Mini Hiatus?

I'm just starting my second year as a part-time PhD student, and it feels as though I'm in intermission for a few weeks.  I completed the literature review chapter as far as I could early in August and sent it to my supervisor.  When we met early in September, he agreed that it could be put aside until later, and that I could start making plans to start my fieldwork, or the proper research.  Apparently I'm well on track.

My supervisor has challenged me to define my population, and my 'unit of observation', whether it is the organisation or the actual interviewee.  This is taking some working out. I'm fast learning that I need to be able to define and justify all the elements of and steps I take in my research.

So I've completed and submitted my ethics application together with the required risk assessment and draft questions for the pilot study interview to the University two weeks.  I am waiting to hear back.  The university has agreed that I can use Dedoose for to collect and analyse my data. As I'm using mixed methods, I didn't want to have to learn to use two separate software packages (SPSS and NVivo).  I've heard good reports about Dedoose and I'm looking forward to being able integrate data collection and analysis.

The fieldwork will be in two stages: phase 1 comprises 20 - 25 interviews, including a pilot study. I'm starting to address the practicalities of doing the fieldwork, like preparing participant information sheets, and consent forms. Although I've volunteers lined up for the pilot study, I'm still working out how I'm going to recruit enough interviewees.  

And then, there's working out how to record interviews.  I'm trying to learn how to use a digital MP3 recorder and, for some reason, unusual for me, I'm finding it harder than I expected.  I've realised that it might help if I buy an external microphone to use with recorder. So if you see me wielding something that looks like a black USB memory stick and I casually place it close to you, beware ....... I may ask you if I can practise recording with you as we talk.

The best news of all is that I'm attending my first academic conference as a PhDer at the University later next month (October 2012).  And what was most reassuring was reading the opening paragraph about the conference and realising that this is where my research fits in, a kind of Eureka moment, and the realisation that your research idea is not so daft after all, and that it has a home...

Striptease or Who dun it?

On PhD chat last week, we were talking about writing up and how you need a narrative thread or argument all the way through - something that the Swedish call "the red thread". I tweeted how my supervisor's advised me "not to give everything away in the literature review"; i.e.to keep something back or not to show your hand all at once. Someone else called this a "who dun it" and I though that it seems as though it's more of a striptease.

I see the sense in this, but as a relatively new PhD student, I've yet to work out what I should tell, reveal or show and when. I'm working on the first draft of my literature review and it's tempting to try to cover everything upfront - all my ideas, arguments (not that they can be called 'coherent'). I haven't yet worked out what to take off, and when, what beat my thesis should move to, and when I should bring things to a crescendo and display what? The best bits, all of it, or selected highlights? Do I want to take advantage of the lighting to show my best features to their best advantage.

More importantly, I haven't even decided which outfit or costume to wear.  Do I want to go for the glitzy number, the discreet one (on the grounds that less is more)? And what accessories should I choose – the high heels, the platforms, the fascinator or what?  Is there even a PhD student or thesis outfit or costume that can be the starting point for a striptease?

I’m going to ponder on this over the next few weeks.  I’ll post any ideas that I find or come up with.

Chugging along .............

It's been some time since I posted anything here. And the PhD tweetchat on 4 April about blogging about your research has prodded me into doing something about it.

I'm making slow progress on my PhD - chugging along. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was getting frustrated, even stuck that I couldn't find the hook or real focus for my research. Yes, I had a working title, and the concept that I wanted to explore and try to define. I could talk about the broad scope of what I researching until my listener ((it was usually one if I was lucky) got bored. But if you asked what I was going to interview people about, I'd wave my hands around and try to look nonchalant and as if I knew what I was doing. 

I was waiting to find the theory or conceptual model that I could apply that would give me a ‘ha ha’ moment, and away I’d go. And then one evening I was writing up my PhD log (my research diary where I explore ideas), looking at words on the screen and suddenly I realised that the focus was obvious, and it was in front of me.  It had been all the time.  And when I shared this ‘revelation’ with my PhD buddy, she mentioned something and I realised that she’d given me my third research question. 

So this has given my reading a fresh impetus or focus.  And now I going in the deep end to start writing the first section of my literature review or at least try to write first draft.  So I’ve read Patrick Dunleavy’s book on “How to Author a PhD” (and I highly recommend it) about constructing chapters and how long each one should be.  I estimate that I need to come up with 8,000 words, and with 4 main sections/areas to explore that roughly follow my research questions, I need to come up with about 2,000 words on this first section.  I’ve sorted my notes and I’ve worked out the subheadings (below the section heading) and I need to make a start – and I will tomorrow.  I’ve also plenty of material for one of the other main sections.  Once I’ve written a first draft of the first section, then I need to go back and do some more reading. What is making it harder is that I’ve received my marks on my research methods coursework, and I did better than I expected.  So it’s set a kind of benchmark that I’m not sure that I can live up to.

I’m starting to think about a possible pilot study and applying for ethics approval.  I'm also looking at possible software for mixed methods research. I don’t have the time to learn how to use both NVivo and SPSS, which the University provide free of charge to students.  I’m looking at Dedoose, a web-based package and also QDA Miner. I’ve also worked out a draft agenda for the next meeting with my supervisor later this month. 
All of this is going on at a time of major life changes in moving from full-time working to part-time (2 days a week).  So plenty of stress in adapting. 

And yes, it is tiring and challenging, and exciting and mind stretching - all at the same time.

January Dip

The first flush of enthusiasm of doing a PhD and being able to tell the world that I’m a proper researcher seem to be wearing off a little.  The realisation is starting to dawn that this is going to a slow marathon and that I need to work out how to pace myself.   

I’m not sure how and why this is happening. It may be connected with that until now, I’ve been able to set concrete goals and have something focused to work on.  The first phase started on PhD induction day at the beginning of October and last until the research methods course early in December.  Then after the course I had to prepare my coursework and spent time over Christmas and the New Year working on the first draft, ready for submission at the end of next month (February).  I’m meeting with my supervisor early next month when we will review the draft.   I think I know where to edit it (mostly around the research aims and objectives and the research questions).  So I hope that it won’t take more than a couple of days to make the final edits after that.

So in the interim, I’m working through my reading pile and finding that the more I read, the more topics and issues to explore that seem to pop up (and the less that I know).  At this stage it is hard to narrow down the scope of the potential area that I want to research, to find the clues that will give me the ‘aha!’ moment that I suspect that I’m secretly waiting for; to find a theory or model that I can apply to the topic that I’m interested in.  All the bright ideas that I had early on and even until recently seem to have eased off for nowup, and I can’t seem to see the wood for the trees.

I look and gasp at PhDers a year or more ahead of me who seem to have got to grips with and grasped all this philosophical stuff and know whether they are a constructivist, postmodernist or are they are using ethnography, narrative discourse or action research.  They seem so cleverer than me and I'm hesitating to tread my toes in the philosophical sea.  I feel a bad case of impostor syndrome coming on.

Although I’m sort of waving my hand in the air, saying that I want to have written a first draft of my literature review by December 2012, I’m struggling to set interim goals, to identify the steps that will take me from now to then. And this isn’t like me. I’m usually one for being able to work out what I need to do and by when. So it is frustrating to find myself feeling like this.

I’m lucky in that I have a couple of PhD buddies and #PhDchat on Twitter is also fantastic. I love being a PhDer and I'm relishing the opportunity to focus on and explore my own interests and find out about them.  And I realise that what I’m thinking is all part of the process, the ups and downs of doing a PhD. In the meantime I plod on in the nitty gritty of the next article(s), waiting for inspiration.  (And working out how I'm going to come up with an outline for my literature review, going through my notes and working how and where I can slot them in, to give me a start).   

Almost two months in

This posting doesn't offer any  earth shattering insights or revelations about my research. I don't seem to have mastered all the jargon and philosophical concepts that are inherent in doing a doctorate. So it's a lookback at what I've been doing over the last few weeks, since induction on 5 October.

Well, I'm almost two months into my part-time PhD and I'm not sure how much I've achieved.  I seem to be doing lots of searches for references, downloading articles to read later, making lots of notes and not getting any nearer or clearer on how I want to narrow my research field and come up with some research questions.  I've developed some aims and objectives and about 3 different ways that I could approach the broader topic/concept.  I think that this is usual at this stage.

What I am surprised about is how much I need to motivate myself, to try to find ways of developing and defining the next step or task in what I need to do.  Although I'm keeping a log of notes where I record ideas, it seems that it's all as clear as fog.

I'm going on the research methods course at Southampton on 5 December for the week.  While I'm probably doing it a year earlier than I need to, I think that it will offer me concepts and insights around research philosophy and methodology that I will need.  I also have a meeting with my supervisor and I'm relishing the prospect of being a proper student again.  Being able to say that you're a PhD student (even as a mature one) is liberating and also provides part of my identity now.  I've been warned that I'll be buzzing after the course and will need to allow time to reflect and mull over all the new ideas and material.

At the same time, there are some significant life changes happening soon after the New Year and we've been busy preparing for them.   And there'll be more to come.

Catching up

I handed in my MSc dissertation at Manchester Business School (MBS) today.  It doesn't feel like the end of a journey; it's more like a significant staging post and I'm waiting to move on to the next stage (of what? you may ask.  Answer: I'm not sure).

Still, I can at least now say that I've completed and submitted a small piece of original research and take credit for it.  And I've also proved that I can write, deliver to time and grit my teeth to get it done.

I've also got some material to use in presentations, something original or different to talk about.  I'm 'legitimate' in academic eyes. I also know that I'm looking at a new area, an intersection of other disciplines/subjects.  

So where and what now:  pursuing background reading on research methods for my PhD (which I start in September), also try to define my broad research area(s) and some concepts around it.

And to face reality:  I become a diamond just before Christmas and I'm hoping that I'll graduate as well.  So why am I taking on a PhD?  Because I want to, to establish and demonstrate (or prove?) my academic and intellectual credentials, to keep my brain occupied (to ward possible old age dementia which seems to run in the family), to ward to depression.  Having goals and deadlines gives me something to focus on, keeps me interested. And most of all it's about writing, having a broad framework in which I have an opportunity to explore, read and conjure up something new, to make a contribution to knowledge.  And most of all to make a dream that I've long had, since I had any inkling that I had any intellectual capacity and aspirations, to earn the designation 'Dr'.

Musings - 21 March

In between things

I'm a sculptor, not quite sure what
I'm creating or what
the purpose is

All I know is that I have
the raw materials
and they need
shaping, impersonal though
they are at
first

the material needs my
imprint, my effort
my heart and head

It is painful being a sculptor
and it doesn't come easily
I try to avoid
getting down to work
getting my hands dirty 
Getting embroiled

And yet in my heart I know
That the result will be worth
So much more than the
Pain of childbirth

Ah but I can procrastinate for GB
Twitter, Amazon galore, then email,
And still I hesitate
To dip a toe in
Even the tomato clock isn’t
Tempting me

It’s so obvious
I have the materials in front of
Me
Cutting and scraping, smoothing and soothing,
moving things around from A to Z
and all I have to do
Is switch on ‘track changes’
And an editing I will go
On the latest draft
Of my words

Ah, but I don’t want to do this