Educational Leadership - Research Paper Example

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP PROPOSED RESEARCH STUDY The corresponding article selected is the article by Hallinger and Heck on the topic “Leadership for Learning: Does Collaborative Leadership make a difference in school improvement?” an attempt will be made to reproduce this same research paper by analyzing and modifying where possible, key aspects of the study. The research questions In the first place, it is identified that three key research questions were used by the researchers. The research questions posed by the researchers are given as: 1. “Does Collaborative Leadership Impact School Performance? 2. Does Collaborative Leadership Impact the Improvement of School Performance Over Time? 3. How Do Schools Differ in Their Improvement Over Time and How Are Those Differences Related to Changes in School Leadership and Capacity?” (Hallinger and Heck, 2010). In a proposed research under the same topic used by the researchers, there would be a different approach to the research questions whereby a minimum of four research questions will be used. Studying the questions used by the researchers critivally, it could be noted that the first and second questions are highly related. The third questions is also made up of two different questions. Once this happens, it becomes difficult to develop themes of the research from the research questions (quote). To this end, a new structure of questions that are all independent in answering specific questions about the research problem will be used. By so doing, it will be possible to use the research questions themes for collecting both primary and secondary data. The ideal research questions to be used would be: 1. In what ways has collaborative leadership being used in various educational institutions? 2. What has been the implication of collaborative leadership on the performance of schools in which they are used? 3. What are the challenges associated with the use of collaborative leadership? 4. How can users of collaborative leadership modify their leadership style to get more results? The research purpose According to Hallinger and Heck (2010), the purpose of their research “focuses on understanding whether and how collaborative leadership makes a difference in elementary school improvement and student learning.” This means that much of the focus of the research purpose was on student learning, by which school performance was going to be measured. However, with the idea that each school is made up of a specialized organizational hierarchy with teachers serving directly under the leadership of the school heads, the purpose of the proposed research would focus on the impact of collaborative leadership on teacher’s output of work, though which student performance would be judged. Consequently, the research purpose would focus on how collaborative leadership helps in maximizing the potentials and abilities of teachers to see themselves as part of the leadership system of the school to thrive to play their part in the common achievement of the school’s goals of improving performance. Type of design and elements of the design In their study, Hallinger and Heck (2010) used a longitudinal time-series design, which covered a total of 4 years. Data were also collected from teachers and students on how changes in leadership impacted on school performance. In the proposed study, the modification on the research purpose, there shall be a change to the methodology of the research as well. For example a case study will be used to enable the researcher have a smaller focus group where trend of leadership style and its subsequent impact on school performance can be monitored and measured over a period of time. The sample would also be made up three major groups of people namely school heads, teachers and students. Data will be collected using a mixed method made up of an interview, test and a questionnaire. The questionnaire would be preferred for the teachers, whiles the school heads and students would have interview and test being used on them in respective manner. The data collection procedure would follow a two-tier approach where there shall be a pre-intervention data collection and post-intervention data collection. The pre-intervention data collection would be dedicated to identifying the state of school performance ahead of the introduction of the intervention, which shall be the application of the collaborative leadership, and the post intervention data collection would be aimed at finding out the impact of the intervention on school performance. In relation to the mixed data collection approach, there shall be a mixed data analysis approach where qualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis will be adapted. The strengths & weaknesses of design and methods The major strength of using a mixed research method is that is ensures reliability of the study (quote). This is because a mixed research method with different approaches to collecting data presents its self up for an internal mechanism of reliability to be tested. For example after the introduction of the intervention, because post-intervention data will be collected from three different sources, it will be possible to check results from one source with the other sources to find out how well the results match to prove an internal accuracy. Another strength of the design and method is that it would allow for an action based research where a specified problem will be identified within an immediate setting and an appropriate solution assigned to the problem to bring about change (quote). The strengths notwithstanding, the mixed research method is highly time consuming and manually tedious. As an academic research which is time bound, there may be the tendency of rushing through the collection of data but once this happens the validity of the findings is going to be affected (quote). Threats to validity and how design will address them Quantitatively, the validity of the study will be judged by virtue of how fair the formation of sample size and the subsequent collection of data are (quote). This means that the construction of the sample size must be done devoid of any form of biases, unfairness and preferential treatment of participants. The major threat to validity would thus be on the size of the sample, whereby the researcher may be tempted to select only a few respondents so as to make the data analysis easier. However with a case study such as in the proposed study, it is important that the size of the sample will be highly proportionate to the total number of people within the population. There is also a threat to validity in the sampling technique whereby the researcher must ensure that the sample that is selected can give a fair representation of the state of events in the school before and after the intervention. The design will address the threat to validity by using a random sampling technique on the selection of teachers and students, who would be used in testing the state of event in the school prior to the introduction of the collaborative leadership. With a random sampling technique, the tendency that the researcher is going to select only people who would give responses that will favor or disfavor the researcher’s hypothesis is going to be eliminated (quote). The constructs to measure The measure construct to be measured with the research shall be the performance of the school. It would be admitted that there are several parameters by which the performance of a school may be measured or judged. In order to give an all-round dimension to the study, the researcher is going to combine a couple of these parameters, some of which will be qualitative constructs and other quantitative constructs. Some of the qualitative outcomes of performance to be measured will include the level of cohesion that the introduction of the collaborative leadership will bring between the teachers and the school heads. There shall also be a measurement on the general attitude of teachers towards work such as in terms of punctuality and regularity. Quantitatively, the scores of students in their output of work are going to be measured. Clearly, this is one of the best ways to identify a school that has improved in its administrative affairs (quote). The researcher shall there measure the student performance by using pre-intervention tests and post-intervention tests. Means of ensuring the quality of findings When findings of a piece of research can be judged as being quality, it is said that the research is reliable. As a reliable research, it should be possible to reproduce the research with same or similar parameters such as variables, research questions, and methods and get almost the same results (quote). As part of achieving reliability also, it has already been explained that the researcher must have a means of internally checking that findings are accurate and correct. This is exactly how the researcher is going to ensure that the findings are quality by devising an internal evaluation mechanism. Generally, the use of mixed data collection approach whereby the researcher is going to collect data from the school heads, teachers and students would ensure that the school heads’ results are cross checked with the teachers and the teachers’ findings checked with the students’. Another means to ensure the quality of findings would be by use of a credible data analysis procedure, of which the use of data analysis software is suggested. With software like the SPSS, researcher can be assured that there will be much accuracy with the computations and manipulations of results to produce credible findings. Justification for chosen design & methods for your research question The chosen research design and method is a case study, whereby an identified school with problems with school performance and an absence of collaborative leadership is going to be used. The first justification for the selection of case study is in the type of research the proposed study is, which is an academic study that is time bound. To this end, it is important to select a case study rather than alternatives like survey because a case study would demand that very few people are involved in the population as against a survey where large populations, that may be difficult to closely monitor may be used. In relation to the research questions, which have been divided in themes that gives an overview of the intervention of collaborative leadership, measure of the quantitative effect of collaborative leadership on school performance, challenges with the use of collaborative leadership, and qualitative effect of the collaborative leadership on school performance, the justification of the design is that the researcher will be offered both qualitative research approach to collect qualitative data and quantitative research approach to collect quantitative data. For example the first, third and forth research questions will be answered by use of qualitative approaches such as questionnaire and interview whiles the second question will be answered by using a quantitative approach such as test. Methods of data analysis In the research work by Hallinger and Heck (2010), data analysis was done by using a mixed method made up of two major approaches namely the LCA approach and discriminant analysis. These gave the researchers the opportunity to undertake what was predominantly a quantitative analysis where the use of numeric indexes was common. In the proposed study under the same research problem, the researcher is also going to use a mixed method. The only modification is that one of the approaches will be directed at qualitative analysis whereby the researcher is going to use the hand coding method to decode data to be collected through the interview. There shall then be the use of the quantitative data approach, the researcher shall bring in the use of the SPSS, which is software for analyzing quantities. It is important to note that the SPSS will guarantee reliability in the analysis because the results can easily be crossed checked using empirical mathematical formulas. For the qualitative analysis, the researcher shall ensure validity by backing the analysis with existing literature. How the data will enable to answer research questions and contribute to theory As far as the relationship between the data to be collected and the research questions are concerned, it would be said that the researcher’s major focus with the research questions would be to develop four themes out of the research questions, based on which four themes are going to be constructed towards the collection of data. This means that the research question is going to be a guide for the data collection process so that data is not collected outside the scope of the study. In the long run therefore, the successful collection of data would mean that the researcher has successfully answered all research questions posed because the results or findings are going to serve as the answers to the questions. In terms of contribution to theory, it is envisioned that the data collection would bring out a new theoretical framework on how collaborative leadership can be used as separate or unique leadership style on its own to achieve results of positive school performance. Again, the data would help in distinguishing the collaborative leadership from democratic leadership style by clearly outlining the various aspects and collaborative leadership that makes it unique and different from the others. Read More