The Study Methodology
Data Collection
The study will be experimental and quantitative based on a wide variety of samples. The data will mainly be collected online through the application of any method. The quantitative study will correlate psychological capital with the quality of life of African-Americans. The experimental study will test the psychological capital on gender among the African-Americans. The two phenomenological studies will guide data collection and analysis in which all the quantitative measures will be analysed through the application of statistic analytical tool SPSS (Peterson & Seligman, 2003). The main goal of both experimental and quantitative designs is to achieve the full populations of the designed studies and attain the highest representative sample that would be tested and used as control in the case of an experiment (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). Therefore, this study will utilises the empirical data collected online to test the hypotheses. In other words, the study will use quantitative data to explain how the quantities of psychological capital predict the quality of life among African-Americans. In addition, the quantitative data will be used to determine the relationships between the psychological capital and gender among African-Americans.
Once the representative samples have been identified, the data will be collected online. The sample will be selected following the random procedures for the most applicable design. The participants will be selected mainly from African-Americans. In the experimental study, other groups may be used but only as control variables. As indicated, the information from the sample in both the studies will be obtained online. The quantitative data will be grouped and analysed through the application of the statistical tool SPSS in order to determine the correlation between the variables.
How the Current Research Contributes to the Existing Literature
A discipline advances due to the enhancement of an idea over the existing body of knowledge (Whetten, Felin & King, 2009). Generally, the concept of psychological capital of African-Americans has been met with greater perplexity, complexity and lack of apparent clarity on the meaning and purpose behind the whole idea (Walumbwa, Luthans, Avey & Oke, 2011). The reason is that researchers have focused their studies on the general psychological capital on business influences rather, on a particular social group such as African-Americans (Fineman, 2006; Luthans, Avey, Avolio & Peterson, 2010). Models that have been developed on the psychological capital have been generalised in terms of business associations (Avey, Luthans & Youssef, 2010). As such, there is no appropriate sociological model that the current studies on the psychological capital could be based (Peterson & Seligman, 2003). Specifically, no studies have been conducted on the psychological capital based on social phenomena such as social interactions among African-Americans.
Therefore, this study remains critical in filling the identified gap in knowledge. Essentially, the nature of the current study is to contribute specifically to the constituent knowledge of psychological capital of African-Americans. On a larger scale, the present research should aid in compiling the universal constituents of body of knowledge on psychological capital across the seminal literature to distinguish and develop the meaning, purpose and practical application. A critical examination of the common literature categories and sub-categories written in the last century on psychological capital does not indicate within the theoretical paradigms where psychological capital of African-Americans can fit (Avey, Hughes, Norman & Luthans, 2008). The potential contribution to the new knowledge that the current study attempts to substantiate is based upon lack of apparent literature focus on the psychological capital of African-Americans. Thus, the contemplated research should contribute to the current literature through:
- The construction of new paradigms that fills in the existing gaps within the literature of psychological capital
- The elucidation of the relationship existing between psychological capital and the quality of life among African-Americans
- The determination of the relationship between the psychological capital and gender among the African-Americans
References
Avey, J. B., Hughes, L. W., Norman, S. M., & Luthans, K. (2008). Using positivity, transformational leadership and empowerment to combat employee negativity. Leadership and Organisation Development Journal, 29, 110–126.
Avey, J. B., Luthans, F., & Youssef, C. M. (2010). The additive value of positive psychological capital in predicting work attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 36, 430–452.
Fineman, S. (2006) On being positive: Concerns and counter points. Academy of Management Review, 31, 270–291.
Hunter, J. E., & Schmidt, F. L. (2004). Methods of meta-analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Luthans, F., Avey, J. B., Avolio, B. J., & Peterson, S. J. (2010). The development and resulting performance impact of positive psychological capital. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 21, 41–67.
Peterson, C. M., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). Positive organisation studies. In K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.). Positive organisational scholarship (pp. 14–27). San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler
Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., Avey, J. B., & Oke, A. (2011). Authentically leading groups: The mediating role of collective psychological capital and trust. Journal of Organisational Behavior, 32, 4–24.
Whetten, D., Felin, T., & King, B. (2009). The practice of theory borrowing in organisational studies. Journal of Management, 35, 537–563.