Article Review: Analysis of Leadership Skills Training Research

This report provides a comprehensive review of Khatun's (2013) article, which investigates the relationship between instructional methods and learning styles in leadership skill development. The study employed a case study approach, examining how different training methods, including lectures,...Read More

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1ARTICLE REVIEW
1. Khatun, R. (2013). A Study of the Relationship Between Instructional Methods and Learning
Styles in Learning Leadership Skills. International Journal on Leadership, 1(2), 31.
2. The purpose of the research was to adopt a case study approach to analyze the relationships
between the learning styles and the instructional methods on performance yielded from learning.
This research has been conducted mainly to focus on the effectiveness of the trainings in
leadership skills in an organization. The article identifies leadership as one of the main factors in
the growth of the organization and hence the trainings regarding the improvement of the
leadership skills have been stressed upon in the article.
3. The article uses the Kolb’s model in the literature review to make the readers understand the
synthesis between the goal directed and the behavior learning that focuses on the flowing nature
in learning. The article focuses on the model since it is concerned with the internal cognitive
process of the learner. The cognitive process is largely influenced by the leader and the leader in
turn would gauge the learning preference.
4. The research took into account a particular pre test and posttest design of the experimental
case study in order to assess the relationship between learning styles, performance and training
methods. However, the main disadvantage of the incorporation of this design the possibilities of
various influences within the data. The real time data may not be devoid of any unconscious bias.
Moreover, a wide difference in the demographic structure of the sample size cannot be
incorporated within the design.
5. The research model made use of the independent variables that are the learning methods and
learning styles. The only dependent variable in the research is the learning performance. The
learning method was measured by three ways. At first, the method of lecture was applied to

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measure the impact of the training method. Then, the research made use of the role play in order
to enhance communication and better learning. The third method was the observation of videos.
The research made use the Kolb’s model to measure the learning style. It gave rise to four
learning styles, accommodating, diverging, assimilating and converging. The learning
performance was measured by the means of knowledge test that comprises of 15 questions.
6. The sample size was 47, which was good in terms of the fact it gives a considerable amount of
understanding about the varieties in the sample. The participants were randomly provided with
the various training methods in order to understand the learning preferences of the various
populations. A similar learning method will definitely not be applicable for everyone since the
learning choices and efficiency of people cannot be same.
7. The main hypotheses that are under discussion and which are tested for validation in this
particular study are that leadership training is needed for ensuring organizational success and that
communication skills need to be developed properly by managers in order to be able to manage
diversity in an organization. The authors have attempted to test the hypothesis through case study
analysis.
8. The relationships that have been tested in hypothesis four are all interdependent on one
another.
9. The purpose of generating Cronbach’s alpha is to test reliability and validity as well as internal
consistency associated with a set of test items.
10. The authors have made use of a paired test in order to determine whether or not the mean
difference between the two sets of items that are being tested, is zeo.

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11. There is no significant effect or interaction between learning style and instructional methods
as argued for by Hypothesis 4. The hypothesis is nullified by the ANOVA test results.
12. The instructional group that received training through the form of blended training were not
seen to perform well in the tests that were conducted as part of this research.
13. The instructional group that received training in the form of role plays were seen to perform
better than all of the other groups that were investigated upon in this study. Participants who
were seen to possess or showcase an accommodating style of learning were seen to outperform
participants who showcased an assimilating style of learning. The end results of the research
show that individuals appear to showcase a different performance in varied types of learning
environments and they are also seen to prefer certain styles or forms of training over others as is
clear from the results of this research study.

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References
Khatun, R. (2013). A Study of the Relationship Between Instructional Methods and Learning
Styles in Learning Leadership Skills. International Journal on Leadership, 1(2), 31.