Demystify Theories: A Workbook for Developing Theoretical Frameworks of Educational Leadership Research

This book teaches you how to develop theoretical frameworks for your research. The book grew from my own struggle with developing theoretical frameworks when I was a junior researcher. I was required to write a section titled “Theoretical Framework” for every paper I wrote, but I had no clue what it meant. Unlike research methods courses in graduate schools that prepared me to write a Methods section, there was no theory course that specifically prepared me to write theoretical frameworks. I thought I was the only one who felt inadequately trained in theories. Not until I reached my mid-career stage did I realize I was not alone. As I shared my struggle with other scholars, it dawned on me that most, if not all, scholars did not receive training on theory building or developing theoretical frameworks as part of their doctoral training in graduate schools.
As I gained experience in research, I noticed that advice on how to develop theoretical frameworks for research had been scattered. This is probably why the process of developing a theoretical framework still remains a mystery to many researchers. To demystify the process, I decided to share my experience in theory development in this book with both educational leadership researchers and practitioners.
If you conduct research in educational leadership, this is the book for you. This book has two sections. From Chapter 1 to 6, you will learn what theory is, what theory is not, why we care about theories, what is a theoretical contribution, and how to develop a theoretical framework. From Chapter 7 to 13, you will learn about the history of theory development by decade: what theories have been proposed in educational leadership specifically and leadership in general, and how those theories have evolved, or lack thereof, with social contexts.
For doctoral students in educational leadership programs that do not offer a course on theory building, this book offers practical guidance about how to develop a theoretical framework for dissertations and research papers. For researchers whose research training is already in the rearview mirror, this book offers suggestions for professional growth. Needless to say, this book can be used to guide your development of theoretical frameworks at any stage of your research career.
This is also a book for leadership practitioners. The book debunks a misconception that “theory stuff” is for only researchers. I have received countless eyerolls when I told people I study theory development. Those eyerolls implicitly expressed the misconception that “theory people” are those who live in the cloud, speaking a different language—bloated prose that is so full of almost incomprehensible jargon that only a few can, or pretend to, comprehend. A prime example is a paper titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” Unfortunately, this misconception of theory is a grave, prevalent misunderstanding of what theory is and what theory is for. In fact, a good theory is a practical one. A good theory should guide practitioners in their leadership practices. For example, power is a theoretical construct. If you, as a practitioner, know how power works in your individual mind and a collective mind of your organization, you are better informed of how and when to use power. One reason that some people consider theory is unpractical is that most theories in educational leadership are not good or not good enough. Hopefully, you can take what you will learn from this book to refine and refute current theories of educational leadership, and develop new theories that are practical for leadership practitioners.