All entries for Saturday 06 October 2018

October 06, 2018

The Fifth And Final Year Of The Ph.D.!

The fifth and final year of the Ph.D. is now underway! All plans lead towards the submission of the thesis next September, the VIVA defence a few weeks or months following the submission, and the production of more research papers. I have every desire to publish my work following the thesis and where possible, before the submission of the thesis. I have every desire as well to develop a book proposal and have this accepted by an academic publisher: I’m leaning towards the idea of converting my thesis into a book format. I have ideas of what I might like to cover.

I look forward to the coming year, a year that shall academically challenge, excite, scare, and push me and develop me further as an academic researcher. There is always much more to learn, but I am excited because after the many months of experimenting with different analytical approaches to the data, I feel that I am starting to put together a workable plan of data analysis. I feel excited because I can observe continuous development of my understanding of the phenomenon and the data that represents it. This has been achieved through continuous detailing and elaborating of my ontological and epistemological beliefs, and continuous elaborations of the way in which these link with the methodological approach and the methods of data analysis. As I begin to further develop my approach to analysing the data, these elaborations shall no doubt become more detailed and comprehensive.

But I also feel challenged and slightly nervous at the fact that this is the final year and I still feel like I have a lot of analytical work to do, even though I feel like I have already completed a significant amount. Another concern is the simple consideration of the workability of what I shall ultimately develop, and whether or not I’ll actually get the Ph.D. but those thoughts are probably common among a large number of people working towards their Ph.Ds. That said, I do feel more confident with the approaches that I am developing compared to what I was trying to achieve a couple of years ago and even a few months ago.

My understanding of my own epistemology and the way that my beliefs link with methodological approaches and the data analysis methods have altered over the years of thinking about them and experimenting with them. The significant time spent thinking about different philosophical orientations, methodological approaches and experimenting with different analytical methods have been beneficial. This is leading to a thesis chapter that shall include comparisons between different epistemological orientations, methodological concerns and data analysis methods, where they shall be critiqued and evaluated with regards to their effectiveness of exploring the particular type of data in relation to the research questions. It gives me the opportunity not only to write a thesis that provides new knowledge pertaining to the understanding of the phenomena, but also new knowledge with regards to methods and approaches that can be used to explore the phenomena represented as a particular type of text.

Despite these alterations there have been a couple of constants that have remained throughout the research so far: the idea that there is something real independent of our conceptions and beliefs about that something in the social world, and also the appreciation of and desire to adopt a coding and categorisation approach. Coding and categorisation of the data leads to the development of categories and themes, which can be used for further analysis depending on the aims and objectives of the research. Coding and categorising are considered to be the fundamental aspects of qualitative research, and can be a key element of mixed methods research. Qualitative research is dominated by text based resources of different forms and types, which, I am going to argue, can provide different types of knowledge and understanding of a phenomenon. Depending on one’s theoretical and philosophical orientation, one shall perceive the texts in different ways, and place different emphases and meanings upon the text in order to understand the text in various ways related to the phenomena in order to answer the research questions. Coding and categorising, as well as thematic analysing, the data is the key means of capturing the meaning of particular events, actions, and activities either implicitly or explicitly stated in the text. That is essentially qualitative research in a nutshell though, obviously, qualitative research is much more complex than that.

It is a journey, and it’s a journey of constant wonder, awe, inspiration, development, innovation and invention. It’s a journey of challenges, excitement, of emotion, of being inspired, of inspiring others, and it’s a journey that is unique to you and to you alone.

It has been an incredible journey, and it’s nowhere near finished yet! Sometimes I feel that I am really only just beginning: that a real “end” does not necessarily exist, therefore, this idea of “finishing” a Ph.D. is quite an interesting concept. What is it you are actually finishing? Are you finishing the Ph.D. research course? Yes, you are! But are you actually finishing your research? Is that it? Is it done? What about all the ideas that you have developed during the time on your Ph.D. that you had not had the time to implement or develop further? Or what was considered irrelevant at the time but you might be able to think of contexts where they are more relevant? Does your thesis really represent all that your research could be, has been, might be, and should be? You might complete the Ph.D. course, but in reality your own research has only just begun!

Thanks for reading!

‘Till next time!