Month: February 2018

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Unit 6, Learning activity 6.1

Article

The Influence of Servant Leadership on Restaurant Employee Engagement

Quality Criteria

1.A research design guides the conduct of the qualitative study.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The researchers do not explicitly state the type of the research design, but they mention this article as a phenomenological study. Therefore, I believe this study adopts the case study research design.

b) The researchers correctly use several terms of a case study research design, such as themes. In addition, the research problem clearly calls for an in-depth exploration of understanding the influence of servant leadership on employee engagement from both a follower and leader perspective.

c) There is plenty of up-to-date literature cited in the study to support the research.

Quality Criteria

2.The choice of the research design is appropriate and justified.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The two research questions are clearly presented in the introduction section that aim to explore two cases: one is to explore the experience of servant leadership through lived-experience, the other one is to explore the experience and perception of employees.

b) The researchers illustrate the reason why the phenomenological study is used in this study right after the two research questions.

Quality Criteria

3.Good qualitative data collection procedures are used.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The procedures include collecting focus group data and documented data, direct and non-obtrusive observations, and interviews. The procedures are appropriate for the case study research design.

b) I think the procedures are used rigorously, although I have not finished reading chapter 10.

Quality Criteria

4.Good qualitative data analysis procedures are used.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The researchers use a seven-step process to analyze data and they state that this process has led to findings and themes based on the analyzed data.

b) The researchers particularly identify the five themes in a section. Although I am not familiar with the procedures of analyzing themes, I think they are rigorous.

Quality Criteria

5.Good qualitative results and interpretations are reported.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The results section includes a rich description of the focus group responses and a thorough presentation of the themes.

b) Although I am not familiar with the procedures of analyzing results, I think  they are rigorous.

Quality Criteria

6.The study used a rigorous research design.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

Given the qualitative design is a case study research design, most of the elements of a case study design could be identified are depicted in a logical and coherent way.

Quality Criteria

7.The use of the qualitative research design addressed the study’s purpose.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

The researchers analyze the findings from different aspects, and all the findings provide a rich exploration that answers the study’s research questions.

Total Score = 19 (17-21 = High quality)

References

Carter, D., & Baghurst, T. (2014). The influence of servant leadership on restaurant employee engagement. Journal of Business Ethics, 124, 453-464.

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

 

Unit 6 Learning Activities

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Unit 5, Response

This is a response to Simarjit Shergill’s post https://create.twu.ca/icandothis/2018/02/01/ldrs-591-activit-5-4/

Question: I find myself instinctively trusting studies that use validate instruments. Is it fair to judge a study as falling short if the authors create their own instrument/s , as long as they attempt to include all the variables they are studying ?

I think it depends on the different situation to believe whether or not the instrument created by the authors is reliable.

Before illustrating my ideas, I would like to first emphasize the significance of critical thinking. Cultivating critical thinking is the principal thing I have gained from the reflection in this week. No matter what kind of article we are reviewing, we should adopt the academic attitude of being critical with the information provided by the authors. Evidently, the instruments and statistics would seem to be more reliable and valid if the article is peer-reviewed or the instruments have been testified by other authorities before. While it does not mean the instrument developed by the researchers themselves cannot be trusted.

First, the instruments existing to date is limited, but the number of unexplored research questions is unknown. Clearly, we need far more instruments. Therefore, more instruments have to be created and examined to solve the various questions in the world. Second, we can inspect the instrument created by the authors in the study according to our critical thinking. For example, we can check if the instrument is designed in a rigorous way; if the procedures of the instrument are presented in a logical way. More important, if the instrument has been testified and examined by the creator or creators many times before using it to analyze real problems, and if the reports of the experiments are presented in the study. Third, we have to consider the validity of the study in a comprehensive way rather than only thinking about the instruments and the variables. For instance, the way of collecting the data, the type of the research design, the participants, the analysis of the results, and the limitations should all be taken into account.

At last, I would like to introduce an article as an example in which the instrument is developed by the authors themselves and used in the study. I happened to find this article during searching for the journal articles for the second assignment. I finally chose this article and read it carefully several weeks ago. From my personal perspective, this article is of high quality and the instrument is designed perfectly for the research question. If you are interested in reading it, the title of the article is School-Based Intervention for Adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder: Results of a Controlled Study. I hope this article would be helpful.

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Unit 5, Learning activity 5.4

As a consumer of research reports, the most important things for me in the methods and results section of a high-quality quantitative research report are identifying the type of the quantitative research design, making sure the measures used to gather the data are good quality, and understanding the statistics.

According to the knowledge gained in this unit, I found an important thing for better understanding a research report from each chapter. The first one is to address the quantitative research design of the study. It is the foundation of understanding the analysis in the study. Because the data collection and the results analysis will correspond to the research design, it is crucial to make sure the direction is right before reading further to meet the following sections.

The second one is to determine whether the instruments are high quality. Before reading the chapter seven, I had no idea about the reliability and validity of the scores from the instruments. I just thought the scores were definitely reliable. The author presented a bathroom scale example to illustrate that the numbers obtained from the instruments could be inaccurate or unreliable. Then I realized that I had not considered the reliability and validity of the scores before because all the studies I had read were journal articles. They were all peer-reviewed and were reliable sources. The explanations of the Reliable and Valid have raised my awareness of the scores gathered from the instruments. Given that one day I may have a chance to conduct my study, the data and scores acting as the most important element have to be correct, accurate, and reliable.

The last one is understanding the statistics in the study. Basically, I used to quickly review the statistics in the result and method section because I did not understand the meaning of the symbols and numbers. Although I am still not very familiar with the definitions of some measures, such as the standard deviation and the effect size, I have gained a general framework of all the statistics, measures, and how they relate to each other, such as statistically significant and nonsignificant result. It is significant for me to analyze the statistics and measures by myself rather than just reading the report presented by the researcher. Furthermore, analyzing the statistics by myself is greatly helpful to build the sense of critical thinking during reading the articles in the future.

My question is: How do you evaluate the results of a quantitative study when the information of the statistics or instruments is not clear enough?

Reference

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

Unit 5 Learning Activities

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Unit 5, Learning activity 5.3

Article

The relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors and follower’s perceptions of being empowered in the context of small business.

Quality Criteria

1. The data were rigorously scored and prepared.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) Procedures to score the data in a consistent manner were used.

b) The researchers explained how data were prepared and checked the data for errors in the Result section.

c) The researchers did not provide the name of the quantitative statistical software program.

Quality Criteria

2. Good descriptive analyses were conducted.

Rate

1=Fair

Evidence and/or Reasoning

There is little information of descriptive statistics that could be identified.

Quality Criteria

3. Good hypothesis testing procedures were used.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficient (r) was mainly used to test the relationship between two variables in this study.

b) The researchers objectively applied the five steps of hypothesis testing, such as setting the alpha level, collecting data, calculating the statistic and p values, and making decisions.

c) The alpha level was set at .05, but the researchers did not explain the reason.

d) The value of the statistic (r) and the p value were stated clearly.

Quality Criteria

4. The results are comprehensive.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) There is table in this study which reports the demographic characteristic (N) of the participants.

b) The results presented in the table contain the internal consistency of the instrument’s items and the identification of the six subscales found among the instrument’s items.

c) The results response to each of the study’s research questions.

d) The results are consistent with the overall research design.

Quality Criteria

5. The results include sufficient information.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The researchers discuss the results of six different facets including the p value and the alpha level respectively. All the p values are less than the predetermined alpha level (.05), which indicate statistically significant results.

b) The effect size is specificaly presented in the Result section.

c) The information included in the table and the text is clear, consistent, and accurate.

Quality Criteria

6. The data analysis represents a good quantitative process.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

The data analysis is a objective and linear process, and the statistical results are found based on the gathered data.

Quality Criteria

7. The results provide a good explanation of the study’s purpose.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) It is clear how the reported results address the study’s research questions. The authors have interpreted the results and thorough analyses in different aspects.

b) All the statistical tests are clearly related to the study’s purpose.

Total Score = 18 (17-21 = High quality)

References

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

Van Winkle, B., Allen, S., DeVore, D., & Winston, B. (2014). The relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors and follower’s perceptions of being empowered in the context of small business. Journal of Leadership Education, 13(3), 70-82.

Unit 5 Learning Activities

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Unit 5, Learning activity 5.2

Article

The relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors and follower’s perceptions of being empowered in the context of small business.

Quality Criteria

1. The sampling strategy is appropriate and justified.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The study uses a non-probability sampling strategy for explicitly stating that a combined purposive and snowball sampling method is used.

b) The authors do not provide the reasons for using this sampling strategy. However, as a correlational design, the sampling strategy is implicitly understandable.

Quality Criteria

2. The sample size is appropriate and justified.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) As a correlational study, the participants are 116 individuals.

b) The sample size is much larger than the minimum size (30 participants) for a correlational design.

c) The authors have done their best to reduce the chance of sampling error by selecting as many possible participants as possible.

Quality Criteria

3. High quality instruments are used to gather data.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The authors use two instruments to collect the data: the Essential Servant Leadership Behaviors (ESLB) and the Conditions of Work Effectiveness Questionnaire II (CWEQ II).

b) The ESLB instrument measuring the independent variable is the behavioral observation checklists type of instruments; The CWEQ II instrument measuring the dependent variable is the attitudinal measures type of instruments.

c) The ESLB instrument contains 10 clear questions and returns a Cronbach alpha of .90 indicating a high internal reliability; the CWEQ II instrument consists of 19 questions divided across six subscales and returns Cronbach alphas of .77, .67, .86, .77, .62, and .76 respectively, which indicate a strong internal reliability and consistency.

d) The authors include many citations to the literature indicating that the instruments are previously developed and used for research purposes.

Quality Criteria

4. The data are gathered using ethical quantitative procedures.

Rate

3=Excellent

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The researchers obtain consent from participants because the individuals are willing to take the survey.

b) One group of the participants are adult business students recruited from a specific Californian college, and the permission is granted by the college.

Quality Criteria

5. The data are gathered using standardized quantitative procedures.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) The two instruments include closed-ended questions that have preset response options so that all participants use the same standard set of options for their responses (definitely no, no, neutral, yes, and definitely yes).

b) There is no information of the training raters to ensure that all participants completed the instruments in similar conditions.

Quality Criteria

6. The study has a high level of internal validity.

Rate

0=Poor

Evidence and/or Reasoning

a) This study is not any type of experiments, it is a correlational one.

b) The procedures in this study is not to test whether the independent variable causes an effect in dependent variables

Quality Criteria

7. The study has a high level of external validity.

Rate

2=Good

Evidence and/or Reasoning

The researchers select a convenience sample, obtain a sample size that is large considering the type of design, use procedures to encourage as many participants as possible, and obtain a relatively high rate of response from participants (130 out of 156 response).

Total Score = 15 (11-16 = Adequate quality)

References

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

Van Winkle, B., Allen, S., DeVore, D., & Winston, B. (2014). The relationship between the servant leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors and follower’s perceptions of being empowered in the context of small business. Journal of Leadership Education, 13(3), 70-82.

https://create.twu.ca/ldrs591-sp18/unit-5-learning-activities/