Areas of Interest
I am interested in two primary areas. These are educational leadership and organizational development. Educational leadership refers to the process of not only enlisting but also guiding the energies and talents of teachers, students, and parents towards accomplishing mutual educational aims. According to Mulford, Mulford, Silins, and Leithwood (2005), the modern-day educational leadership is increasingly encompassing large-scale, global, technological, cultural, economic, and political forces for change. Therefore, as Carr and Fulmer (2004) show, educational leadership is a matter of knowing the way, showing the way, and heading the way. I have a long-standing aspiration to transform how things are done in the educational sphere, hence improve the quality of education, not mentioning the education system itself. I am interested in ensuring academic success through the material, process, and training improvements. I believe that it is only through a holistic study on educational leadership that I am going to fulfill my dream.
Organizational development refers to the process of assisting firms to enhance their performance through a change in power, polices, leadership, job redesign, and control. Central to organizational development is improving efficiency, along with effectiveness within the entity. Thus, as purported by Jones and Brazzel (2012), organizational development is all about delivering meaningful as well as the sustainable transition in firms. Several outcomes trigger my interest in this area. However, the most critical is the downfall of “giant” organizations witnessed over the years. Such included Enron, Compaq, General Atlantic & Pacific Tea, and Circuit City. I am well aware that these failures have far and wide-reaching effects, for example, disrupting people’s cultures and economic well-being. The majority of these companies fell because of a lack of proper information about organizational development. Therefore, I am interested in performing all-rounded research on this area to promote organizational sustainability across all business levels from small to medium and large enterprises.
Assignment two: How do you see the world
I see the world from a social constructivist worldview. Hence, I assume that people often seek an understanding of the world around them in which they work and live. I also believe that individuals often come up with subjective meanings of their encounters. These meanings are multiple and varied, hence the need for a researcher to assess for the complexity of views as opposed to narrowing meanings into just a few ideas or categories. Also, part of my belief is that research relies on the views of the participants concerning a situation as much as possible.
I prefer reading qualitative research. The key reason for this is that it allows me to gain a more holistic understanding of the underlying opinions, reasons, and motivations. I also prefer reading this kind of research because it offers me insights into a critical problem. At the same time, with this research, I can come up with hypotheses or ideas for quantitative inquiries. Indeed, the way a person views and the world usually propel his or her natural tendencies to seek confirmation of the prevailing belief. According to Tryon (2014), one’s worldview motivates a person to allow their subsequent information to confirm their first impression. Giving an example of the underlying relationship, Fiedler (2012) claims that a teacher with the worldview that girls are superior in language relative to boys will most likely engage in positive testing processes to confirm his or her belief.
Luckily, critical thinkers can work to counteract such tendencies. Fundamentally, a critical thinker should understand that his or her worldview is not the “be-all” and “end-all.” Therefore, he or she has to suspend their beliefs whenever they are challenged and adopt a more objective view. Besides, a critical thinker should be open to evidence regardless of whether it is in line with their beliefs, feelings, or intuitions or not. I have an interest in executing a scientific inquiry on organizational development. I hold a potential bias that middle-level managers, such as supervisors have little or no knowledge about sustainable change. I would need to address this bias for me to engage in meaningful organizational development inquiry.