Part A

Please note that all tables referenced in this blog post are from Plano Clark & Creswell (2015).

Article Link: Sturm (2009)

Having had the opportunity this week to delve further into Qualitative research and to read more of Plano Clark & Creswell (2015), I decided to return to my first article, Principles of Servant-Leadership in Community Health Nursing by researcher Bonnie Sturm (2009)  in order to study it with a fresh perspective.

Plano Clark & Creswell (2015)

 Part B

Plano Clark & Creswell (2015)

Part C

Plano Clark & Creswell (2015)

Part D

As a consumer of research reports, the most important aspects I will need to consider in the methods and findings sections of a high quality qualitative research report are:

• What type of research is being conducted (narrative, case study, ethnographic, grounded theory)
• Whether the research focuses on a particular phenomenon of interest or a story of either an individual or a few individuals
• Evidence of respect for and ethical treatment towards all participants
• Understand and define the sampling of data (whether it is probability or purposeful)
• Are there clearly defined themes/sub-themes and has the researcher coded them?

I am still a work in progress in learning how to better read, understand and evaluate both quantitative and qualitative research studies. However, I definitely feel much more confident and familiar with qualitative reports than I do with quantitative.  Qualitative research studies are very applicable to education.  By conducting case studies and observations of small groups of students/teachers/administrators;  educators can gain a wealth of knowledge about classroom management, classroom set-up, student learning disabilities, relationships between staff and administrators, staff and students to name just a few. Important themes can be identified as well as the relationships between them and be explored further.

Image courtesy of www.themontessorimessage.net

What I have learned the past couple of weeks isn’t necessarily about qualitative research. Life circumstances and the course content have caused me to be self reflective about my own practice. I believe that I will be a better leader in my Department as well as a better teacher after having completed these lessons/this course for the following reasons:

• Learning is a lifetime process. We are never done.
  • This is something that I want my Grade 12’s to understand as they transition from high school.
  • This also applies to the members of my Department and myself as a teacher. There is always new curriculum to learn, and new and improved ways of doing things. It is detrimental to our own growth and those around us if we remain stagnant.
• Learning isn’t always easy and doesn’t always come naturally.
  • The past two weeks have been extra difficult.  The material is brand new to me and has taken me much longer to absorb than usual.  I began to get extremely discouraged and as the work piled up due to work (parent/teacher interview nights, overnight professional development conferences, facilitating school workshops, after school volleyball coaching) and family obligations, I began to feel like I would never catch up. It was an overwhelming feeling, especially when I found the content to be difficult to grasp.
  • This experience was a great reminder to me of why/how some students want to give up and why they stop coming to class. When students begin to feel, “What’s the point, I’m so far behind now” or “Why bother, I don’t even understand it” I can better relate now to that feeling and I don’t ever want my students to feel so overwhelmed that they want to give up.  I will be adjusting my teaching practice even further as a result.  I would rather have a student feel successful learning  smaller portions at a time, than feeling so burdened  down with work and burnt out that they give up.
• Focus on strengths first.
  • Dr. Strong’s comments on our blogs are always very encouraging and she refers to each of our comments in her weekly summation blog post. It is a great reminder of how important it is to focus on strengths first instead of the things each of us need to improve upon.
  • This is encouraging and motivating and a great example of servant leadership.

Questions:

I have two questions for you, one related to the topic this week and another simply out of curiosity.

• In your line of work, which is the design type that you would most likely use for qualitative research? Please refer to the extensive list on page 289 in Plano Clark & Creswell (2015).

• What is your biggest take away so far in this course? What have you learned about yourself as an individual and as a leader?

References

Plano-Clark, V. & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Sturm, B. A. (2009). Principles of servant-leadership in community health nursing: management issues and behaviors discovered in ethnographic research. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 21(2), 82–89.

Part A

Plano Clark and Creswell (2015)

For this week’s blog post and analysis, I chose a different article.

Hunter, E. M., Neubert, M. J., Perry, S. J., Witt, L. A., Penny, L. M., & Weinberger, E. (2013). Servant leaders inspire servant followers: Antecedents and outcomes for employees and the organization. Leadership Quarterly, 24(2), 316-331.

The link to the article is here

Evaluation of the Research Design:

Plano Clark and Creswell (2015)

Part B

Evaluation of the Participants and Data Collection Procedures

Plano Clark and Creswell (2015)

Part C

Evaluation of the Data Analysis and Results

Plano Clark and Creswell (2015)

Part D

As a consumer of research reports, the most important aspects I need to consider in the methods and results section of a high quality quantitative research report are:

• Asking whether or not the selection of participants, the data collection and data analysis procedures are rigorous and if they fit the study’s design purpose. (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2015)
• Asking whether or not the participants have been treated ethically
• Asking whether or not the sample of participants is large enough
• Asking whether the results provide an explanation to the problem(s) being researched

Google Images

I find the analysis of data and the tables in quantitative reports difficult to interpret. This is most likely due to the fact that I have never taken statistics and majored in the Arts as opposed to Science. I don’t have any experience with the reading or analyzing of them other than what I have read in Plano Clark and Creswell  (2015) and what has been discussed during this course. It is like trying to learn a whole different language to be honest! I struggled with interpreting the data presented in my article and trying to determine whether or not the data collected met the criteria for a high quality research report or not. The data made my head spin and I had to keep pushing myself to go back and examine it while referring continuously to Plano Clark and Creswell (2015) to try and break it down.

I can apply this knowledge to my current leadership experience if I ever wish to examine in more detail statistical data collected on specific educational questions that require an explanation.

Question for the Group:  Out of curiosity, and this may seem like a silly question, but how much do you think your current position and your background education play into your preference for either Quantitative or Qualitative research? Do you think either of those things even play a role or is it solely dependent upon what you are currently trying to achieve (either an explanation or further exploration)?

Please note that all tables used in this blog post have been referenced from Plano Clark and Creswell (2015).

References

Hunter, E. M., Neubert, M. J., Perry, S. J., Witt, L. A., Penny, L. M., & Weinberger, E. (2013). Servant leaders inspire servant followers: Antecedents and outcomes for employees and the organization. Leadership Quarterly, 24(2), 316-331.

Plano-Clark, V. & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Unit 4: An Introduction to Research Reports

Thank you so much for sharing! I very much appreciated your  vulnerable and honest reflection of what you experienced this week. It is helpful to know that there are others who are also trying hard to balance family life, work and school. It can feel at times like I’m not doing any of them well because I’m pulled between too many things at any given time.  I am reminded of a reading from our LDRS500 course and Lillian Watson’s (1988)  Light From Many Lamps, where Sir William Osler shares advice about the secret of success. He shared his thoughts with students from Yale in an address he called “A Way of Life”.  He told them “to concentrate on the day’s work, to do what needed to be done to the best of their ability, shutting off the past and the future, living in day tight compartments” (Watson, 1988, p.215).  He went on to say,

The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today makes the strongest falter…. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then, the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of a life in “day tight compartments!” (Watson, 1988, p. 216)

Dale Carnegie (1948)  refers to this same message in his book How To Stop Worrying and To Start Living and says that when things become overwhelming to place them in day tight compartments. I have found myself doing that a lot this week. My dog has been really ill after surgery and I have been concerned about her along with the enormous costs associated with her care. Between my dog, and all of my other responsibilities including this course, it all began to pile up  as a huge weight. I was reminded of this passage and decided that I was going to tackle one thing at a time by placing each item into day tight compartments. It is very comforting to me to know that we are all on this journey together and that we are present to encourage each other in both the good times and especially through our struggles.  I am grateful that you shared!

To answer the question that you posed…

My closing question is more practical and likely not going to generate much in the way of substantive responses from my fellow students, for which I apologize.  I would like to get an understanding of how my fellow students read and follow qualitative research reports.  I am from a clinical background – the vast majority of research I was exposed to in both of my baccalaureate degrees was quantitative.  I found some of the qualitative articles assigned in both LDRS 500 and LDRS 671 sent my head spinning.  Between trying to keep track of all the acronyms and the multiple hypotheses that kept coming up in the articles I had difficulties following the direction and understanding what I was reading.  Do you have a mental method, or another method of following all of the concepts and hypotheses being introduced?

Your comment made me smile as I am the complete opposite! I don’t enjoy reading the quantitative research reports and much prefer the qualitative ones. Perhaps it’s because of my background in Humanities instead of Science. I can appreciate however, that there are limitations for both kinds of reports and that if somehow they can be combined, they might better meet the needs of all audiences.

https://create.twu.ca/charliemable/2018/10/12/unit-4-research-reports/

After learning more about the structure of research papers, and demystifying the process does this entice anyone to want to investigate doing some hands-on research and even a PhD?

Like you, I too appreciated the breakdown and demystifying of some of the process by Plano Clark and Creswell (2015).  I am interested in doing some hands on research studies on high school female administrators, and was intrigued by the idea of one day conducting ethnographic research.

As far as PhD’s go, I’m still trying to get through only my second course of my Master’s while juggling and balancing parenthood, career and schoolwork! I tip my hat to those who have earned theirs!

https://create.twu.ca/edenguessi/2018/10/12/ldrs-591-flow-unit-4-blog/

Question: How important is the length of the introduction section in relation to its quality?

I appreciated your comment referencing the difficulty you were having discriminating between the topic and the statement of the problem.  I too find the introduction part to be challenging. I continually kept referencing Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015)  as I read through the articles. I especially like the image they have on page 82 that details the topic, the research problem and the purpose by asking specific questions that relate to each section.

Plano Clark & Creswell (2015, p.82)

References:

Plano-Clark, V. & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Part A

There are two main types of research studies that are conducted; quantitative and qualitative.  According to Plano Clark and Creswell (2015), quantitative research “researchers analyze the data using mathematical procedures, including calculating statistics and plotting graphs” (p.66).  Whereas, in qualitative studies, the data consists “of words and pictures, not numbers” (Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 66).

Article Evaluation:

Link to article: Principles of Servant-Leadership in Community Health Nursing

Evaluation of the Statement of the Problem:

Table Evaluation System (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 94)

Part B: Evaluation of the Literature Review

Table for Evaluation of the Literature Review (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 144)

Part C – Evaluation of the Purpose Statement or Research Question

Table for Evaluation of the Purpose Statement (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2015, p.186)

Part D:

As a consumer of research reports, the most important aspects I need to consider in the introduction section of a high-quality research report are:

• Is the problem easily identifiable?
• Is it a real world issue?
• Is the topic clearly identified?
• What does the researcher want to do with the data?

This was a great exercise for me, as I can immediately apply it to helping students write simple thesis statements and to helping my students with their own proper citing and paraphrasing (the more I’m learning, the more I can bring back and share).  I have found Plano Clark and Creswell (2015) to be an excellent reference source due to their detailed rubrics.

Question for the group:

Did anyone else find it extremely difficult to provide an actual grade of between 0 and 3? At times, I felt like I was the least qualified person to rate someone else’s scholarly paper when I know so little about writing them.  I’m sure you’re not supposed give half marks, but I couldn’t help it! I felt at times like I was either being too generous or too harsh and found myself second guessing my original assessment. This was the complete opposite of how I am in my career. I am very confident in grading my own student’s work and helping them grade their work as well. It might sound weird, but it really becomes a reciprocal event where we learn from each other.

Please note that all of the evaluation tables in this blog post were referenced from Plano Clark and Creswell (2015).

References:

Plano-Clark, V. & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide. (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Sturm, B. A. (2009). Principles of servant-leadership in community health nursing: Management issues and behaviors discovered in ethnographic research. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 21(2), 82–89. https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca:2420/10.1177/1084822308318187

Part 1

My previous experience with APA style is almost non-existent other than what I learned in our Introduction to Leadership course last term.  I used MLA style in both of my prior undergraduate degrees in English and Education.

Today, I had the opportunity to hear author and educator, Tom Schimmer speak on balanced assessment.  At the end of his keynote address, he provided the audience with a list of 13 references, two of whom came from his own books on the subject.  Tom’s scholarly writing  added credibility to his educational leadership role as he not only had a philosophy to share, he was able to provide data to back it up.  It became clear that both quantitative and qualitative data were an essential piece in motivating teachers to examine their assessment practices.  I would like to improve my professional communication skills and believe that learning how to research and write scholarly papers will aid me in this.

Part 2

At the moment, despite doing well on the online quizzes, I feel wholly inadequate in my scholarly writing skills! I am grateful for the online resources and videos that are available by OWL Purdue but also for the detailed examples provided in the American Psychological Association Manual (2010).  These resources will be beneficial in setting up proper formatting and referencing citations.

The areas that I struggle with the most are:

• Writing in a passive voice instead of an active voice. To help combat this, I am going to try really hard to keep asking the question, ‘by whom’ to determine if I am using a passive voice as prompted by Lee (2016) in her blog post on the topic.
• Wordiness and redundancy in my writing. To aid me with this, I will incorporate Dr. Hatala’s (2016) method of crossing out unessential words or areas where I repeat points during the editing process.
•  Ensuring that ideas logically flow from one section to another when beginning new paragraphs. I will ask for feedback from a colleague when editing.

Questions for Dr. Strong

• As part of the check list of what you are looking for, you mention that, “all sources listed in the References have at least 1 corresponding in text citation” (Strong, 2018).  Does that mean, if we read published journal articles or books that relate to our topic but don’t end up directly quoting or paraphrasing from them that we are NOT to include them in our Reference list?
• What are the most common errors you see made by your students when writing scholarly papers and what are your personal tips in avoiding these?
• Is writing in first person discouraged other than when it involves a study that the writer was involved in?  Is sharing personal experiences discouraged?
• When referencing a YouTube video, after the title, should we be putting in brackets …  [Video podcast]?

References

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Hatala, M. (2018). Learn APA Style – Section 3.01-3.23 – Writing Clearly and Concisely. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRu1UPPubMY

Hurley, G. & Jones, B. (2012, May 9).  APA Formatting -The Basics. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdAfIqRt60c

Strong, H. (2018). Unit 3 Learning Activities. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs591/unit-3-learning-activities/

Link to Post: https://create.twu.ca/edenguessi/2018/09/22/unit-2/

I really enjoyed reading both your concept map and your post.  After reading your post, I felt compelled to learn a little bit more about Cameroon. I was saddened to see that there are some warnings posted about the violence that is occurring near its borders. I have friends who have recently left Chad after spending a couple of years there. Your love for Cameroon is palatable in your writing and I can appreciate how you wish to find ways to improve the governance.

Would you prioritize research about first nations people done by local authors over the same topic done by outside researchers? What are the advantages and inconveniences of either choice?

To answer your question, I believe that as long as the research you are looking at is a first hand account of events and isn’t secondary in nature, than I believe that both points of view are equally important. It is when we set our own biases aside and view things from the lens and perspective of all sides that we can learn the most about any issue.

 Link To Charlie Mable’s Post

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog post as well as looking at your concept map. A lot of your personal interests are similar to mine.  Your professional question that you would like to research is definitely a timely one. Each day it seems we are reading articles about the devastating affect the opioid addiction is having on families and our communities across the Nation. I look forward to learning more about your research through your posts.

To answer the question that you posted:

Do you think that research of a medical nature can be applied to the Canadian landscape even if it was carried out in another country?

I think that we can always learn from others research if we believe the research to be ethical, credible and if it meets the criteria of a reliable source.  I do worry sometimes about the research being conducted by pharmaceutical companies and question the bias of it. However, a lot of what we have today was discovered by others.

Some examples of research conducted in other countries that Canadians have ultimately benefitted from are:

• Alexander Fleming, a Scottish researcher discovered penicillin
•  Louis Pasteur’s research conducted in France played a huge role in the discovery of vaccinations, microbial fermentation and pasteurization.
• Marie Curie a polish researcher’s discovery of radium has gone a long way in the treatment of cancer.
• Raymond Damadian, a researcher from the U.S. invented the MRI

Below you will find a picture of my rather large concept map!  It became larger and larger as I had to continually go back to the drawing board to further define not just my interests, but to further develop topics that not only had credible research available but that were relevant to current issues in education that warranted further exploration. You will most likely have to zoom in to read it! My apologies as I couldn’t make the image any larger.

General areas that appealed to me were:

• Women in leadership
• Student engagement
• Empathy in the classroom
• Teacher mentorship
• The impact of classroom design on students and whether it affected student achievement

I had several research questions that I was interested in pursuing, but these were in my top 4 (there are more listed on my map):

• I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown and her work! So I wanted to examine the importance of empathy as a critical skill for teachers, administration and students to develop. I wondered further if empathy was inherent or if it could even be taught. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of research available that I could find. A lot of what I found, discredited the importance of trying to teach empathy, instead arguing that empathy is a subjective topic and it would be like trying to teach someone who is right handed to print using their left hand only and that not everyone is capable of displaying empathy to the same degree due to cultural beliefs etc.,
• I wanted to examine Myers Briggs Type Indictors, in particular, the INFJ (which I am) because according to online data found at 16Personalities.com, this type makes up less than  1% of the population. I wondered how this personality type related to leadership roles, in particular Transformational Servant Leadership as both a leader and as a follower.
• I have a 17 year old son who has lost his love of school and his elementary school curiosity. As a teacher and a parent, I know that my children and my students love it when I share stories.  Often through stories told they are able to make connections to their own lives as well as to larger global issues. My inquiry question was: How can secondary educators make school personally relevant to students and enable them to develop their own personal narrative through the use of storytelling in the classroom?

The research question that I ended up choosing was:

Why is mentorship important in reducing ‘burnout’ in new teachers and necessary to help facilitate success so that new teachers can have a long and prosperous career?

I chose this question because it is extremely relevant today due to the massive teacher shortage in British Columbia. Brand new teachers are being hired, many right from the classroom without any prior experience and are expected to cope with the same responsibilities and teaching loads as teachers with years of experience without any assistance or supports in place. Many new teachers don’t speak up and ask for help out of fear that they will be perceived as not being competent, especially when it comes to pedagogy or classroom management.  A lot of teachers leave the profession with the first 5 years due to exhaustion and teacher burn out.  I have a vested interest in this topic as well because my School District has a new teacher Mentorship Program and I have been a mentor teacher for others.

I combined the following areas in regards to teacher mentorship and honing the craft of teaching thoughts on my concept map to define my question:

• How long should first year teachers be mentored for?
• What does a good mentor look like?
• How is mentorship in teaching defined?
• Has teacher mentorship been proven to be successful for teachers who struggle with assessment or classroom management?
• In the shortage of teachers crisis, how do school Administrators ensure that ‘quality’ teachers are being hired and retained? What makes someone a ‘quality’ teacher?
• What makes someone a ‘master’ teacher? Can you ever truly hone your craft to become a ‘master’?

I anticipate searching for literature in the following fields of education, leadership, psychology and healthcare as they each relate to my topic.

Resources

Caraway, K., Tucker, C. M., Reinke, W. M., & Hall, C. (2003). Self-Efficacy, Goal Orientation, and Fear of Failure as Predictors of School Engagement in High School Students. Psychology in the Schools, 40(4), 417–27. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ671155&site=ehost-live

Doren, B., Murray, C., & Gau, J. M. (2014). Salient Predictors of School Dropout among Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research &                   Practice, 29(4), 150–159. Retrieved from               https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr

Elias, M. J., & Arnold, H. (2006). The educator’s guide to emotional intelligence and academic achievement : social-emotional learning in the classroom. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Corwin Press, c2006. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat05965a&AN=alc.178470&site=eds-live

Goodwin, B. (2016). “High touch” is crucial for “high tech” students.(promoting empathy inside the classroom)(Research Matters)(Column). Educational Leadership, (1), 81. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edscpi&AN=edscpi.A464028667&site=eds-live

Hobson, A. J., Ashby, P., Malderez, A., & Tomlinson, P. D. (2009). Mentoring beginning teachers: What we know and what we don’t. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 207–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2008.09.001

Hudson, P. (2012). How Can Schools Support Beginning Teachers? A Call for Timely Induction and Mentoring for Effective Teaching. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 37(7). Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ995200&site=eds-live

Keogh, J., Garvis, S., & Pendergast, D. (Eds.). (2010). Plugging the leaky bucket : the need to develop resilience in novice middle years teachers. Primary and Middle Years Educator, 8(2). Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsaed&AN=rmitplus183973&site=eds-live

Lawford, H. L., & Ramey, H. L. (2015). “Now I Know I Can Make a Difference”: Generativity and Activity Engagement as Predictors of Meaning Making in Adolescents and Emerging Adults. Developmental Psychology, 51(10), 1395–1406. Retrieved fromhttps://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1075074&site=ehost-live

Park, S., Holloway, S. D., Arendtsz, A., Bempechat, J., & Li, J. (2012). What Makes Students Engaged in Learning? A Time-Use Study of within- and between-Individual  Predictors of Emotional Engagement in Low-Performing High Schools. Journal of Youth  and Adolescence, 41(3), 390–401. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tue&db=eric&AN=EJ956027&site=ehost-live

Strati, A. D., Schmidt, J. A., & Maier, K. S. (2017). Perceived Challenge, Teacher Support, and Teacher Obstruction as Predictors of Student Engagement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(1), 131–147. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1125534&site=ehost-live

Waajid, B., Garner, P. W., & Owen, J. E. (2013). Infusing Social Emotional Learning into the Teacher Education Curriculum. International Journal of Emotional Education, 5(2), 31–48. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1085617&site=eds-live

Wormeli, R. (2014). Motivating Young Adolescents. Educational Leadership, 72(1), 26–31. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1038882&site=ehost-live

Yilmaz, E., Sahin, M., & Turgut, M. (2017). Variables Affecting Student Motivation Based on Academic Publications. Journal of Education and Practice, 8(12), 112–120. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1140621&site=eds-live