play therapy. Others design multicultural competency training for practitioners,instruments for recognizing abuse/neglect of vulnerable populations, or advocacy programs promoting mental health screening/referrals.
Information Technology – IT administration and cybersecurity students routinely secure approval to collaborate with outside organizations on project-based learning. Recent capstones have addressed topics such as designing a small business’s disaster recovery plan, proposing an enterprise resource planning system conversion, conducting a network security audit with recommendations, developing a business continuity plan for a law firm, or researching emerging technologies like blockchain for specific industry applications.
Social Work – Mirroring real world practice, social work capstones often target micro, mezzo, or macro level social issues through program development or policy analysis. Examples address teen pregnancy reduction, re-entry challenges of formerly incarcerated individuals, foster care instability, substance abuse and homelessness, affordable housing shortages, food insecurity, access to healthcare, domestic violence, or immigrant/refugee services.
Public Policy & Administration – Students investigate the formation, implementation, or impact of legislation and regulations. Recent projects analyzed lobbyist influence on environmental standards, proposed reforms for immigration courts/detention policies, evaluated opioid intervention strategies across states, compared local economic development incentives, assessed emergency preparedness of rural communities, and recommended improvements to foster care/adoption systems.
Walden University capstone projects offer substantive scholarly research opportunities across academic disciplines, with real-world applicability and organization-focused learning goals providing an engaging educational experience for students. The topics reviewed here represent only a sampling of study areas and subject matters that learners have chosen to explore in completing their graduate degree requirements through rigorous applied research projects.