{"id":243,"date":"2018-10-27T08:58:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T14:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/?p=243"},"modified":"2018-10-27T09:14:01","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T15:14:01","slug":"unit-6-understanding-qualitative-research-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/2018\/10\/27\/unit-6-understanding-qualitative-research-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Unit 6 – Understanding Qualitative Research Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week has been a journey or self-awareness and self-reflection.<\/p>\n

First, I thoroughly enjoy reading the journal articles every week.\u00a0 The temptation is still to jump to the discussion and conclusion and skip everything in between because I struggle to understand it anyways.\u00a0 I am learning from the Plano-Clark and Cresswell (2015) text readings, so it isn\u2019t that I abhor reading the text, but it is much more laborious reading.\u00a0 And I still wrestle to understand the content.<\/p>\n

First leadership revelation<\/strong>:\u00a0 I am not comfortable evaluating or making decisions when I don\u2019t understand.\u00a0 And I am quick to get frustrated, and even agitated when people (including authors) don\u2019t help me understand.\u00a0 As I have done for the last number of weeks I read through my servant leadership article, found it engaging and enjoyable, and by the time I completed the evaluation I was frustrated and disillusioned because the authors did not clearly identify the criteria I was looking for.<\/p>\n

I recognized that I have this same issue at work.\u00a0 I have been a Physical Therapist for many years, and more recently, an Emergency Medical Responder.\u00a0 Because of my role in my organization I oversee a number of different disciplines, including nurses (RN\u2019s).\u00a0 I am not a nurse.\u00a0 But many times I am put in a position where I have to make a decision regarding nursing practice in Home Care.\u00a0 Some nurses do an excellent job educating me regarding the best practice evidence, the safety concerns, the pros and cons \u2013 others cannot.\u00a0 And when they can\u2019t, I get frustrated.\u00a0 But the RN\u2019s that can\u2019t provide rationale to my satisfaction are no different than these researchers.\u00a0 They have a different background, they speak a different language, and they don\u2019t necessarily know how to articulate their thoughts to their audience.\u00a0 There is an onus on me to learn the scope and practice of nurses if I am going to have the privilege and responsibility of leading them, just as there is an onus on me to understand research if I am going to pursue a Masters degree.<\/p>\n

Second leadership revelation<\/strong>:\u00a0 in some areas of my life I just choose not to be Berean.\u00a0 In Acts Chapter 17 Paul and Silas were sent to Berea, and in one statement it clearly describes the attitude and mindset of the people they met with there:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the <\/strong>Scriptures every day<\/strong> to see if what Paul said was true.\u201d (Acts 17:11, New International Version, emphasis mine)<\/p>\n

As a consumer of research, to my shame, I do not have this mindset.\u00a0 I want to be able to take what the researcher(s) presents at face value.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to examine, or search to determine if the research is true.\u00a0 I just want to believe it.\u00a0 And somewhere along the way I lost my will to be a critical thinker in this area.\u00a0 I have critical thinking skills, and utilize those skills elsewhere, in both my professional and personal life.\u00a0 But in the area of research, likely due to the difficulties in comprehending the information, I defaulted to an easier road of either just accepting the research findings, or not reading at all.<\/p>\n

Interestingly I adopted this \u201cwider road\u201d early on in my Christian life and have had to spend a lot of time since \u201cunlearning\u201d a lot of false teaching that I just chose to believe.\u00a0 After all, it was coming from the pulpit \u2013 it must<\/em> be true.\u00a0 I have since learned this was a dangerous approach.\u00a0 Similarly, as referenced in the Unit 5 Summary (Strong, 2018) an article published in a reputable journal has caused false teaching on vaccines to be perpetuated now for 20 years.\u00a0 It is also a dangerous approach to not be critical of research.\u00a0 I might be frustrated, I might be struggling, but what I am learning in this course is important.<\/p>\n

As in the last 2 week\u2019s blogs, for the purposes of clarity I am going to use the headings as provided in the Unit 6 Assessment.<\/p>\n

Part A<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Discuss your evaluation of the research design in the servant leadership article chosen. Include the article reference, quality rating (0-3) and the rationale\/evidence for the rating in the response.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Please refer to Table 1.<\/p>\n

    The article I chose to focus on this week was \u201cCultivating servant leaders in secondary schooling\u201d by K.W. Chan and G.B.K. So (2017).\u00a0 I chose this article because of my active involvement in my youth group and kids ministry at church (which is part of the reason why I struggle to get my blogs in by Friday at midnight because I always have Friday night commitments).<\/p>\n

    There is no reference to the research design in the article, and after reviewing the 4 research designs outline in chapter 9 of Plano-Clark & Cresswell (2015) numerous times I still did not land conclusively on what the research design actually was.\u00a0 Again, my confidence in evaluating these criteria is limited.\u00a0 (If any of the other students selected this article, I am hoping I can learn from their blog.)<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    (I am still trying to teach myself how to use this format to insert tables into my blog.\u00a0 I don’t quite have it figured out yet.)<\/p>\n

    Part B<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Discuss your evaluation of the participants and data collection procedures in the servant leadership article chosen. Include the quality rating (0-3) and the rationale\/evidence for the rating in the response.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Please refer to Table 2.<\/p>\n

      On first reading I thought that this section would be easy to evaluate, but not so.\u00a0 The data collection may be of a higher quality that the rating but I could not identify the criteria in the article itself; this may be due to inexperience rather than it not being present.<\/p>\n

      Table 2<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      Part C<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Discuss your evaluation of the data analysis and findings in the servant leadership article chosen. Include the quality rating (0-3) and the rationale\/evidence for the rating in the response.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Please refer to Table 3.<\/p>\n

        As in the quantitative research evaluation, this was probably the most difficult section because I don’t understand how the analyses are completed and when a certain analysis is appropriate or not.<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        Part D \u2013 Discussion Questions<\/p>\n

        As a consumer of research reports I think that the most important aspects that need to be considered in a qualitative research report are the same as a quantitative research report.\u00a0 It is important to know that the research was done well and can withstand scrutiny.\u00a0 Rigorous methods need to be used, and findings need to be interpreted objectively or the findings should not be considered new best practice nor incorporated into current practice.<\/p>\n

        As I indicated in the introduction to the blog, researchers speak a different language than the one I currently know.\u00a0 Just like I would have to spend a long time learning French, or German and be fluent in it, it is going to take time and intentional study to understand \u201cresearch speak\u201d.\u00a0 I suspect that criteria in the evaluation tools found in Plano-Clark and Cresswell (2015) are in the articles that I read, but I am not well-versed enough to find them.\u00a0 Just because they aren\u2019t spelled out explicitly doesn\u2019t mean that they aren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

        As in Blog 4, I can apply this knowledge in my work context in the same way.\u00a0 I need to be a critical consumer of research so that I can make evidence based, best practice decisions.\u00a0 How I can apply it to my current leadership experience is outlined in my introduction.<\/p>\n

        My reflection this week has led me to a few questions that I need to contemplate further.\u00a0 First, in light of our studies in LDRS 500, is critical thinking a necessary leadership skill?\u00a0 Is the ability to think critically a leadership trait, or is it a learned behaviour, or can it be both?\u00a0 How critical is too critical?\u00a0 For example, if I am critically reviewing someone\u2019s work, at what point does it just becoming an exercise in finding fault and no longer has any value?<\/p>\n

        I look forward to the discussion.<\/p>\n

        References<\/p>\n

        Plano-Clark, V. & Cresswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer\u2019s guide<\/em> (2nd<\/sup> ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.<\/p>\n

        Chan, K.W.C., & So, G.B.K. (2017). Cultivating servant leaders in secondary schooling.\u00a0 Servant Leadership: Theory and Practice, 7<\/em>(10), 1-20.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.sltpjournal.org\/upload\/2\/6\/3\/9\/26394582\/03chan_so_vol_4_issue_1.pdf<\/p>\n

        Strong, H. (2018, Oct 23).\u00a0 Unit 5 Summary [weblog comment].\u00a0 Retrieved from https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/drheatherstrong\/2018\/10\/21\/unit-5-summary\/<\/p>\n

        (P.S.\u00a0 I did not know if the Unit 5 Summary would be considered a weblog comment.\u00a0 I didn’t think it was a lecture note.\u00a0 Please advise.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        This week has been a journey or self-awareness and self-reflection. First, I thoroughly enjoy reading the journal articles every week.\u00a0 The temptation is still to jump to the discussion and conclusion and skip everything in between because I struggle to understand it anyways.\u00a0 I am learning from the Plano-Clark and Cresswell (2015) text readings, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs591","category-unit-6","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/achsahs-springs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}