Methodology
I used a qualitative case study model (Yin, 2003) to explore the reflective blog
contributions of prospective school administrators to discover patterns in the blogging
data by grounding the study in an AI theoretical research perspective. Being grounded
in an AI perspective meant that the direction of all inquiry was to discover and affirm
strengths and successful leadership experiences of those participating in the blog
conversations (Calabrese, 2006). I also applied the concept of a bounded case study
(Merriam, 2001) to this research by delimiting the study to participants who were:
.
masters or doctoral students in a school administration preparation program at a
large Midwestern research extensive university; and
.
enrolled in four classes I taught using reflective blogging over three instructional
quarters.
My belief that students have a history of strengths and successful leadership
experiences drove my research and yielded the following overarching question: how
can the use of a Web 2.0 technology such as blogging support the design principles of
increasing the prospective educational administrators’ sense of competence and
relatedness? From this overarching question, the following research questions guided
my inquiry:
RQ1. How do prospective school administrators describe their experience of
difference makers who served as exemplars in their lives?
RQ2. How do prospective school administrators describe their strengths and
successful leadership experiences where they overcame challenges?