Activity 7.3 Quantitative Research Reflection

It was interesting to read about quantitative methods after reviewing qualitative research in the last module.  Quantitative research answers the question of why.  It is more about looking for an explanation on what happened and why it happened.  It is important to understand that at some point in your research you use qualitative research to lead you to quantitative research and vice verse.

Quantitative research is based more on measuring and articulating it numerically by using statistical methods.  There are different variables such as observable and measurable and these will vary depending on the unit of measurement.  The observation stage of the research can be done in many ways such as individual, group, institution, newspaper (or novel), event or activity.

The advantages of using quantitative methods are:

o   Comparison between groups

o   Enabling research on areas that are not directly observable

o   Description of change

o   Explanation of dependencies between social phenomena

The disadvantages of using quantitative methods are:

o   Only being able to measure quantifiable phenomena

o   It simplifies complex reality

o   Descriptions of perspectives are difficult

o   Assumes there is extensive knowledge on subject matter

o   Makes it difficult to study the process, it produces a static view

Using the theory approach offers a good framework for research such as outlining the problem, helping interpret the data, and locating the research for discussion.  By taking samples of the groups you can lower the hazard of error by conducting random sampling.  In this way you can estimated the errors and make overviews with certainty.

There are different methods to obtaining data that include:

o   Survey research (we did this in module 6)

o   Systematic observation

o   Text analysis (newspaper, novels, etc)

o   Statistical data

o   Registered data

It seems that the best approach is to use both methods and decide which one works better for the type of research you are conducting.

Activity 6.3 Qualitative Research

Activity 6.3 Blog Qualitative Research

After reviewing the links for qualitative research I feel I have a better understanding of how it is used and why.  There are many forms of research that can be used such as verbal, tactile, and visual to name a few.  Using different methods can help me get a better result from my research.  This includes different descriptions like field notes, recordings (audio and video), open ended interviews, pictures and film. 

In the selecting process, I want to be sure I am using variations and comparing different types of cases like typical vs. non typical to get a well-rounded result.  By using different research roles and putting myself in these roles as the teacher, student and writer I will be able to use my perspective to gather information from every angle.  

            I feel that the data collection phase is the most important phase.  Keeping a running account what I find, how I feel about what I find and a description of the methods I use will keep me on track and possibly point me in another direction.  In taking notes and being able to make changes to these as I am writing them up will give me the ability to expand on my ideas.  By comparing the different methods used I will be able to see if there is something I may have missed during the process.

5.3 Critical thinking about Critical thinking

Consider your thinking processes when you started the course.  Have they changed at all?  Have you been able to internalize any of the techniques and concepts you have learned?  What will it take to make lasting, positive changes in the way you think?

I have to say yes my thinking has changed quite a bit since I started this course.  Instead of looking at something and maybe just accepting it for what it is I now start to look at it from different angles and ask more questions about it.  I find myself going around the circle more and seeing how I can apply the elements to whatever it is I am doing.  Of course, at the same time I feel kind of lost…maybe I am questioning too much.  Maybe I am reading too deeply into things.  I feel the light bulb go off frequently and at other times I feel the cloud over head because I don’t think I get it. This is when I have to step back and review it and change my point of view and maybe even my assumptions.

I now understand the three parts of critical thinking and that is asking questions, trying to answer those questions with reasoning and then being able to accept my conclusions and believing in them.  This will help me in my work as well as I personal life.

When I am creating my verification manual I am going to use the SEE-I approach as well as the elements to help me make a clear and concise manual that everyone can understand.  As for my personal life where to begin is the question! I have a book called Creative Visualization that I have had for many years.  When I find myself going “off the path” I open this book and read through it again to get back on where I need to be.  I feel this book will also help with that.  I have many pages highlighted and dog-eared on things that stand out for me.

To make this a lasting change and work for me on all levels I will need to be aware of making changes for the better and maybe creating a list for myself using the Personal Brain.  I feel in my heart I am in limbo at times that I have the wanderlust and I need to tap into that and question those feelings.  What is it that I am feeling?  What do I feel is my purpose?  What do I want to get out of this stage in my life?  In school?  In work?  How can I improve on these things and make them work for me?

Many questions and hopefully some answers to go with them.  I look at it this way…I am a work in progress and in the end I will be an amazing masterpiece!

MSLD Activity 4.4 Ballet Slippers or Adorable?

After watching this video I agree with Sheena’s assumptions.  When she talks about the first assumption making your own choices she talks about people having to make their own choices and that you should be true to yourself.  In the example with the kids it is interesting how some of the children were very happy with making their own choices whereas other children were more comfortable with the choice being made for them.   A part of this is cultural and a part of it is how we are brought up. We may have a parent who wants to be needed and may want the child to ask the parent what their choices should be.

For example, I grew up catholic and was never told about any other religions being out there.  My mom had made that choice for me.  The fear of what would happen if I was a “bad” christian scared me too much to think of questioning anything until I turned 19.  I dated someone who believed in a higher power but couldn’t acknowledge whether it was God or not.  I believe this is where I may have actually started my critical thinking!  I had so many questions once the “blinders” came off.   

To apply this to leadership I would say choices are great and we should be able to make them but we shouldn’t be pressured to go it alone on everything we have to decide on.  Having a good leader to guide and support you and your choices will go a long way.  In my current position, there are choices that I have to make myself and I will look at it as, “How will this benefit the student?”   “Would it be better to have someone else look at this to make sure it is the best choice?”  In most instances making the choice alone is easy enough.  It gets harder when it is affecting someone else’s future.  Then you want support from others.

In the second assumption more options lead to better choices really made me think about how “simple” life seemed to us many years ago.  The example she used about the different sodas reminds me of being in a restaurant and the waiter comes over to take my drink order.  “What would you like to drink?”  It is a simple question and yet it causes one to pause and think about it.  How many choices are there really?  If you ask for tea you get, “what kind what you like, unsweetened tea, sweet tea, raspberry tea, peach tea or hot tea?”  Luckily, I only drink water and you think that would be easy enough right?  “Would you like lemon with your water?  Do you want bottled water or regular water?”  Yes it is great to have choices but sometimes it just becomes overwhelming. 

Looking at this from a leadership stand point asking for input and suggestions may seem like the right thing to do in every situation but it can cause more issues and maybe even lead to more choices and that can then lead to frustration.  For example, if you get a group of ten people in one room and then ask them how they would like the training for verifications to be conducted you are going to get ten different answers.  Then you narrow it down to three suggestions and that creates seven or eight suggestions off that.  Perhaps if we start with three choices and have to pick from that we can still be creative and still make a good choice.

Now the third assumption never say no to choice hits home for me in a deep way.  I cried listening to her example because I have been there where those couples were.  In 2006, I was six months pregnant with my second child and we found out that he had trisomy 18 a genetic disorder that affects about 1 in 6000 babies.  Only half of his heart had developed which by itself may have been fixable but with the trisomy 18 it was beyond repair.  The disorder had already begun to attack his small body in many ways and we were told that the chances of Alejandro (we had already named him) surviving to birth were about 11%.  Him actually surviving after he was born was only 3-4%.

We had a few choices here.  First we could wait it out and see what would happen meaning waiting to see if he made it to birth alive.  Second if by some miracle he did make it to birth we would have hospice care already set up for him and he could live out his short life in as much peace as would be possible in his condition.  We were told this could be 2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months.  Third we could decide to do a KCL stick where a doctor would perform a procedure to end it.  The baby would not feel anything and it would be the best for us and for the baby.  I would then have to be induced and give birth to Alejandro. The final decision was ours and ours alone.  How could we make this kind of decision?!  The what ifs started right away.  What if the test was wrong (it wasn’t)?  Why didn’t God make the choice? Was He punishing us? How would we explain what was happening to our daughter?  She was only a year old at the time.  How would this affect her?

It was the hardest choice I ever had to make in my life.  The heart ache and sorrow we experienced making that decision will live with me forever.  But we made the decision out of love and what was best for all of us.  Would I rather have not made the choice myself?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I cannot answer that question now.  Would I be upset if I wasn’t given the choice?  Yes I think I would have been.  As Sheena pointed out in the video, we want to think that everyone would accept our choices we make with open hearts and open minds.  There were some family members who didn’t agree with our choice.  My response was and still is always the same.  It is easy to judge when you are looking at your own healthy children to not understand why or how we could make the decision we made but until one stands in my size 8.5 high heels they have no idea what they would do.   

Life is about choices.  Some will be good others will be bad but I believe what Sheena was trying to get across is that there is hope in being able to have choices even if we don’t or can’t always use it.  When I accepted my management position it was a choice.  I could have said no.  That I would rather just continue on as a counselor but that to me would not be a good choice because there is no room for improvement, no evolving into a better person or understanding different aspects of financial aid. 

When Sheena talked about her experiment with the pink nail polish “ballet slippers” and “adorable” it made me think about how we can be made to think that something is better than it may really be simply because it has “pop” to it.   It seems everything has to be played up to sound better than it is.  It isn’t just a laptop it is an ultra-thin, ultra-light laptop that you can’t live without.  It isn’t enough to work out you have to wear these specialized shoes that do the work out for you.  But at the end of the day it is still pink nail polish.

MSLD Activity 3.4 Explore the Hunt Library

As you explore the Hunt Library, reflect on how you might use the Library as a resource for your studies.

How is the scholarly information you found in the library different from the typical information you find when you Google a leadership concept?

The immediate difference I found using the Hunt library over Google is that I can streamline what it is I am searching for with the library.  For example, when I type in Education in the database search for the library it pulls up six different search engines for me to explore.  I can choose to look for books articles, periodicals, journals, books and full texts.

Google does work well when I want to do a general search or when I am looking for an overall topic.  For example, I can type in organizational leadership in the search bar and it will pull up organizational leadership, organizational leadership jobs, degree, and definition.  Once I pick which one I want I then have to click on each hyper link to see if it is what I am looking for.  It can vary from a question that is being answered about my request to an advertisement for a college or university.

With the library search I can read an abstract of the article, get a citation for the article, get references and even get full texts on most articles.  The other great thing about using the Hunt library is that I can email the article to myself, print it, export it save it to my searches and cite here as well.

Both search engines have their advantages and disadvantages but for me I would choose the library over Google for my research especially if I am doing extensive research.  

MSLD Activity 2.3_Blog tell Your Story

 What are some standards that are most important in your life?  How did you acquire these standards?  How have they changed over the years?

When I ask myself this question of what standards are important in my life I must say that it is being a good parent to my daughter and teaching her well.  No one wants to be a bad parent and I don’t think any of us set out that way.  But for some it ends up going south with no hope for turning it around.  Growing up I said that I would never want to be like my mom.  I would be different; better, nicer, let my kids do whatever they wanted.

Well now that I am a (single) parent I understand things a lot better and I can stand back and look at things from a different perspective.  I grew up with a single parent.  My mom worked two jobs most of my young life.  I had to learn to be responsible at a young age.  That meant taking care of my sister and brother, learning to do the laundry, getting groceries and even driving at 14.  I rarely got to spend the night at my friend’s house because I needed to be home so my mom didn't have to hire a babysitter because we couldn’t afford it.  When I was able to get a job my whole paycheck went to my mom so I could help her out.

My mom wasn’t a bad parent because of this if anything we learned to entertain ourselves, we were more creative and we never complained about things we didn't have because we didn’t know what we were missing.  What my mom didn't do was to communicate with us especially me.  I was the oldest therefore I had the most responsibility.  My adopted father left when we were very young so I don’t remember much about him other than him throwing a knife at the windshield of our car when my mother left him or the time we watched him shoot our family cat because she scared me one night.  When my step father left I was 12 years old.  I always thought it was because we weren’t good or didn’t listen as well as we should have.  She never sat down and really talked to us about these kinds of things or anything really.  Not about drugs, sex, self-respect, love or trust.  It just wasn’t how it was done.

There was no open communication.  When my mom said something and I questioned her as to why I couldn’t do it I was told “because I said so”.  Those were the four most hated words in my vocabulary for many years!  Now as a parent I have found those same four words on the tip of my own tongue.  What a shock the first time it almost slipped out.  How could I even think of saying those words?! 

I always said I would be honest with my daughter unless I knew by being honest it would be very hurtful.  It is this very thing I didn’t have growing up.  I ask questions of my daughter when I see she is thinking and processing something inside her mind that I know will create a question.  There are some things that are outside her area of understanding but knowing that I am ready (at least as ready as I think I am) when the time comes to answer even the hard questions makes me happy.

Watching my mother struggle every day and see how overwhelmed she was and how beat down she seemed helped me want to do better.  I watched the things she went through and knew that I would do better because I would not let myself go through those same struggles.  I set my standards at a young age though I was naïve about it I knew the only way to be better was to not repeat her mistakes.  Of course we can’t always control everything that happens in our lives but we can always change it for the better.  One of mine was being the first person in my family to get a college degree.

One of the biggest things I acquired from my mother that she would be surprised to know is that I got my inner strength from her.  She could have given up many times but she didn’t.  She pushed through it all and kept going to better our lives.  It is those times that helped me get through the bad times in my life when I lost my baby or had to put my dog down or when I went through my divorce.  It was her strength and the power of love that my daughter gave me that kept me going those three years.

As an adult some of my standards have changed for the better of course. I know that there are certain things I cannot control.  But if I can arm my child with knowledge and the know how I have already done my job and kept my standards at a level they need to be at.  She knows about self-respect and that she can ask me or tell me anything without fear of getting into big trouble.  She is learning that there are consequences for her actions and that not all of them are good. 

She too has had to go through some tough things at an early age I wish she didn’t have to and seeing my struggles with things that are beyond my control.  What she does see come out of that is a stronger person.  She will see that bad things will happen but that there is always going to be brighter side to things no matter how bad they may seem to be at the time.  She is already wise beyond her years!  

Activity 1.6 Intellectual Perseverance

Reflect upon how intellectual perseverance will be important as you progress in your studies.  Consider how intellectual perseverance relates to your concept of a good leader.

Intellectual perseverance is being able to use rational insights and truths even though there will be difficulties and frustrations along the way and knowing that you will struggle with mistakes and questions along the path to a better (deeper) understanding and insight.

Honestly I didn’t realize that this was the name for the things I deal with on a daily basis.  I had to really think about this and understand intellectual perseverance as it relates to me.  Being honest with myself is the most important task in realizing that it will not be easy each and every day as I progress throughout my coursework.  I know that I can’t give up when it becomes difficult or I become overwhelmed with school work.  When things get tough it is important to step back and look at the situation from all angles to see the best way to approach the problem that may not seem to be the most logical at first glance.  Here is where it is good to apply the zoom in/zoom out concept.

I am a single parent who works full time, is a full time mom and takes master level classes.  I know that I cannot use this as an excuse to not succeed.  In fact, it should be more of a motivation for me to really push through the struggles I will face.  There are many single moms out there who aren’t as lucky as I am to have a great paying job and support of my family to help me out. 

When I find myself getting frustrated or hear others tell me that I don’t need this degree I know in my heart that I must prove to myself and no one else that I can do this.  A part of me is afraid of success as I was always told that I would never amount to anything because I wasn’t teachable or smart enough when I was growing up.  Well I can say with confidence now that I love to prove people wrong especially when I am told that I CAN’T do something.  It pushes me to do it even more.  In other words, I will struggle and I may even fail at staying on top of my school work at times and want to give up but that is part of what is going to help me succeed.  It will give me a deeper insight on who I am as a person, a mom, a friend and even a great leader.

For example, I am learning to have more patience as this will help with dealing with difficult situations as a leader.  There will be many different personalities and knowing how to approach each person in a way that actually brings out the best in each person individually and as well as a group will make us more successful as a whole. Taking my directors approach of listening and understanding what the issue is before trying to address it or make suggestions is an important part of being a good leader. 

Another example would be to deal with the frustrations and difficulties that come with being a good leader by balancing my values and maintaining a positive attitude throughout each day.  There will be some sort of resistance from time to time either from within my core group or other departments who may have no basis for their hostility other than jealousy (it happens now in my department with others being jealous of us) and knowing how to deal with it in a professional manner will make a big difference.

It’s like making a mental checklist inside my head of things I want to achieve each and every day.  The goal is to try not to overwhelm myself but to challenge myself to reach a deeper understanding of who I am in all aspects of my life both personally and professionally.   Knowing that I will fail at times will help me to succeed and make me a better leader in the process.