doctoral thesis (dissertation) – Page 4

Holidays, Time Off, Fairness, Studies, and Self-Confidence

Have you ever noticed how stressful the winter holidays can be, what with family obligations, spending money, getting off schedule, meeting the expectations of others, and on and on? What about when we see other people who seem to buy or give nicer or more thoughtful gifts, get more time off than we do, or greater bonuses? Don’t even get us started on how even more doctoral student colleagues earn themselves time off with great strides in writing and research and progress!

Ever make you think that life is not fair, or everybody has it better, or just somehow I am doing the wrong thing? The holidays can certainly bring these emotions and more up in us, and I think it is worth reflecting on.

Well, I started to think about some of these things when I returned from a long holiday weekend (I took a vacation day Friday and Monday was a holiday). The city seems so empty, did everybody really go off to Paris or the South of France, as I imagine happens when somehow the crowds I am used to are not around and I have to go back to work?

Mind you, I like my work and studies and such, though somehow everything seems more difficult when we are alone, and not of our own making.

How about how quiet online communities, such as #phdchat, seem to be during the winter holidays (including Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Year’s, and such), nothing like time to catch up while having nobody to reply back!

Of course, this is simply not true. There are so many people around all the time, in-person as well as online, that it is an exaggeration to claim that nobody is around or I am all alone. Take the winter holidays; even when we seem to have it worse than others, there are always people who have it worse off than we do. Sure, some people may have organizations that give them the entire week off, or supervisors who invite their students for holiday gatherings, though I suppose all that comes at a price, often one that is easy to miss when we feel in a rut. Misery indeed loves company, and the holidays seem to breed both.

After all, even vacation taken now may mean less for the spring or summer!

Even with our endless media telling us what gifts to give or receive, I have still never seen anybody give or receive a Lexus, regardless of the size of the ribbon and how perfect everybody and everything in the ads appear. Hey, Madison Avenue, that is not my life, and quite honestly that is OK.

Can any ad or product or statement or statistic ever fully capture our lives? If no, why do they affect us at times?

Thinking of my research, how often am I convinced that every other doctoral student moves faster through their dissertations or theses than I do, or that everybody else somehow gets better funding packages or has more travel budgets or extra help with supervision? It is so easy to miss that we each move at our own pace, each have different skills, resources, access, and developing understanding of our work. Some people move faster and make better progress, and some don’t.

As a matter of fact, some give or receive better gifts, while other receive less. Or none. Some people have a bonus week off, and some cannot find any work at all. Some make speedy research progress, and some cannot get into a program or afford to stay once they start or have supervisors interested in their work.

While this may seem a rambling post that has perculatd for the past week, suffice it to say it is really rather focused. Life is not fair, and while we each have our own challenges, we also each have our own benefits. I suppose it is valuable for us to focus more on the latter than the former. It somehow is easier to see what we want and don’t have than what we have that others may not. In other words, we are all different, and in this great diversity life seems to be this exciting experience. We have what we have, and what we do with it is up to us. There will always be people who have more, and there will always be people who have less–financial, educational, social, healthful, etc.

Happy Holidays all, and don’t let Santa, whoever or whatever that may be to you, make you believe that everything else is better; nothing can be further from the truth.

Doctoral Research in 100 Words

Are you doing doctoral research and want a valuable experience that is far harder (and even more rewarding) than it seems? Summarize your research in 100 words. I had this as a voluntary assignment, and cannot believe how many weeks of angst thinking about it with 3 straight hours working on it that it took. While I still have a lot of work to do (like analyze my data and actually start to write!), here is my first round:

Working Title:
Navigating Liminality: The Experience of Distance in Doctoral Education

100 Word Abstract:
This research explores the experiences of doctoral students who study at a distance and whose postgraduate activities involve passing through liminal or troublesome periods in understanding concepts or processes. These thresholds commonly involve ontological or epistemological shifts, resulting in transformed ways of seeing one’s self and/or one’s research. The challenges posed through using technology in such doctoral supervision are often not acknowledged. Twenty-one interdisciplinary doctoral researchers from around the world were interviewed, with narrative inquiry as informed by grounded and actor-network approaches being used for the analysis. This research seeks to provide insights for tutors who engage in remote supervision.

Insights, encouragement, and gentle recommendations will be appreciated.

Thesis Update: Here Comes the Transcription (so let’s move forward!)

After taking perhaps a bit too much time off from working on my doctoral thesis upon my return from BERA in London in September, I realized time has been moving along as it does, though I have not been making active progress in my research. I have been thinking about it (and I really do mean this–I have been reading and considering methodological issues around it, not just thinking about thinking about it!), and while some transcription assistance has been happening, I have not been as active as I want to be. All that changed yesterday when I started to actively organize my transcription and review process and finally begin working on it.

I thus waited until now to post; I have just checked and revised the first of the transcripts by listening to the recording while correcting any mistyping done during the initial round. Finishing the first one and getting it ready to send back to the interviewee, I feel I am finally on my way again. Thinking about it is valuable, but moving forward on it will help me finish.

Lesson learned? After working on nothing else in August except my interviews, and then spending the next month and a half catching up with life, conference abstracts, working with colleagues at #phdchat, attending the #change11 MOOC (among other things), I realize I need balance. I need to continually plug away on my thesis while not neglecting the other things in my life that are so connecting and rewarding. Doing one without the other is ultimately not rewarding or healthy. Onward and upward.

I Finished Data Collection!

I am happy to share that I have completed data collection for my doctoral thesis research!

It has been four weeks filled with countless interviews, discussions, explanation about my research, national and international phone calls, Skype sessions, and more support than I ever dreamed of. Having engaged in research interviews several times during my course of study, I knew a little about what to expect in these interviews. What I did not expect was a consistent sense of well-wishes, encouragement, interest, and positive energy on behalf of my many participants during this period. In many ways I feel like I engaged in conversations, rather than data collection. What better way is there to think about our research, especially research that in one sense involves colleagues, however far and distant and heretofore unknown?

Thanks to so many people, I feel I have now passed over this step, and while transcription and sense-making await, I am very thankful that I have turned this corner in my work.

I look forward to now trying to make sense of everything I heard, and hope to continue to share and discuss this with my colleagues, old and new, over the next several months.

Doctoral Thesis Data Collection, Status #2: Emotions

I want to share an update on my doctoral thesis data collection, as a lot has happened since the last one I did a little over a week ago. I have now completed 13 interviews in total (60-90 minutes each), and am hoping to finish the remaining interviews in another week. While I initially planned to have 15-20 people in total (which should be enough for some sense of data saturation, given the qualitative design I am using), it now seems I may be nearer the latter when I finish.

While I am not beginning any systematic processing of this data yet (transcription, anyone? 😉 !!), there is one thing that I have learned in this process that I want to share for the benefit of anybody else planning a similar research endeavor. Data collection in the form of long, in-depth interviews takes a lot of energy. Moreover, I am finding that it takes almost everything out of me. Let me explain.

My research asks about barriers and liminal (in-between) periods that happen during doctoral study, resulting in some form of an aha! or new sense of one’s identity. This often involves the telling of difficult stories, ones that are personal and oftentimes riveting in nature. Being privelged with listening to these stories is a rich experience, one that requires my full attention in way unlike many of the other tasks I have encountered in research (or practice, for that matter). I feel emotionally humbled when I finish with each one, and find that I struggle to do my ordinary work or other commitments in life during this period.

I am thankful for this opportunity to engage in this study, as it is a deeply moving experience. I think I have a lot more to process in its effect in me, much less as part of my research.