my research journey: reliable routes, untried tributaries

Research Poem

Marilyn Long is currently undertaking a doctorial degree with the Open University exploring: ‘Autistic students and online higher education: an investigation into equity and inclusion within a non-autistic majority group paradigm’

Photo by Kağan Karatay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-walking-in-tunnel-25051324/

PGR Blogger editorial team discussed this contribution over several weeks before publishing. It does not fit in with the format of our usual posts – there are no refences and, well – it’s a poem. But it is clearly engaging with the doctoral / research journey. We liked hearing Marilyn’s voice in the literal as well as figurative sense. We felt that the poem highlighted the anxieties experienced by so many PGRs and academics (seasoned and emerging) about the value of their contribution. Academic self worth. Amidst the emotionality of these thoughts is a diagnosis of autism and the experience of being autistic in an environment dominated by neurotypicals. This is a densely packed poem which inspired unexpected depths of thought and discussion.

my research journey: reliable routes, untried tributaries

Please click on the link for access

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F_6dp6DeBhjgbzB8FjzofL8umUKQ7NLB/view?usp=sharing

Poem by Marilyn Long.

I am a Year 3 doctoral research student in the WELS Faculty, Institute of Educational Technology. The focus of my investigation is equitable and inclusive provision and support for autistic students in HE, underpinned by the premise that the online education platform has potential to maximise autistic student potential. I am working with autistic students and staff who are allies of this student group, and am passionate about my role as an autistic researcher and as an OU Accessibility Champion Advocate. In the 1980s I gained my B.Ed (Hons) degree and worked as a Primary school teacher, with responsibility as Early Years Co-ordinator and Staff Development Manager. I have also been awarded the MA in English Literature and MA in Online Education, both from the OU.

21st May 2024

Defending my work or being defensive?

Photo by Zen Chung: https://www.pexels.com/

I recently practised a presentation in front of my daughter; I’d asked her to say what she thought. She commented: “I think you should begin by explaining what you are doing.” I replied abruptly that no, I wanted this to emerge as I talked.

“It’s confusing.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, if you’re not going to take any notice of what I think, I’m going.” She went.

The boundary between defending my ideas and taking on board constructive criticism constructively is one I have needed to learn to identify along my research journey. I recognise a similar uncertainty between defending and being defensive amongst some students as I provide feedback on their assessed writing.

A particular student on a first-level English language module was doing very well, gaining distinctions for almost all assignments, but they questioned most of the minimal (in my view) criticisms within my written feedback. I realised their persistent questioning resulted from an assumption that I had misunderstood their intentions; therefore, they felt they needed to explain their rationale whilst not contesting my grading of their finished assignment. Their questioning was the result of a concern for mutual understanding; yet, for a student achieving consistently in the nineties, this could be seen as defensive.

I consider that this need to explain, to discuss, and for dialogue with an assessor/evaluator/supervisor/mentor is crucial in our feedback processes at all academic levels. As tutors, I think that we need to recognise the inherent power of our evaluative comments. Criticism – especially that which is not mitigated by dialogue – was shown to have a powerful impact amongst students in my research into multiple viewpoints around feedback practices, with one tutor commenting that a lot of students “see the feedback as a list of errors”. Young (2010), researching self-esteem and mature students’ feelings on assignment feedback, reports that feedback comments affected some students’ “whole sense of self” (page 409). Young’s article is entitled aptly, “I Might as Well Give Up”.

However, a student, too, can be viewed as having inherent power within a different feedback context, such as when completing formal evaluations of their tutor’s practice. Macfadyen et al. (2016:821), in their multi-level analysis of the evaluation of teaching by students, note the extent of the rapid “emotional debate” that student evaluation evokes. Indeed, an experienced tutor in my research commented that a student’s criticism of their tutoring “sticks in your mind…and you can’t get rid of”. No talkback no dialogue, means the opportunity for both defending and mutual understanding is lost, and the negativity “sticks”.

Therefore, in attempting to identify a boundary between defending my own work and being defensive, my emerging recommendations to myself are twofold. Firstly, allow time to digest evaluative comments, re-read, and attempt to understand where the other is coming from. Secondly, take any opportunity to engage in dialogue with the other – via whatever medium is available – to continually strive towards mutual understanding.

My daughter was right about my presentation. My way was confusing. I had not taken time to listen to the listener, my audience, to acknowledge their opinion and allow it to negotiate with my own. If I had, I might have had the opportunity for an ongoing dialogue to defend my own rationale whilst not shutting out defensively the view of the other.

This value of the joint construction of meaning is explained by Halasek (1999) in her book, A Pedagogy of Possibility. Halasek presents a perspective on composition studies which adopts Bakhtin’s concept of the dialogic, seeing the relationship between participants in an evaluative process as a constant search for meaning. Halasek echoes Bakhtin’s emphasis on the importance of the audience, that “through the discourse, the audience constructs the author” (page 62).

However, that opportunity to think then respond, question, and discuss is sometimes unavailable – perhaps following a final, summative assessment, feedback on an article submitted for publication or a formal complaint or evaluation, as in the example above. In such cases, when an opportunity for dialogue with the evaluator who possesses inherent power is shut off, how is the boundary between being defensive and defending our work and ideas to be navigated? Young (see above) finds that variations in reactions to tutor feedback are linked to self-esteem. So, is acknowledgement and moving forward – despite the inevitability of undefended, one-way criticism – perhaps what we mean by having academic confidence?

I have been an Associate Lecturer at the Open University since 2002, tutoring mainly English language modules. I live in Stourbridge in the West Midlands with my husband, two adult children and three Romanian rescue (street) dogs. My recent EdD and my current research interests concern the multiple perspectives around feedback practices around assessed writing in HE. This is my first venture into blogging, and I am looking forward to this creative space, where colleagues can share, debate, and discuss issues arising around their research.

4th March 20244th March 2024

Self-reflecting on approaches to self-reflection.

As an experienced social worker and lecturer in social work education, I am very comfortable with the requirement of both self-reflection (asking thoughtful questions about self) and reflexivity (asking thoughtful questions about self and others) (Finlay in Kalu 2019:97). Indeed, to some degree the process of considering my practice and how it impacts others feels like a skill that is built-in to who I am – I am a deep thinker who considers what something might mean for me or someone else.

Problem: the risk of a tick-box approach to self-reflection using known theories

Due to the familiarity of self-reflection, I was blasé about what it would mean for myself as a researcher. The requirement didn’t faze me; it all seemed routine because I have practised and taught it many times! Donald Schön talks about reflection ‘in-action’ and ‘on-action’, and reflection ‘for-action’ has been added more recently. I was happy to engage in this reflective process – before, during and after my research.

Kolb’s model provides a helpful reflective cycle which moves from concrete experience, reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation to active experimentation (Kolb 1984). Yet, often, students inaccurately apply this model to their practice; they aren’t specific enough with the experience and then spill off in different directions, possibly because they have more to say than the confinements of this logical model. Neither practice nor research is neatly cyclical, and a more honest illustration of self-reflection might be a page of colourful scribble or a tangled ball of wool.

My preference is to use Gibbs’ reflective model (1998). Although still cyclical, it points explicitly to considering personal feelings as a discreet element, and it is accessible and straightforward: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. However, these approaches didn’t inspire me. Therefore, in my methodology section, I felt I was simply responding to a requirement to cover these topic areas rather than investing in the process. That is until I found Peshkin…

Solution: an alternative approach to self-reflection

Peshkin’s article is worth a read (Peshkin 1988). He explains how he, as a researcher, could personally impact the research process and outcomes in different ways and moments. He documents his ‘subjectivity audit’ and coins the term ‘Subjective-I’ to describe how different elements of his ‘self’ impacted his research (Simons 2009: 81).

I allowed my self-reflection to be guided by Peshkin: to look for the ‘warm and cool spots, the emergence of positive and negative feelings’ (Peshkin 1988: 18) and to honestly connect with my personal qualities which may have the capacity to ‘filter, skew, shape, block, transform, construe and misconstrue what transpires from the outset of a research project to its culmination in a written statement’ (Peshkin 1988: 17). This approach seemed simple and honest:

Embrace the gut reaction and follow the physical sensations to locate positive and negative feelings;
Consider what these feelings might mean for me as the researcher;
Consider what these subjective elements might mean for my research process, participants, and outcomes.

Solution: examples of Subjective-I’s in practice

Two articles assisted my understanding of Peshkin’s approach to reflexivity, particularly as a practitioner-researcher. As a physiotherapist researcher, Kalu shares his ‘multicultural-I’, ‘holistic-I’ and ‘professional-advocates-I’ (Kalu 201). His article is helpful because he considers his research interest, theoretical approach and research question (Kalu 2019: 99). Secondly, Bradbury-Jones et al. (2009) present a collaborative study between lecturer and nursing students, providing excerpts from student reflective diaries which include illustrations explaining the ‘angry-I’, ‘impatient-I’, ‘invisible-I’ and ‘passionate-I’.

As a practitioner-researcher planning to offer a series of workshops to social work students to introduce them to a self-help tool called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), this new find appeared as a good fit for my developing research. It allowed me to own my feelings, and I soon had to start my own ‘subjectivity audit’: ‘overwhelmed-I’, ‘responsible-I’, ‘vulnerable-I’, ‘creative-I’, ‘collaborative-I’. Rather than keep a reflective diary, I decided to chronicle my research journey using this audit tool, which I could add to as my research evolved.

“Question: How important is it to align your method of self-reflection with your research topic area and your attributes as a researcher? I am pleased to have come across a process that is a good fit for my research topic and design, but I wouldn’t have consciously thought to look for a sense of alignment.”

Blog written by:

Jo Strang is a Staff Tutor in Social Work at the OU and a second year EdD student. Jo is qualified as a social worker, reflexologist and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) practitioner and has worked in Higher Education as a lecturer since 2010. Her research combines her professional interests and aims to explore social work students’ experiences of learning about EFT, a self-help tool often more easily referred to as ‘acupuncture without needles’. This simple tapping technique can reduce the fight-flight response to situations we experience as challenging and assist in processing a variety of emotions.

27th May 202326th May 2023

Journey or quest, a simple option or ongoing challenge?

I was warned in the initial weeks of my doctoral programme, during induction, that my research title would inevitably change over time. Especially in the first few months. This was reassuring as moving from a research proposal into the serious business of being a postgraduate research (PGR) student is a whole new territory. My original title, and therefore my focus changed massively once I began the literature review process. It followed new directions, took on wider views before returning close to my original plan. I now had fewer travel bags, but each was much heavier.

The role of PGR students is to create their own ‘new certainties’ and make a sound contribution to an existing body of knowledge. But choices need to be made. To seek out new pathways through a familiar landscape, striking out in a new direction? But familiar landscapes may turn out to be well-travelled lanes with few opportunities for new explorations apart from rutted and stony tracks. Or to venture into unknown, unmapped territory where progress may be exacting, even overwhelming.

Choice, problems and implications:

Could the route we take affect how we benefit ourselves as researchers?
Could choosing between familiar or unexplored territory shift the benefit focus from our ‘research’ to ‘ourselves as researchers’?
Developing ourselves as researchers enhances our research abilities.
Developing our research skills improves our standing as researchers.

Is choice dependent on our career path or our research specialism? On our own image of ourselves as researchers? Or our research stakeholders?

Setting out and views from established researchers

Postgraduate research is about action rather than attitude. Its nature is to review current belief or knowledge and to uncover the gaps that will determine our position for new study. But is this realistic? Brunet argues that the journey “has important consequences on a student’s current and future professional life”, (Brunet, 2022, p. 1032), and active journeying towards a professional goal is sufficient. For Leshem the journey is a “transition phase of developing new roles” (Cast, 2003, cited in Lesham, 2020, p. 170), and underscores a fundamental characteristic as “identity construction, rites of passage, tensions and resolutions” (Wisker et al., 2010, quoted in Lesham, 2020, p. 170). It is much more about attitude, building a research identity as the ‘student’ transitions into ‘research student’ and emerges as ‘researcher’.

PGR students have charge of their research because ultimately the prize at journey’s end is theirs. To be accepted into the PhD programme there is an expectation that your title and research questions are decided prior to your ‘upgrade’ assessment. You’ve scoured the literature, submitted your report, and perhaps presented your research to fellow academics before the upgrade viva. My understanding is of a finality, a shutting of the gate to further exploration just as your doctoral journey is confirmed. An expectation to keep to a focus that is largely uninformed at this stage, is a big ask.

Owens, et al. (2019) found that many doctoral students remain unclear about the outcomes from these deciding way-markers and recommend “providing opportunities for the development of a number of personal qualities as well as the professional profile of the students” (Owens, et al., 2019, p. 109).

Where next?

Continuing literature reviews is a doctoral research requirement and over the following two to six years there may be new avenues of exploration and new knowledge in our field. We may have new questions, a new focus.

Perhaps your doctoral journey is towards becoming a professional academic, treating the process as a project in your career development (Brunet, 2022). You’ve maintained your focus, followed the guidebooks, and avoiding unmapped paths. You arrive satisfied, having achieved your quest. You might explore or relax by the pool? Is this enough?

Perhaps your drive for research and to develop yourself personally and professionally is powered by a passion for learning (Mantai, 2019). Taking detours made your journey more challenging yet rewarding. Reaching your destination only leaves much more to explore. Will you be satisfied?

Quest or journey? Answers on a postcard.

As novice researchers is there intrinsic value in a quest that benefits a professional goal? Can a doctoral journey conceived from a desire for new knowledge, sharing insights, and challenging established perceptions succeed?

Should the choice be polarised when, ultimately, the doctoral research goal is to avoid stepping into others’ footprints, to face the challenge of discovery head-on, and to offer inspiration to those who follow?

(Words, 745)

References

Brunet, M. (2022) ‘Conducting a PhD as a project: sharing insights from my doctoral journey’, International journal of managing projects in business, 15(7), pp. 1032–1047. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-08-2021-0212.

Leshem, S. (2020) ‘Identity formations of doctoral students on the route to achieving their doctorate’, Issues in educational research, 30(1), p. 169-182. Available at: https://www.iier.org.au/iier30/leshem.pdf

Mantai, L. (2019) ‘“Feeling more academic now”: Doctoral stories of becoming an academic’, The Australian Educational Researcher (2019) 46:137–153. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-018-0283-x

Owens, A. et al. (2020) ‘Student reflections on doctoral learning: challenges and breakthroughs’, Studies in graduate and postdoctoral education, 11(1), pp. 107–122. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-04-2019-0048

Marilyn Long

I am a first year, full-time PGR student in the IET school. I am an autistic researcher, and my focus is to investigate inclusive provision and support for autistic students in higher education. I first studied with the OU in 1980 and since then gained my B.Ed degree and worked as a Primary school teacher, Early years co-ordinator, and staff development manager. After a gap of almost 20 years I enrolled for PG study with the OU in online and distance education before applying for a place as a PGR student.