Leona So

How can I know that I can trust what I am reading?

There are a number of considerations I can take to gage the reliability of what I am reading which includes the scholarly review process of the article, the author’s reputation, and its source of funding. When we consider the author’s reputation, we need to consider the authority of the author. This goes beyond the author’s credentials, and into looking the author’s association and time in the field and past credibility with his/her research. The source of funding is also important to consider as readers need to consider biases of the research due to who their study is being funded by. Goldacre (2011) gives the example of pharmaceutical companies “proving” the effectiveness of their drugs by purposefully skewing their research process.

How do I know the research has been performed competently?

To evaluate to competency of the research, readers can evaluate the technical procedures. Assuring the sampling is well represented, there control groups, that biases have been considered, and the processes in data collection and evaluation were intentionally minimized. Utilizing Plano-Clark and Creswell’s (2015) evaluation criteria is a great way of judging the research’s reliability.

How do I know the research is reported honestly?

Goldacre (2011) shares the best way of understanding whether research is reported honestly is “to lift up the lid, fingering around at the mechanics, and peer in” (“Battling bad science”). Goldcare (2011) further suggests this is achievable by considering the author’s authority and completeness and validity of the data collected. Considering the author’s intentions and whether all data is present is crucial to accuracy. If the author is biased due to personal or organizational gain, or if there are missing data about trials, the conclusion of the study is incomplete and therefore inaccurate.

How do I know the findings presented are consistent with what other researchers would conclude?

Seeking research of replicated studies is a good method of finding out whether the findings of a study are consistent with other literature. If other researchers are unable to replicate the study and the findings, then the findings are inconsistent and suggests to inaccurate.

My question: As noted, consistent findings between replicated studies is a good indication of the study’s accuracy. What I noticed for relatively “new” research topics, there are few studies to compare with one another to gage the accuracy of the findings. How would you suggest evaluating the credibility of a study’s finding if there is little literature about a topic to compare the findings to?

References

Goldacre, B. (2011). Battling bad science. TED. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science/up-next#t-834098

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

Evidence and credibility are key themes in this class as we explored practices of accessing, evaluating, and applying research into leadership. As I consider the significance of what we learned, evidence-based decision making is crucial for the Transformational Servant leader because seeking truth and serving followers is inherent to Transformational Servant Leadership.

Imbenzi, Page, and Williaume (2017) state, “Transformational Servant Leadership[…] incorporate[s] influence, vision, respect or credibility, risk-sharing or delegation, integrity and modeling” (p. 17). To achieve these qualities of Transformational Servant Leadership, establishing personal credibility and trusting relationships with followers is needed. This can be established through evidence-based decision making. Incorporating influence, vision, respect, delegation, integrity, and modeling cannot be done without the followers’ trust in a leader’s capabilities to make good decisions. Good decisions must be based on evidence and therefore research. Without good research, decisions made could harm the overall organization and team. For example, purchasing a building in a community that does not fit the organizations’ market, or not establishing a good emergency preparedness plan for one’s team could be detrimental to an organization. Good decisions based on evidence could improve and protect an organization as they should, and ultimately, establish followers’ respect and trust in their leader.

Possessing the skills to decipher how to find, read, and utilize research is evidently – pun intended – useful, but knowing how to conduct research within or outside one’s organization is also important for making sound decisions. Focusing on research within an organization, action research projects could improve the processes of an organization while aligning with the values of Transformational Servant Leadership. Both the transformational and servant aspects of this leadership style emphasize the importance of caring for followers. While servant leaders focus on serving followers and transformational leaders care focus on followers’ engagement and support of organizational objects, both aspects need to understand their followers. If Tranformational Servant Leaders are capable of conducting evidence-based research through small action-research projects, logic-based changes and decisions can be made to improve the organization.

References

Imbenzi, G., Page, D., Williaume, D. (2017). Monograph 2: Transformation servant leadership. Retrieved from http://www.twu.ca/lead

As a refresher of the decision I shared in my first blog post, I made a decision based on the organizational values, past experience, and policies to help a pregnant co-worker seek medical attention. In a case such as this, I cannot say I would have changed my approach. The urgency of her personal health required an immediate decision, and would not have allowed me time to read articles about the best practices of handling similar situations.  After taking this course, I was prompted to wonder whether there are any studies that examined how organizational leadership handles such personal crises in the workplace. A general search on the TWU Library site revealed 14 results, and clicking the limiter – Scholarly/Peer Reviewed Journals – further shortened this list to four results. For me, the lack of research is understandable as each personal crisis someone faces in different work areas impact the organization and staff in such a variety of ways that cannot be fully predicted. Despite this, I think a study that looked into how servant leadership based organizations and non-servant leadership based organizations handled situations such as this would be incredibly interesting and worth studying.

Although I would not have changed my approach in this scenario, this course has shaped my decision-making and critique approaches in my workplace. In the duration of this course, there was a situation with a new staff member who had difficultly reading the schedule correctly and coming in for his shifts at the appropriate time. Beyond further developing my understanding of the servant leadership approach through the articles read in this course and my supervisor’s coaching, I was inclined to seek truth about the matter from the staff member directly and search for resources or approaches to support this staff member. I connected with this particular staff member and surrounding staff that were impacted by the situation, and  sought resources from our organization and online to suggest in hopes of helping this individual improve.

The most important thing for me about the conclusions section of a high-quality research report is . . .

1. Clear summary of its data and results. The summary should guide readers to a result the researchers concluded, and this is only achievable through a focused and clear summary of the study’s key findings and results in relation to the study’s research question. I do not want to guess what the data and results mean, but instead told what key points I should note to understand the researchers’ interest and the study’s purpose.
2. Significant implications that are logically grounded in its results. This is the “So What?” of the study. I want to know why this study is an important addition to the world, and how the researchers came up with these resulting implications. Providing practical suggestions to readers is what makes research interesting to me; I want to know how I can apply what I learnt from the study into my work.
3. Acknowledgement of the study’s relation to prior research is important to me because I believe research should be a constant conversation between researchers across time and places. Not only does referencing precedent literature provide credibility, but it shows readers how the study adds to the conversation by either supporting or contradicting prior literature to show growth in the research of a certain topic. Comparing and contrasting a study’s result to previous work is a powerful way to show its significance in the academic world.

My question: I personally find it helpful to have a sample of survey or interview questions in the appendices of a study as it helps me understand how data was specifically collected from participants, but not all studies provide these samples. Do you think it is important for researchers to provide a sample of their questions or is this unnecessary information?

Melchar and Bosco’s (2014) study is evaluated based on Plano-Clark and Creswell’s (2015) criteria for evaluating the conclusions and back matter in a research report below. Each criteria is rated on a three-point scale.

1. The major results are identified and summarized (3/3) – The key results that confirmed the two hypotheses – mid-level managers exhibit servant leadership “consistent with those of high-level leaders” (Melchar & Bosco, p. 83, 2014) and there is a lack of differences between subjects based on education, age, and employment time – were clearly highlighted and focused. The summary of the data was logical and solely addressed the hypotheses without introducing new ideas.
2. The results are thoughtfully examined in relation to the literature and personal reflections (1/3) – The discussion includes personal reflections well focused on the results and the implications of the quantitative data gathered. While there are suggestions of the study’s relation to prior literature about servant literature, Melchar and Bosco (2014) fail to explicitly relate prior research to their study. While this may be a fault of a lack of precedent literature, the complete lack of reference back to previous studies is unjustified.
3. Appropriate implications of the results for practice are identified and justified (1/3) – Melchar and Bosco’s (2014) discussion discusses how “the highest means were in the areas of wisdom, organizational stewardship, and altruistic calling” (p. 84) and therefore suggests servant leaders to practice these three traits, but does not explicitly specify audiences that would benefit from this knowledge or explicitly provide suggestions based on its results.
4. Thoughtful critiques of the study’s limitations are provided and appropriate for the research approach (3/3) – Melchar and Bosco (2014) provide adequate examples of their study’s limitations. Melchar and Bosco (2014) acknowledge their “results may not be generalizable to other types of for-profit environments” (p. 85) as they only examined one industry, and their sample size was also “somewhat small” (p. 85).
5. Suitable implications of the results for future research are identified and justified (2/3) – The researchers suggest further research could be conducted to examine “the main components of servant leadership, particularly trust, valuing of others and ethical conduct” (Melchar & Bosco, 2014, p. 85) which could “further expand important knowledge relation to employee empowerment and productivity” (p. 85) in other environments. While this suggestion builds on the limitations of this current study, there is a lack of relation between the study’s topic and the suggested further study.
6. The interpretations are consistent with the study (2/3) – While the conclusions are drawn from the data logically and focuses on the two key hypotheses, further explanation of the findings and concluding themes would have been helpful.
7. The back matter is appropriate for the study report (1/3) – The reference list provided is appropriate, but there is a lack of author notes and appendices. Providing examples of the questions asked in both the interviews and surveys would have benefited the readers’ understanding of the study.

References

Melchar, D. E., & Bosco, S. M. (2010). Achieving High Organization Performance through Servant Leadership. Journal Of Business Inquiry: Research, Education & Application, 9(1), 74-88.

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

This is a review of Rob’s Action Research Project.

Does the project focus on a real problem in practice?

• Yes, the issue Rob’s project addresses is the lack of physical activities in the afternoon for students which results in short attention span and disengaged students.

Does the researcher plan to study his or her own practices or plan to collaborate with community members?

• The researcher plans to use a mixed methods design in the context of his own practice where his students are interviewed and asked to complete a survey, and data is collected from other teachers.

Does the project include careful reflection about the problem?

• Yes, Rob carefully reflects upon the issue and the effects it has on his students’ learning.

Does the researcher plan to gather several sources of information (e.g., qualitative and quantitative procedures)?

• Rob’s mixed methods design involves qualitative data where students are interviewed about their opinions of the right type and amount of daily physical activity is provided, and quantitative data that collects schedules from other teachers to evaluate the amount of physical activity and breaks and types of activities they set for their students. Rob also plans to distribute a survey to students that questions the types of activities students partake in during their recess and lunch breaks.

Does the researcher develop a clear plan for addressing the problem?

• While there are great ideas on how to address the issue, I believe the reasoning of using both a survey and interviews is unclear. Choosing either the interview or survey as the process of collecting data from students is adequate. The data collection process proposed is too complicated.

Does the project include reflecting, thinking, looking, and gathering information and acting?

• The overall project includes reflecting and thinking about the issue, and gathering data. Rob also proposes possible a possible action plan that involves additional scheduled activity breaks in the afternoon.

Will the results of the project enhance the lives of those involved?

• The project is capable of enhancing students’ and teachers’ lives. Education is crucial on an individual and social levels, and providing the right environment where students are engaged and thriving enhance people individually and society as a whole.

I work in a non-profit organization with a team that serves Vancouver’s downtown east side community around the clock throughout the week. Considering the nature of the team, I identified three problems that could be addressed:

1. On-call workers staff care – Our on-call workers require great flexibility as they fill gaps due to predictable circumstances such as leave requests, and unpredictable circumstances such as illness on the team or emergencies with our clients. The flexibility required can mean sacrifice in sleep for overnight shifts, sudden shifts that interrupt their evening plans, working understaffed, or quick turnovers between shifts. I greatly appreciate our on-call team, but it can be difficult to thank them appropriately and meaningfully. Due to their erratic schedules, there are few opportunities to connect with each on-call worker. While pizza parties were held in the past to thank them, we question whether this is the best way to thank them. What is an adequate way of expressing gratitude to an on-call team that have no set schedule?
2. Meetings in a 24/7 team – Whether held in the morning, afternoon, evening, or midnight, any team meetings or activities our team plans will exclude someone. Because someone is always on site working, our team can never fully meet together. This can cause feelings of exclusion, a gap in communication for all team members, and a lack of unity amongst the entire team. Our day team may go weeks without seeing our overnight team. What are the best practices of planning team activities for a 24/7 team?
3. Unmotivated to learn – Some team members have worked in the downtown east side community for over 20 years and have lived in the community for even longer. While still fully capable of serving our guests with the skills they have, there is a lack of motivation to learn new skills to supplement their current ones. Due to their rich personal experience in their field, there is a lack of motivation and desire to acknowledge the training offered is useful. How can leaders motivate well seasoned staff members to take interest in new training?

Link to class questions