Tag: doctoral thesis (dissertation)

Doctoral Thesis (Dissertation) Research – Approved to Begin

I just received final ethical (institutional review board) approval to begin my thesis research!

After adding one sentence to address data encryption, I revised and resubmitted my Invitation to Participate  and Consent Form for my study, Navigating Liminality in Distance Education: The Experiences of Research and Professional Doctorate Learners. I am now ready to go, and expect to create a location for my research information here on my webpage, after which I will talk more specifically about what I hope to study and how I plan to do this.

If you are a doctoral student (or recently completed your doctorate), you just may be a potential participants for my research!  I may ask you to tell me about your experiences . . .

Research Ethics Update

I want to share some (initial) good news–my first-round of ethics review for my proposed doctoral thesis (dissertation), Navigating Liminality in Distance Education:The Experiences of Research and Professional Doctorate Learners, has now made it through the research ethics officer.

It came back to me last week with a request to provide more detail in 3 specific areas, and not wanting to sit on what was essentially minor re-wording, I turned it around and resubmitted the following day. I learned this morning that my proposal has now made its way to the Chair of UREC (University’s Research Ethics Committee) for consideration.

Let us hope the Chair is comfortable and enjoying the wonders of spring’s transition into summer and smiles kindly upon my work. In layman’s language — if this person gives me ethical approval, I can engage in my study. I don’t want to consider alternate responses . . .

My Page on the Lancaster University Website

My department at Lancaster University, Educational Research, requested that doctoral students consider having a presence on the Graduate School, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, website. Now that my doctoral thesis proposal was approved, I thought it was time to list my thesis working title, along with my areas of research interest.

Creating a page on the school’s website in some way shows my current connection to my studies and the university, though it also caused me to do something long-overdue, namely update my CV. Seems like an easy thing to do, but listing my areas of interest, along with the keywords to describe them, is a challenging thing at best, and an seemingly overwhelming excercise for somebody as interdisciplinary (and somewhat postmodern) as I am. I felt a bit paralyzed with something seemingly so simple, as I was concerned I would be specifying myself to the point that I would limit myself and in the process fail to capture how rich I believe my interests are.

Of course, this is in itself one of the challenges with doctoral studies, as that tiny little piece of original work we are expected to do will naturally have to be specific. Any surprise I am interested in threshold concepts as a focal point in my doctoral research itself?

Thesis Proposal — Approved!

Happy to share the good news that my revised doctoral thesis proposal has just been approved.

My working title is, which will surely change as I dive further into the research and begin the interviews, is:

Navigating Liminality in Distance Education: The Experiences of Research and Professional Doctorate Learners

While I received initial, provisional approval a few weeks back, I found this revision a strangely challenging hurdle to overcome. I knew what was needed. I knew how to get the information (some of which I already had). I even knew within 1 hour how long it would take me. While armed with this, I still found it a daunting task. I wonder if this was due to all the anxiety that went into creating the initial proposal that it drained me of all my research energy? Hmm, something to think about. Wonder if others have encountered anything like this?

Anyway, on to my ethical paperwork.

Track the Literature Review Process in a Method of Inquiry Table

Have you ever worked on a literature review, going from database to database, repeating some searches while forgetting to try additional keywords in some of them when you think of them at a later point in your review? This is the reason I recently Tweeted about a Method of Inquiry Table. This tool, which can be adjusted as needed based on the research, is a simple table that allows you to track databases, keywords, and results. To help remain focused, it has a space for the research purpose and questions.

Seems like such a simple tool, though before I started using one, I always duplicated my efforts while forgetting things along the way.

I uploaded the tool I use here for anybody who may want to use or improve upon it.