Article #4 of my analysis considers Chapter III, “Fndings,” in which the author discusses the interviews that she conducted with five African American women principals.
Note,
though, that Sayles-Adams continues to devote much space to citations and
observations from other researchers while limiting the space given to her own
discoveries based on the interviews.
The
following are my own analytically critical comments.
Gary Davison Comments
Page 56
With regard to the sentence, “The purpose of this phenomenological study is to examine the experiences and challenges of African American women principals as they work to lead and improve academic outcomes for students,” readers should be aware as they prepare to read Sayles-Adams’s findings for the interviews that she conducted with five African American women principals that there is no discussion as to the strategies utilized by the principals either in seeking to improve or accomplishing the improvement of academic outcomes for students.
Readers should also be aware at how repetitive Sayles’-Adams already has been and will get even more in the pages ahead as to matters pertinent to citations of previous studies and topics covered in the studies; and how repetitive are her multiple restatements of the Central Question and the two sub-questions.
A chapter on “findings” should be focused overwhelmingly on what Sayles-Adams herself discovers in the interviews of the five women principals.
Returning again and again to matters already covered as to the literature and as to methodology comes across as filler in the absence of findings that reveal anything truly new or engaging.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 58
Note that
Sayles-Adams twice misspells in the interviewee given the pseudonym of
“Marcia,”
Rendering the names as “Marica.”
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Pages 59-60
Note the continuing use of citations from other research in what should be a presentation of Sayles-Adams’s own findings.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 61
Note yet another misspelling of an interviewee’s pseudonym, this time rendering what should be “Gwendolyn” as “Gwendoly.”
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Pages 63-64
Note the continuing use of citations from other research in what should be a presentation of Sayles-Adams’s own findings.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 66
For the third time, Sayle-Adams renders the interviewee with pseudonym of “Marcia” as “Marica.”
Note also the continuing use of citations from other sources in a “Findings” chapter that should be focused on material from Sayles-Adams’s own interviews.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 68
For the fourth time, Sayle-Adams renders the interviewee with pseudonym of “Marcia” as “Marica.”
Note also that in following sentence, Sayles-Adams erroneously places an apostrophe after the word, “principals’,” which in fact is used in plural, non-possessive form and should be rendered as “principals.”
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 70
Observe the continuing use of citations from other sources (as with [Burton, et al, 2020] and Coles and Pasek [2020]} in a “Findings” chapter that should be focused on material from Sayles-Adams’s own interviews.
Such use of citations by this point in the dissertation has a decided appearance of injecting filler material for findings that are rather slim and unsurprising, with little in the way of scholarly discovery.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 72
Observe again the continuing use of citations from other sources (Davis and Maldonado, 2015] and Patricia Collins [1990]} in a “Findings” chapter that should be focused on material from Sayles-Adams’s own interviews.
The appearance of padding the dissertation by injecting filler material because findings are rather slim and unsurprising, with little in the way of scholarly discovery, grows with each page in these last sections of the dissertation.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 72
Consider the views and emotions revealed in the following passage (given as immediately above):
She [Beverly] described a strong work ethic with the integrity to ensure all children have an opportunity to gain experience and grow. Despite her attempts to interview for prime leadership positions, she has only been selected to lead behind others that have failed:
"My grandmother was a clean-up woman in other people's homes, I am the Queen of clean-up women in education. This really bothers me. I am tired of being hired to clean up schools and the stuff other leaders leave behind. I have only been selected to lead as a clean-up woman without the opportunity to grow and shine as a leader in other areas."
If Beverly desired an
opportunity “to ensure that all children have an opportunity,” wouldn’t she
welcome the chance to lead at a school with chronic challenges, where the most
children needing such an opportunity because of past neglect attend?
Readers please consider this
question as applicable to other interviewee statements as you read ahead.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 73
Observe again the continuing use of citations from other sources (as with Newcomb and Niemeyer 2015l] and Peters, et al [2021]} in a “Findings” chapter that should be focused on material from Sayles-Adams’s own interviews.
Readers be aware of the many such instances in the pages ahead, and consider that such use of citations by this point in the dissertation has a decided appearance of injecting filler material for findings that are rather slim and unsurprising, with little in the way of scholarly discovery.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 75
Was the decision to abandon a challenging assignment noble?
What student futures were forsaken because of this decision?
What was Marcia’s success in a district that she felt “wanted me for me,” as she stated?
These are intriguing and important questions that Sayles-Adams does not address in her “Discussion” chapter.
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 75
A
colon is erroneously placed between the words, “need” and “and receiving it,”
in the sentence,:
"Gwendolyn echoed the importance of being confident and advocating for the support you need: and receiving it:"
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Gary Marvin Davison Comments
Page 78
The following sentence has a
problem with punctuation:
“Upon analysis, major themes
were categorized as barriers that confirmed; different expectations, double
standards, questioning authority, acts of resistance and aggression, and
participants being treated as clean-up women.”
Either the phrase, “as barriers
that confirmed,” is parallel with those that follow and should followed by a
comma (rather than a semicolon), or the phrase is meant to introduce the
following phrases and should be followed by a colon (rather than a semicolon).
Neither the meaning of the
sentence nor the intended role of the phrase, “as barriers that confirmed,” is
clear.
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