Provide a 1-2 paragraph response to the post below making sure the following key components are covered:
Address the content of your colleague's statement, including their critical analysis of their chosen research studies.
Compare your critical analysis and explanations with those of your colleague.
Pose a follow-up question to your colleague for further Discussion.
Link each colleague's posting to other colleagues' postings or to other course materials and concepts, where appropriate and relevant.
Please note that, for each response, you must include a minimum of one appropriately cited scholarly reference.
Synthesizing literature is different from summarizing or reporting on multiple articles because of critical interpretation that occurs from a researcher's new approach or context (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2015; Walden University Writing; 2017). In my doctoral study problem statement, I use Ertas' (2016) statistical finding that millennials participated in similar levels across all types of nonprofit sectors compared to older generations, except for religious nonprofits where millennial participation rates plummeted.
Though Ertas (2016) implemented a different theory (public service motivation) and methodology (quantitative) than I will in my doctoral study, I needed to understand what factors led to Ertas' key finding of low Millennial generation involvement in religious nonprofits regardless of workforce types.
Key Article Components
The purpose of Ertas' study (2016) was to examine formal and informal rates of volunteerism in various nonprofit sectors by U.S. millennials as compared to older generations across 55,000 U.S. public, nonprofit, and private workforce members. Researchers do not agree on millennials' workforce ethic or pro-social (volunteering) behaviors (Ertas, 2016). Ertas (2016) sought to understand if millennials were more likely to volunteer than older generations based on the employment sectors in which millennials worked. Ertas (2016) found a higher commitment to volunteer activities by public service workforce members.
In my defense industry experience in both public and private sectors, some private sector employees work more hours and have less time available to devote to volunteering while public employees have more opportunities to volunteer due to additional days off. In contrast, Ertas (2016) found that public employees were more likely to work greater than 40-hour work weeks.
Ertas (2016) also found that millennial private and public sector workforce volunteering was similar to older generations except in three areas. Through regression models, Ertas (2016) showed that all Millennials (private and public sector) were less likely to volunteer for religious organizations compared to older generations; private sector Millennials volunteered more than older generations for civic and health nonprofits; and educational organizations received more volunteers from public sector Millennials (Ertas, 2016).
Study's Viability
Ertas (2016) used the Current Population Survey (CPS) September 2010 Volunteering (Corporation for National, 2010) for data for samples of either full- or part-time in public, private, and nonprofit sectors and intentionally omitted self-employed and unemployed respondents. The use of secondary sources for data comes with the risk of ensuring the sampled population represents the new researcher's intended use (Saunders et al., 2015).
A researcher incorporates controls such as generalized questions to control viability within a quantitative study (Saunders et al., 2015). However, a researcher cannot change the questions when using secondary data sources, which could jeopardize some answer's validity due to unclear survey organization and mean that the researcher was unable to assess areas specifically targeted for the research questions. Ertas (2016) recognized the risk of validity for respondents when misinterpretation of some questions occurred.
Using the existing body of knowledge and connecting multiple theories to build a case for conducting a study constitutes a comprehensive literature review that prepares a reader for the context of a new study (Walden University Doctoral, 2016). Ertas (2016) knowledge spanned multiple theories, regarded other country-based studies on millennial behavior, and predominately involved peer-reviewed and government-sourced journals and data.
Contrasting other researchers' studies on millennial's materialistic ways versus constructive, value-adding societal behavior, Ertas (2016) differentiated studies' portrayals of millennial career expectations and analyzed theories behind why the general population volunteers for different nonprofit sectors. The result was a viable study with caveats for the use of secondary data, unalterable for researcher's original purpose.