DEVELOPMENT OF A RESEARCH LEADERSHIP MODEL FOR MALAYSIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Research landscape in higher educational institution such as Institute of Teacher Education, has experienced substantial changes. Due to the significant changes, present researchers require a variety of resources, in particular, financial support for their endeavors. The change is aimed at having quality research outputs. The change will be successful if it is led by a leader who applies the leadership style of research. However, research leadership is still new in Malaysia. Such style of leadership often based on the Western models. Hence, the purpose of this research is to develop a research leadership model based on the consensus of local experts. The data were collected using a multi-method research design that applies both qualitative and quantitative methods. The design is based on two phases as follows: (a) the need analysis phase that included interview sessions among three lecturers of higher education institutions in the urban area and three lecturers of higher educational institutions in the rural area. This phase is to identify a need to develop a research leadership model and (b) the development phase that included three round sessions as follows: (i) the first-round session was to collect data from the experts through interviewing sessions among seven experts. They are from various fields such as education and industry, (ii) the second-round session was to get expert reviews of the model’s content, and (iii) the third-round session is to get
consensuses of 23 experts from practitioner category through analyzing data using Triangular Fuzzy Numbers in applying Fuzzy Delphi technique. The research findings reported that there are five primary dimensions of the Malaysian Research Leadership Model: (a) professional leadership, (b) leading research activities, (c) creating collaborative and collective cultures, (d) leading support and (e) creating a conducive environment. The research findings have reported that it is a need to develop a model based on context as being inspired by Manning, Kinzie and Schuh (2014): One Size Fits All.