Running head: DISSERTATION DEFENSE REFLECTION

Dissertation Defense Reflection

Naif Jabli

ETT798

Fall 2016
Dissertation Defense Reflection

Dissertation Defense Reflection

I attended a dissertation defense by Manal Alkarzon. Manal presented (and

successfully defended) her dissertation, Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Online

Training in Qatar Private Institutions on May 4, 2016 at Northern Illinois University. As

I am interested in online training in general and my topic of study will be online

professional development, I enjoyed attending and listening to Manals defense, which

was very informative to me.

The way Manal moved from one aspect to another was really interesting and

beneficial for all the audience. She started her defense with a quite useful display of the

background of her study. I guess everybody in the room found this background helpful

for getting information about E-learning in Qatar institutions and how it has started to be

one of the main tools for educational processes in the country. She successfully

discussed gender differences in attitudes toward online learning in Qatar as a critical

factor in the educational technology field. This display of the research background

included a complete discussion Manals literature review. She creatively indicated how

her efforts as a researcher have resulted in a research gap represented in not finding

studies that explore the online integration and gender in Qatar private sector. Thus, the

purpose of her study was to investigate the lack of information regarding possible

differences among male and female employees attitudes toward online training in Qatar

Private institutions. She also indicated that the significance of her study lies in the fact

that it has provided more information to human resource officials and administrators

about the potential differences between males and females. Thus the results of her study

might be useful in helping to bridge the gap between male and female employees in Qatar

Private Institutions. By explaining this broader context, Manal sufficiently motivates her
Dissertation Defense Reflection

project and provides a solid rationale. This work may have significant implications for

how differences among male and female employees attitudes toward online training in

Qatar Private institutions might shed light on accepting online training as a format for

educational uses of technology in the country. Toward the end of the introduction section

of her defense, all the audience in the room became aware that the study is the first study

in Qatar that investigated the differences between males and females in Qatar private

institutions regarding their attitudes toward online training based on five constructs from

DOI theory. And she explained that being the first study in the country to investigate such

a distinctive topic is what makes the study significant.

Manal included Rogers theory of diffusion as a framework for her study. She indicated

in her defense that the purpose of her survey study was to use Rogers (2003) Diffusion

of Innovation theory and his five perceived attributes as a framework to find out if there

are differences between males and females attitudes toward online training for the

employees at QPI. She discussed thoroughly how research and educational technology

should benefit from Rogers perceived attributes of (1) relative advantage, (2)

compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability, and (5) observability. Manal cited Rogers

(2003) definition of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory which she is using as a

theoretical framework. The citation defined Diffusion as the process in which an

innovation is communicated through certain channels overtime among the members of

social system" (Rogers, 2003, p.5). Moreover she defined each one of the five constructs

separately to show the relationship between the constructs and the independent variable

of the study, which is a gender difference.

As the discussion developed during the defense session, Manal created the

atmosphere that made the attendance participate and integrate themselves in Manals
Dissertation Defense Reflection

problem of study and hypotheses. Manals illustration included how her constructs were

related to each other and to the context of the study. Manal was especially successful

when she presented on the slide show tables showing the literature review of her study in

categorical grid. The grids showed year of publication, type of participants, type of

technology, findings, and future implications of each study. This technique of presenting

literature review in a dissertation defense was really useful because it resulted in a good

control of time and effort. In addition it covered a very important part of the study as it is

always the literature review that might be time consumer and most defenders fail to

include in their explanation and discussion.

She has five constructs of interest: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,

trialability, and observability. These five constructs she included in the research questions

of her study. Moreover, she successfully discussed them in more detail in the method

section, including a brief description of each one of the constructs.

She presented her research questions on the slide show that accompanied he

explanation of and how the hypotheses were related to both the constructs and the

research questions. All her five questions were equally important as they represented the

five constructs of Rogers theory and each on of the constructs was discussed in the light

of how it is related to differences in attitudes between male and female employees who

are involved with online training in Qatar.

Manals defense was informative enough as it included some references related

to the framework of the study, but it was not clear enough to what extent gender

differences might affect the relationships between these constructs. As mentioned

previously, there is little research examining gender difference in online training in Qatar,

so Manals methodology took a quantitative design to calculate the relationships between

Dissertation Defense Reflection

the constructs and the attitudes of the employees. Gender differences in Manals study

was the independent variable; whereas, the five constructs were uded as the dependents

variables to investigate the impact of gender on the attitudes of Qatari professional

development trainees in private institutions.

The methodology section was the most interesting part of the discussion. This

study used a quantitative methodology that uses non-experimental survey design. It

showed that Manals study was conducted in Qatar private business institutions. It

included information about the sample, which was comprised of 176 employees (87)

males, (89) females from Qatar private institutions. Manal managed to give very useful

details of her sample in considerably short and inclusive time. Information such as

employees ages, range, ratio and frequency of employees responses. Among the

important thing that the audience heard was the information about Ntemana and

Olatokuns (2012) survey, which Manal used in her study collect data and to measure

attitudes toward online training. A very large part of the discussion went to the

procedures and data collection aspect, which consisted of type of survey, duration of data

collection , nimber of participants, and response rates. The audience were informed that

data were collected through Qualtrics web based survey and that the collection of such

data took 14 days. Manal informed the committee and the attendants that the total number

of participants who completed the survey was 185. This information was complementary

and sufficient to make a good knowledge of the study and everyone felt satisfied by the

defense that Manal was leading from one part to another.

To examine whether Qatari male and female employees differ in their attitudes

toward online training, Manal used statistical descriptive analysis. For data analysis an

independent samples t-test was used. There was one independent variable in the study,
Dissertation Defense Reflection

gender, which was at the nominal level of measurement. There were five dependent

variables in the study: (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4)

trialability, and (5) observability. The statistical analysis was used to show significance in

the relationships between gender differences and the five dependent variables of relative

advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. For example 12

chronic outliers (14% of the males) were used to calculate the difference in males and

females attitudes toward online training regarding relative advantage in Qatar Private

institutions as suggested by research question number one.

According to the results of the statistical analysis of Manals study, the t-test was

statistically significant t (145.724) = -2.904, p =.004, d =.27 (where p was corrected via

the Bonferroni Correction Method to adjust for inflated type I error .05/5 = p = < .01).

The males (M = 2.75, SD = .443) for relative advantage construct was somewhat lower

than that of the females (M = 2.84, SD = .402). Manal explained that this result can be

translated as: regarding relative advantage (dependent variable 1), male Qatari employees

showed less attitudes toward online training than female emplyees. As for compatibility,

the t-test was not statistically significant t (174) = -.847, p =.398. The males (M = 1.90,

SD = .947) for compatibility construct was very close to the females (M = 2.02, SD =

.980). this can be translated as: regarding compatibility males and females in Qatar

Private institutions have that same attitudes toward online training. Similarly, the

question Do males and females differ in their attitudes toward online training regarding

trialability in Qatar Private institutions? was explained in the light of Manals statistical

results. The t-test was not statistically significant t (174) = -.152, p =.879. The males (M

= 2.95, SD = .394) for trialability construct was very close to the females (M = 2.96, SD

= .407). Manal explained that regarding trialability, the attitudes of Qatari employees

showed no significant difference related to gender. Males and females have the same
Dissertation Defense Reflection

attitudes toward online training when it comes to tralability.

As for the question which asks whether males and females differ in their

attitudes toward online training regarding observability in Qatar Private institutions,

Manal used the statistical analysis to conclude that the t-test results showed no statistical

significance t (171.850) = .048, p =.962. The males (M = 2.31, SD = .641) for

observability construct was same as the females (M = 2.31, SD = .586). Manal explained

that regarding observability, Qatari male and female employees have the same attitudes

toward online training. The slide show presentation showed the relationship as equal (i. e.

Male = Female). Finally, the question whether males and females differ in their attitudes

toward online training regarding complexity in Qatar Private institutions was discussed

and statistically analyzed showing that the t-test was not statistically significant t (174) =

.048, p = .962. The males (M = 2.31, SD = .641) for complexity construct was the same

as females (M = 2.31, SD = .586). the explanation that Manal made included that

comments that regarding complexity, there was no significabt difference between Qatari

male and female employees attitudes toward online training in private institutions in

Qatar (i. e. Male = Female).

Furthermore, Manal discussed that her study showed that female employees at

QPI perceived online training as better than face-to-face training more than male

employees based on relative advantage construct. It appears from the data that male and

female employees at QPI have no difference regarding their attitudes based on gender. It

was found from the results that male and female employees at QPI have very strong

positive attitudes toward online training. Overall, the findings indicated that all

employees have high scores in the scale toward online training and more than 50% of the

employees agree that online training is better than face-to-face training.

Dissertation Defense Reflection

Manal stated verbally that her study was conducted to find out if there were any

differences between male and female employees at QPI regarding their attitudes toward

online training. Also she described the findings of her study to be helpful to the

administrators decision to provide proper online training to their employees. Manal also

recommended that administrators at QPI should provide more training programs that

could motivate their male employees to adopt online training by explaining the

advantages and benefits behind online training. Among the recommendations that Manal

has suggested was the study could be conducted to predict the rate of adoption to online

training for the employees at QPI by conducting a Multiple Regression Model in stead of

t-test. Manal also said that she would recommend that additional studies be conducted to

include other government or public institutions. Another recommendation by Manal was

the her study used quantitative methodology and that incorporating other data collection

techniques might allow obtaining more detailed information about the employees

attitudes toward online training. As was stated by Manal, future studies should use mixed

methods such as semi-structured interviews.

According to Manals defense the study has had some limitaions. The first

limitation is that Manals study was limited to private sectors at the state of Qatar, so the

findings of the study cannot be generalized to the population of the Qatar state. Secondly,

the culture of the organizations could affect the participants responses, so the

participants could have given the answers they believed they were required to give.

Finally, her study used a survey that was previously used in another study to predict the

attitudes of lecturers. In the current study the survey was used for employees, so the type

of questions could be understood differently between lecturers and employees.

In conclusion, the presentation was informative and organized, and it covered

Dissertation Defense Reflection

the most fundamental areas of a dissertation. However, Manal could have spent more

time on it, as it might have been helpful to make some details more statistical. If we know

that the defense must cover an extensive dissertation in a short time, we can understand

why Manal did not cover all the statistical explanations. It was highly informative to

attend such a dissertation defense and learn from it. Most of the audience came out of the

presentation more knowlegeable and grateful to Manal. Everybody congratulated her on

such a successful defense.

Dissertation Defense Reflection

References

Karzon (2016, May). Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Online Training in Qatar
Private Institutions. Dissertation defense presented at Northern Illinois University,
DeKalb, IL.