Critique A Research Article
Darvesh Karim
Assistant Instructor
Professional Development Center, North
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I especially wish to acknowledge the contributions of the following people who have helped me to bring this small critique paper to completion. All these directly or indirectly were involved for the articulation of this short paper.
I feel very much proud to learn the basics of qualitative method of research from a well experienced facilitator Madam Nelofar Vazir, who inspired me to examine the articles as a critical thinker and learn the new and exciting ways of leadership, management and specifically the research work. She very generously offered insightful and guidance to all of us to climb-up the first step of the ladder in the field and remove the fear of being wrong.
I have been privileged to work with many dynamic, adaptive and creative colleagues of my group in Research Method I class, who represent the essential qualities of effective leadership and researchers. I really appreciate their kindness and knowledge sharing attitude.
Throughout the development and writing of this paper, I have been fortunate to have the support and assistance of two of my colleagues as well as the roommates; Sharifullah Baig and Sultan Alam who provided practical examples, and suggestions. I am very grateful for their willingness to help, their tolerance and patience while my working in hostel even during their rest timing.
I would also like to express my appreciation to the ideal and world class environment and facilities provided at IED to open new horizons of knowledge and the entire concern faculty who never discouraged us to visit them even without a formal appointment.
CRITIQUE A RESEARCH ARTICLE
INTRODUCTION
The article, Arrowsmith, T[1]. (2007). Distributed leadership in secondary schools in England: the impact on the role of the headteacher and other issues. Management in Education. 21(2). 21-27. purposefully tries to raise two questions and investigates that lead to secondary school principals and some senior staff to identify the impact of Distributed Leadership. The main questions raised by the researcher are; ‘what do headteachers do to develop/sustain Distributed Leadership’ and secondly ‘what is the impact of Distributed Leadership on the role of the headteacher’? Author describes different perspectives about Distributed Leadership in the introductory phase of article, and then describes his research methodology and then outcomes, but keeps this paper open ended without conclusion.
METHODOLOGY
The researcher’s approach involves working with six English secondary schools of contrasting characteristics. The tools and methodology used for this research were; a case study by adopting ethnographic methodology. It was included semi-structured interviews and seeking evidences[2], while the samples taken for each school were five staff including the headteacher, a member of the senior management, a subject team leader, a ‘pastoral’[3] team leader and a teacher.
FINDINGS
According to the author the finding for the first question that how distributed leadership is developed in school was the head teacher’s action encouraging distributed leadership by effective communication across the school, support to individuals, occasional encouraging words and developing trust. These factors were identified by the samples that help distributed leadership to spread over in school. According to Arrowsmith (2007) all the staff members were in favor of Distributed Leadership as it made them valued by ‘giving’ them the opportunity to share leadership and power.
Another finding regarding the impact[4] was much clearer that because of ‘delegation’ of work to other staff the headteachers were having much free time to work on public relations, strategic planning and whole-school planning, effective feedback and for better communication. Principals further cleared that they can now focus more on developing distributed leadership, but on the other hand they were not in favor to take risk by distributing the responsibility, where there is fear of accountability.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
As an experienced researcher Arrowsmith has very artistically furnished his paper and at this stage of my research work writing a critique for the first time, I would definitely not be in a position to identify exactly the genuine strengths and weakness of this article where there has been deliberately kept the conclusion open ended. But initially I would urge that outcomes or the findings are based on a small-scale research study and we therefore can not generalize it to all as the contexts matters place to place. Further more I would like to highlight following two aspects which seems little bit confusing. But before going on my reservations I must mention that the theme discussed in the article could be presented in a simple way but I certainly agree with Hart (2003) who articulates this manner as “some authors seem to neglect the needs of their potential readers and manage to make relatively simple ideas confusing” (p.10).
Understanding and Assumptions about Distributed Leadership
Firstly; the concept or understanding of Distributed Leadership as contrast to the author’s understanding, which I have perceived from some literature, that school leadership field is particularly at risk to new leadership terms that are provisionally popular, only to be quickly supplemented with more fashionable ideas or theories. The field is full-up with different labels for leadership, even though it is clear that leadership does not take on a different meaning simply because a new word is put in front of it. Harris (2007) describes that, “distributed leadership has resulted in conceptual ambiguity” (p.315). Further more, distributed leadership without question, is the latest fashionable idea to capture the imagination of those in the educational leadership field (Harris 2007). Distributed Leadership has been used as a synonym for some terms[5]. It is just an idea so conceptually vast that it is difficult to separate what does and doesn’t constitute distributed leadership (Gronn 2003). I therefore, in light of this discussion, a bit confused as the author has done the research on distributed leadership while taking the theoretical concepts and assumptions in mind. But in my opinion there is no any fixed structure of leadership to adopt as our views cannot remain consistent and it changes context to context. Thus it is essential to challenge the ideas and look at all perspectives and should welcome all the practices and leadership themes keeping the situation and context in mind, not distributed leadership ONLY.
Distributed Leadership as ‘given’ Responsibilities
My second concern also strengthens further by above discussion to reinforce the essential need of Distributed Leadership as ‘taken’ not ‘given’ and this statement also proves that actual distribution leadership is ‘taken’ leadership. The findings of this paper are that headteachers were willing to delegate the responsibilities (to lessen their own burden) to other staff members even they are not willing to accept but because the principal has ‘delegated’ or ‘imposed’ this responsibility, so they have to undertake without any reward or remuneration. I myself observed a principal who was fully in favor of distributed leadership and was distributing his every task to the subordinate staff, and he remains totally free but having the heavy remuneration and the rest of his staff who actually working were frustrated of his behavior. Headteachers are getting very much relax time in this form of leadership by involving others, but doing nothing him/herself except delegating his/her own responsibilities. Perfectly for this behavior Gronn (2003) describes ‘greedy work’. We never thought of this question while planting distributed leadership in school that ‘what difference does distributed leadership makes to schools and students’ other than reducing the headteachers’ burden and involving other teachers, then so what?
CONCLUSION
It has already been mentioned that this paper doesn’t have a conclusion and kept open ended but to conclude, it is the reality that the workload of HT has been increased and his/her role is becoming unsustainable and distinctly unattractive and this situation needs to be efficiently adjusted to over come the concern, keeping the environment and context in mind, distributed leadership can be a remedy but not the perfect solution.
Challenges Faced
Initially choosing an appropriate article became a challenge for me, as soon after the announcement of assignment I had chosen an article published in 2001, but again we were instructed to choose one published only in 2007.
Finally; I faced a minor problem which was the articulation of this paper by limiting myself around 1000 words. Initially the critique I wrote was consisting of 1500 words.
REFERENCES
Arrowsmith, T. (2007). Distributed leadership in secondary schools in England: the impact on the role of the head teacher and other issue. Management in Education. 21(2), 21-27.
Gronn, P. (2003). The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform. London. Paul Chapman.
Harris, A. (2007). Distributed leadership: conceptual confusion and empirical reticence. International Journal of Leadership in Education. 10(3), 315-325
Hart, C. (2003). The literature review in research. Doing a Literature Review. London: Sage Publications.
[1] This paper was initially presented at a conference held at Aston University, Birmingham in 2006.
[2] Observation of key meetings in school and study of relevant documents was also carried out for authentication
[3] Religious teaching team member
[4] impact of distributed leadership on the role of headteacher
[5] ‘shared’, ‘collaborative’, ‘facilitative and participative’ ‘democratic’ etc.
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