Critique Scholar Practitioners

Introduction

This paper provides a detailed understanding of the employability of research methods. In this regard, the research methodologies used by scholar-practitioners in two research articles will be critiqued, and as such, significant responses will be provided, which identifies the best practices in research. The two research articles to be critiqued will be peer-reviewed journals, which are critical to a particular area of dissertation research, which address a particular phenomenon and also attempts to contribute to theory about it. As such, this paper is divided into two parts, as provided below:

The research problem

In investigating coaches’ leadership styles, this study focuses on the personalities, behaviours, as well as other related variables that can aid in understanding and defining leadership. A multi-dimensional model is used in defining leadership and within this specific model, Jamber & Zhang (1997) illustrated three leadership states (actual, required, and preferred), which were connected to the performance of a group, as well as member satisfaction. This leadership model then aids in investigating the research problem, which is the multi-dimensional aspects of leadership that included the environment (competitive level, as well as the setting), the members, as well as their characteristics, as well as the leader’s personal characteristics, including age, gender, and also the psychological characteristics. Overall, this research tried to investigate various leadership issues.

Research hypotheses

Two hypotheses were submitted and they include the following: Coaches (both male and female) would have different responses to the Revised Leadership for Sports Scale (RLSS) when assessing leadership behaviour. The RLSS differences would occur in different coaching levels including, junior high, college, as well as high school.

The research purpose

This study purposed to determine the differences in various leadership behaviours when using the RLSS in different gender coaches (male and female) and amongst different levels of coaching.

Type of design and elements of the design

This study used a non-random sampling, whereby, 162 coaches were selected, based on a volunteer basis. Amongst this number, 118 were male, whereas 44 were female. Based on the coaching level, junior high coaches were 25, high school coaches were 99 and the college level coaches were 38. It is evident that the sample distribution created a problem, owing to the fact that a larger sample in all the categories would have aided in analysis. The junior level coaches’ sample was particularly small.

RLSS instrument was utilised in measuring six leadership behaviours including training and instruction, democratic, autocratic, positive feedback, social support, as well as situational consideration (Attride-Stirling, 2001). The scale utilises 60 statements, and a Likert scale was used for each statement where 1 was equivalent to never, 2 equivalent to seldom, 3 equivalent to occasionally, 4 equivalent to often and 5 equivalent to always. This aided in producing an ordinary data set (Temple & Young, 2004). These scales were provided in different environmental settings, including classrooms, practice, offices, fields, as well as in gymnasiums.

A MANOVA tool was also utilised in analysing data, in order to determine the differences in coaches (male and female), and based on leadership behaviours (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). However, it was not consistent with the data types that were collected. MANOVA tool also aided in examining the differences in the three levels of coaching based on leadership behaviour. In addition, the tool was also used in analysing data for any form of interaction between the different levels of coaching and gender, based on leadership behaviour (Bryman, 2006).

The findings and implications

There was no information explaining the RLSS validity. Findings indicated that there lacked significant differences between the coaches (male and female), based on leadership behaviour. The six styles of leadership were examined and a significant difference was noted only in social support between male coaches and female coaches. It was also noted that female coaches scored higher than male coaches. A significant difference between the levels of coaching was also noted; whereby high school coaches had a high score as compared to college coaches whilst considering the democratic behaviour. On the other hand, the junior high coaches had lower scores in terms of training and instruction, when they were compared to either of the other two levels of coaches. Moreover, the junior high coaches have a less degree when considering social support than the other levels of coaches.

The establishment of CSR in Multi-national companies has been noted to be very significant concept to consider whilst conducting corporate activities. However, CSR commitment in China is noted to be very low, thereby, making consumers to become less willing to conduct business with MNCs. It is also evident that there are few studies focusing on CSR problems, in the China market or Chinese Consumer response.

Research questions

Which are the major factors influencing the Chinese Consumer response? How do these major factors influence the response of consumers?

This research purposes to explain how consumers are responding to CSR in China, and expounding on the factors influencing Chinese customer response.

In developing and testing the hypotheses, a connection between qualitative and quantitative research was used (A mixed-method approach) (Krauss, 2005). In the qualitative research, 8 people were interviewed on CSR, based on random selection, without ascertaining whether they had knowledge of CSR (Berk, 1983). Each interview lasted at most one and half-hours for answering ten questions. This creates a problem, as a specific selection ought to have been done on individuals who were well conversant with CSR.

Based on quantitative research, a snowball sampling strategy was used in the selection of respondents, which provided the respondents with the opportunity to invite more people for the exercise, and an online survey was then conducted for one week. The sampling for this study involved customers purchasing products in the China market. They are also people having conversant knowledge on CSR and also have knowledge of IKEA brand. All the questions in the questionnaire utilised the seven-Likert scales, in which case, 1 was equivalent to strongly disagree, whilst 7 was equivalent to strongly agree. For data analysis, an SPSS statistical software was utilised (Flick, 2018).

The largest respondents group consisted of individuals between 31-40 years of age. In a total of 195 samples, 74 were males, whereas 121 were females. 33.33% of the respondents earn about 10,000 to 20,000 and as such, they cared about CSR and have purchase intentions. Based on education level, 46.15% of the participants had a master degree, and 37.95% had a bachelor degree. 11.79% had a college education, whilst 3.59% had a higher degree. This indicates that most individuals were highly educated and as such, cared about CSR, as they have a higher purchase intention. The trust of CSR, as well as its awareness, provides a significant influence on the Chinese consumer response. On the other hand, perceived CSR poses a significant influence on the Chinese consumer response towards corporate evaluation, although not to purchase intention. Additionally, the presented data failed to reveal a connection between the demographics of the consumers and their response to CSR.

Significantly, this study’s ecological generalisability is high, as the surveys have been provided and also returned, based on a volunteer basis. Nevertheless, because of non-random sampling, the results were not generalisable past 162 participants. No effect size was listed in the research. In a bid to reducing the internal validity threats, the participants were urged to respond sincerely, and as such, they were assured of confidentiality, for them to feel ease in responding. Jamber & Zhang (1997) mentioned that they used scales in various settings. This could not pose a threat on internal validity, as the participants may not entirely focus on completing the given scale, but rather, they could focus on coordinating the practice, and also completing the paperwork (Brannen, 2017).

Various factors could affect the internal validity of this research, but the researchers do not address them. A cross-section method could have aided the method in terms of gender and experience of coaching for various sports (Drost, 2011). Overall, whilst this study is considered to have merit, the methods that are used can be re-evaluated, and of importance, is the opinion that the power of the research can be increased through obtaining a large sample size. Moreover, there is a need to address the internal validity threats, where they should be minimised where possible. Additionally, it would be of importance to provide data on the RLSS validity, owing to the fact that without these, it becomes impossible in evaluating the study’s meaningfulness (Kimberlin & Winterstein, 2008).

Based on the qualitative research, it is evident that this research, the random selection of 8 people for the interview on CSR without ascertaining whether they had knowledge on CSR is not appropriate, as the study could not be able to fulfil its objective. However, owing to the fact that it was a random selection, bias in sampling was controlled (Berk & Ray, 1982; cited in Leung, 2015). An SPSS software was used, in order to examine the study’s scales and their reliability scales, and it was noted that the values were positive, and also greater than 0.3, thus implying that they correlated well with the scores (Newman & Benz, 1998). All the Cronbach alpha values were noted to be above 0.8, thus indicating that all the items used in this study had good internal reliability, as well as an efficient internal reliability when considering the measurement items (Lindlof & Taylor, 2017).

Based on the quantitative research, owing to the fact that a snowball sampling strategy was used in the selection of respondents, there was no need for IRB intervention in the process of data collection (Blaikie, 2003; cited in Smith, 2015). Moreover, there was no ethical concern regarding the study, based on the opinion that data as randomly selected and it was anonymous in nature. Overall, this study is also considered to have merit, and its meaningfulness can be noted. However, the sampling strategy can be re-evaluated, especially in the qualitative research, where only individuals who have conversant knowledge on CSR ought to have been used in the research (Elo et al., 2014). Moreover, there needed to be an explanation of the ethical concerns in the study, which could aid in preventing any potential internal validity threat (Taylor et al., 2015).

Conclusion

Overall, it can be noted that this paper has provided a detailed understanding of research methods in two research studies the study of Jamber & Zhang (1997), and the study of Tian et al. (2011), which were critiques. As such, it can be deduced that the study of Jamber & Zhang (1997) is considered to have merit. However, the methods that are used can be re-evaluated, and of importance, is the opinion that the power of the research can be increased through obtaining a large sample size. Moreover, there is a need to address the internal validity threats, where they should be minimised where possible. Additionally, it would be of importance to provide data on the RLSS validity to provide the meaningfulness of the study. On the other hand, considering the study of Tian et al. (2011), it is also considered to have merit, and its meaningfulness can be noted. However, the sampling strategy can be re-evaluated, especially in the qualitative research, where only individuals who have conversant knowledge on CSR ought to have been used in the research. Moreover, there needed to be an explanation of the ethical concerns in the study, which could aid in preventing any potential internal validity threat.

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References

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