Category: Lancaster PhD

Successful Viva = PhD

As I mentioned in my Tweet on March 25, 2013, I successfully passed my Viva Voce exam at Lancaster University and was awarded my PhD in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (Educational Research) forthwith. In the British system, passing a viva forthwith means I passed without corrections and was thus awarded the degree.

Jeffrey Keefer Viva Tweet

As a result, my doctoral thesis, entitled Navigating Liminality: The Experience of Troublesome Periods and Distance During Doctoral Study, is being printed and bound at the university.

I especially want to thank my supervisor, Professor Malcolm Tight,  (standing next to me in the image below), and my examiners Professor Paul Trowler (in the left on the picture) and Dr. Margaret Kiley (who attended remotely from Australia). Alice Jesmont (also in the picture below) has been invaluable in her assistance while I attended Lancaster University, along with Dr. Gale Parchoma, who started off as part of my supervisory team before moving on to the University of Calgary.

Jeffrey Keefer Viva

I am now working at publishing some of the results of my work, so hope to have lots more to share. Thanks goes to all who have supported, guided, and helped me along the way, about which I will also speak more in the near future.

I Submitted My Doctoral Thesis!

submit-nowI want to share that Thursday morning, January 10, 2013, was the day that I submitted my doctoral thesis. More years in the making than it may seem by my four years at Lancaster University, I am happy that this step is now complete.

It is now being printed and bound to send to the university examiners who will review it. We began scheduling dates for the viva voca (dissertation defense), where I will travel to the UK to discuss my research.

I am sharing this in part because this blog and my online presence has been a vital aspect of my research, as well as to let people know why I may have seemed somewhat distracted recently while this has been going on.

I will appreciate some positive energy while preparing for the upcoming process that will hopefully bring this academic experience to a satisfying resolution.

Thesis Final Draft = Done!

draftI have been Tweeting about this recently, though decided a quick check-in here is well overdue. This is the news I have been working for — I completed the final draft of my doctoral thesis today!

No, not submitted yet. Tomorrow I need to format and proof it one last time, then to my supervisor for the nod (or pointer to more corrections), after which I will submit.

The goal is to get done what needs to get done and submit this week.

Then comes its binding, sending to the examiners, and scheduling of the viva.

Phew!

I Completed My Analysis

I am happy to say I have just completed the analysis of my data for my doctoral thesis!

Let me clarify what I mean. By analysis, I mean making sense of the 23 interviews I completed by coding them, grouping similar concepts together, and then putting these concepts in a coherent order to present for my readers. That may not sound like a lot, but with hundreds of pages of interview transcripts and over 1000 codes to navigate and organize, it is a significant accomplishment.

While I have written up my analysis along the way (cf. Richardson’s work on writing as a method of inquiry), I hope to have my full draft analysis completed in another week or so. As I am engaging in narrative inquiry, this will be, in all likelihood, my longest thesis chapter.

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I just sketched a tentative timeline of thesis work for the next week, so will keep my fingers crossed to maintain its trajectory (which I will do via Twitter).