18
Dec

Overthinking the Research Design

   Posted by: Jeffrey Keefer   in Academia, Autoethnography & Reflective Practice, Lancaster PhD, Research

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As I worked so long and hard on the research design ideas in my last post, it finally occurred to me what the problem is–I am overthinking it! I have been so busily trying to link all of my interests together, that I think I missed that the model to show their relationship has not yet been made. I have not created it yet.

It will come, but not now. For now, I need to do some research as another step toward my degree, ideally build upon what I previously learned, and then look at the trajectory after I submit my research and get feedback on it in about 2 months.

Ideal? Not necessarily. However, having ideas circle round and round without aligning now simply means they are not aligning, at least not now. Perhaps all they need is to be further developed, here in this very research paper, after which they may reveal something else. I will begin to strip them down to their fundamentals, and move on.

Onward and upward.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Academia, Autoethnography & Reflective Practice, Lancaster PhD, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 comments so far

Lilia Efimova
 1 

I felt the same almost till the end of my PhD work – ideas circling around, me knowing they are relevant, but not knowing how to connect them. Dealing with it yourself is only part of the issue, another challenge is to find deal with your supervisor’s perspective on it.

A bit is here (make sure you watch the video :) – http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/07/03/phd-supervision-a-bit-of-trust-a-bit-of-imagination/

[Reply]

Jeffrey Keefer Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:48 am

Lilia-

I am glad to hear this, as I at times feel alone with this struggle. I think what may highlight this experience is the fact that I am chronicling it here, in its raw and fresh form, rather than waiting until it is all finished and polished. I know this is something you did while engaging in your research as well.

You may be a wonderful person to interview for this project as well, given that your dissertation is helping me with my methodology.

Jeffrey

[Reply]

December 21st, 2009 at 8:10 am
Helen
 2 

Hi Jeffrey, I have enjoyed your blog and I especially like your comments about autoethnography and reflective practice. I am also a PhD student and I like the way you are blogging along the way – it looks like it really helps to distill your thoughts and get feedback and I think it is something that I will try. Thanks for a great blog.
Helen

[Reply]

Jeffrey Keefer Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am

Helen –

Thank you for the most kind feedback!

I think autoethnography can be a rich method, and have been researching it (not so much using it, but rather researching the experiences of people who use it) recently. This has led me to transformative experiences, which is the direction of my current project I am in the process of designing.

Interested to hear more about your research and dissertation direction, as we may have some things in common (as Sarah indicated on a posting on your blog!) — including this very project!

Jeffrey

[Reply]

December 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 am

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