RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

(MPPU1024)

Article Review

by

UMAH DEVI M CHANDAR

MPP141099

LECTURER’S NAME : DR. HADIJAH JAFFRI

ARTICLE 1 : Improving leadership in higher education instituitions: a distributed

perspective.

Overview

Scientific study of leadership provides an important complementary understanding of the

subtleties of leadership in real organisational settings. Leadership is a vertical process which

separates leaders from followers as mutually exclusive categories (Pearce and Conger 2003,

p. 1; Rost 1993, p. 70; Yukl 2002, p. 2). Distributed leadership is seen as an important form of

leadership which can act as a complement rather than a substitute to traditional vertical

leadership (Pearce 2004).Besides that, empirical work on distributed leadership so far has

adopted taken for granted traditional notions of vertical leadership and taken these as the basis

for understanding leadership from a distributed perspective. Examples of such studies looked

at traditional notions of leadership behaviours and studied to what extent such behaviours

were shared amongst different individuals (i.e., Ensley et al. 2006; Feyerherm 1994).This

article aims is to gain understanding on how distributed patterns of leadership manifest

themselves in project teams within a Higher Education institution. and to understand whether

successful project work is characterised by stronger levels of leadership distribution.

Methodology description

The article reports on a qualitative study to explore how how distributed patterns of leadership

manifest themselves in project teams within a Higher Education institution which the authors

emphasis on both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of distributed leadership, thus providing an

account of the nature of distributed leadership in higher education and the factors which were

found to enhance and inhibit its occurrence and effectiveness. The participants on this study

were identified using purposive sampling and by referral sampling methods. The authors

conducted the study at UK based university.Moreover, five individuals from a range of

different positions were selected and approached for participation in the research project. The

study consists of university’s staff roughly 80% administrative employees and of about 20%

academics. About 60% male and 40% female is composed of middle and senior management.

The all five individuals had an organizational tenure of at least 2 years and had been involved

in a range of projects. They were asked individually to name five other individuals who could

provide additional insights in the identified cases but As it proved to be difficult for most of

the initial individuals to name five additional individuals, a total of 20 (3–4–4–4–5) additional

participants were interviewed.

For data collection the authors used a separate session in which they were asked to

describe two projects they had been involved in; one project they regarded as successful, and

one project they regarded as unsuccessful. Furthermore, authors constructed causal maps

together with the individual for both the successful and the unsuccessful projects where they

more focused on the factors which caused the projects to be successful or unsuccessful. At the

end of these sessions five more additional people were interviewed using a semi-structured

interview technique to provide more data on the leadership of these projects where 20

additional participants were interviewed, making 25 in total.

Furthermore, the authors analyse the data by audio recording and verbatim transcribing the all

causal mapping sessions .A software program ‘Decision Explorer’ was used to analyze causal

maps. Nvivo7, a computer based program for qualitative data analysis is used export the

transcripts of both the causal mapping sessions and the interviews. The transcripts are the

main source of data analysia and coded on the basic of factors perceived as influencing

distributed leadership. Besides that, to identify recurrent themes, content analysis was used

and the factors were then discussed to reach consensual inter-subjectivity.According to

Smaling 1992, consensual inter-subjectivity is the consensus that is reached between

researchers on the interpretation of data, and is regarded as a main tool in qualitative research

to measure reliability. Using the percentage agreement method, 87% was found on the basis

of a randomly chosen transcript an interrater reliability.

Evaluation

In this article, both the organizational level and team level are sharing a common

point. Author view that as to distributed leadership, it complements each other in the

knowledge, skills, or is created by bringing together the expertise focuses on multiple

leadership structures. However, to be the feeling of being part of a larger and more powerful

structure it can be said that common point for these leadership models. Moreover,the

conceptually sharing with the integration concrete structures such as cooperation and work

together were included when the organization and team includes a share for the Higher

Education Instituitions, distributed leadership. The anlysis and data collection are appropriate

from the research questions.Besides that, the study’s conclusions are also acceptable from the

analysis and data collection.However, in this study there is no ethical concern but the authors

have made one important point where they are not really concerned on value of leadership in

both organizational and team structure. As per today’s educational management practices, the

antagonists questioned about the effects of the positivist paradigm(Turan 2004; Turan &

Şişman 2004) and this questioning has also been made for the paradigm of one person

leadership. (Goleman, 2002; Harris, 2004).This situation brings together on a common basis

distributed leadership behaviors and value-based leadership behaviors of instructors in

leadership practices. I felt that the results could have been more conclusive, if the authors take

initiative to studied deeply about value-based leadership together with distributed leadership

in Higher Educations Institutions.

A discussion of implications

In this article the data shows different team members were responsible for conducting

activities which is related to the wider organizational context, either because of their

particular informal networks or because of their specific expertise.From this it makes the

researcher understand the boundary of management as a means to integrate certain vital

expertise not available within the team, as well as its role as a mechanism for ensuring

continuous alignment between a team and the wider organizational context.Moreover, the

researcher strongly believe that such boundaries are essentially fluid, and can be extended or

limited depending on the present needs of the team or organization.In addition, from the

findings the authors suggest that the network of participation in leadership is essentially a

boundary judgment which needs to be made based on the context of the situation.

As a conclusion,I strogly agrees that the principles of distributed leadership show

promise in overcoming some of these tensions and with the pressures of adapting to ever

increasing rates of environmental change it helps the Higher Education institutions to deal

more effectively.

ARTICLE 2 : From Image to Text: Using Images in the Writing Process

Overview

The Article entitled From Image to Text: Using Images in the Writing Process written by

Nancy Andrzejczak, Guy Trainin and Monique Poldberg is emphasizing the importance of

images in integrating student’s creativity and knowledge in writing. Furthermore, the main

consideration of this study is on how to observe the connectivity of student’s experiences with

the development of cognitive skills, literature and creativity in learning Visual Arts. There are

various suggestions proposed by the author to help the readers understand more about the

importance of structuring the guidelines for teachers to direct appropriate modes of aesthetic

ways in creating artworks among students. The authors tells us how the visual art can help

students in the writing process and the appropriate curriculum planning and suggestions for

teachers were informed in this article. They are strongly believed that this subject can help to

enhance the student’s creativity in the writing process. It helps them to elaborate, generate

ideas and develop language. There is a lot of benefit of this method, which may help students

to understand the narrative even much better and help them in to be more imaginative in the

writing process. The images shown in the artwork provide a lot of information and visual

understanding for student for them in order to elaborate, generated descriptions, and choose

the right words in their writing. As a result, their writing tends to be more interesting and

meaningful from their previous writing. They also believes that,the skills developed while

observing and reasoning about art transferred to students’ scientific observation skills and also

their appreciation in art.

Methodology description

In this research, the method they used is the qualitative – grounded theory. These methods

investigate among students, teachers and parents who entangled a few of observation and

analysis on the artifact. It is clearly shown that, in this method, the artworks strongly help in

the writing process. Grounded theory is a specific methodology developed by Glaser and

Strauss (1967) for the purpose of building theory from data. In their book,the term grounded

theory is used in the sense to denote theoretical constructs derived form qualitative analysis

of data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Grounded theory is a method which comprehends the Data

Collecting process, Note Taking, Memoing, and Sorting and writing. In this method, it’s

covers the observation, conversation and interview. There are 4 phases in grounded theory :

• Phase 1 – Data Collecting -Data collected through observation, conversation and

interview.

• Phase 2 – Note Taking -Data collection you note down the key issues: “note-taking".

• Phase 3 – Coding -As you code, certain theoretical propositions will occur to you. As

the data collection and coding precede the codes.

• Phase 4 – Memoing -You group your memos, like with like, and sequence them in

whatever order will make your theory clearest.

• Phase 5 & 6 – Sorting & Writing -The order of your sorted memos provides you

with the skeleton, and many of the words, of your thesis.

In this research, two students were participated; they were Jeremy, a seven-year old boy, and

Wendy an eight-year old girl. The data collected through observation and interviews in their

class. Their progress and cognitive development were being observed during initial

instruction, painting, oral discussion of the paintings, and during the writing process.

Evaluation

The Picturing – Writing Process

According to the research From Image to Text: Using Images in the Writing Process Written

by Nancy Andrzejczak, Guy Trainin and Monique Poldberg, the instructional context was

given to the students in The Picturing-Writing process. In this study, they were given two

discrete units, Weather Poetry and Time of Day. In both units, students were given instruction

in creating artwork using two different materials; crayon resist and watercolor. In this part,

students mostly interacted with thematic literature selected based on the text and images. The

artworks offered them a lot of interaction and give them ideas for their writing. On the final

stage, both artworks and writing components were used as a writing scaffold. The final

product by the students were contained a multi-page book – including visual art and text

(poetry, narrative, or expository. They intend to create and expand more ideas and develop

their creativity in this process, which help them a lot in their writing process, and creating

magnificent visual artwork as well.

Discussion on implementation.

As a conclusion, I personally will recommend this kind of method to be implemented in

school, especially primary school in integrating student’s creativity and understanding. This

method stand on its best in order to create a good understanding in visualizing art and writing.

Playing with colors, words, shape, form and line, will drive them to something new and

challenging. They will explore more, imaginative and dare to try something new. Their

understanding of shapes will enhance, their taste of color and composition will enhance and

their quality of writing; the words and structure will be more interesting. It is shown in the

research, that both of the students played really well with both of the items; arts and literature.

This method tends to urge students to explore the dynamic relationship between art and

writing, both of them; the language of pictures and the language of words. These will replete

the powerful stories of students, the uniqueness structure of language and the colorful pictures

and imagination.

References

1. Benjamin S. Bloom. (1988) Taksonomi Objektif Pendidikan. Shah Alam, Selangor.

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

2. Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Klein, C., Goodwin, G. F., Salas, E., & Halpin, M. (2006).

What type of leadership behaviors are functional in teams? A meta-analysis. The

Leadership Quarterly, 17, 288– 307. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.02.007.

3. Day, D. V., Gronn, P., & Salas, E. (2004). Leadership capacity in teams. The

Leadership Quarterly, 15, 857– 880. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2004.09.001.

4. Charles D. Spielberger. (1979).Cognitive and Affective Learning Strategies. Virginia .

Academic Press.

5. Pearce, C. L. (2004). The future of leadership: Combining vertical and shared

leadership to transform knowledge work. Academy of Management Executive, 19,

47–57