Ph.D Update: Late September till 5th October

During the first couple of weeks of returning to my Ph.D. following a summer break, marking the fifth and final year of the Ph.D., I engaged with qualitative methodological literature and continued to develop my philosophical beliefs and methodological approach. After a couple of weeks of reading through appropriate chapters of qualitative methodological textbooks, I have been inspired and fascinated by the fact that I am better able to understand qualitative research concepts and contexts presented compared to three or four years ago. This awareness has enabled me to better explain and argue the relevance of qualitative research for my Ph.D. project and indeed for the general research context and type of data I am exploring. As ever, as always, there is always a lot more to say and what can be said, but I do believe I am at the point where I can produce methodological arguments regarding the relationship between qualitative concepts and the general research context. These ideas can only be further improved and developed as I continue to write the research design chapter.

What is interesting is my developing understanding has occurred not necessarily through constant rereading of the qualitative textbook literature, which can help, but through active engagement with the data, through testing out various methodologies and methods, and documenting their effectiveness and comparisons in their effectiveness and usefulness in exploring the phenomena of interest. Perhaps more specifically and importantly, what has impacted my understanding the most is the active engagement through coding and really exploring the data: breaking data down into segments and giving them meaning (codes) and being able to visualise links between these segments. This has really helped me to understand more what my data is about; to think about the nature and context of the data and its characteristics; to think about the way in which the data represents the phenomenon of interest, and, therefore, has assisted in developing my understanding of the relevance of qualitative methodologies particularly the approach I am developing. It’s not just about active data engagement: you have to be able to provide methodological and philosophical reasoning and justifications of your approach and it has to make logical and reasonable sense. This is what I am continuing to strive and achieve. Not an easy task by all means, it can take a long, long time, but it can happen and you can achieve. You just have to believe!

It is engaging with the data and the phenomenon at an embedded, detailed level that has assisted with that understanding of qualitative concepts and methodology. It is like an evolving relationship: you read the methodology textbooks, you actively engage with the code for a period, and that in turn increases your understanding of the methodological textbooks. Additionally, being actively engaged with the data increases your understanding of the data and the way in which the data represents the phenomenon of interest. I realised that my engagement with the data increased my understanding of the data and its representation, but finding out that it helped significantly in developing my understanding of qualitative textbooks is an interesting observation. It’s impossible to claim to know everything, that is not possible, but in the thesis I can detail the way in which engaging with the data has enabled me to better understand the purposes and objectives of qualitative data, and the way that I can argue that qualitative data could serve another purpose relative to the data and context of my research. Fascinating!

The key message to take away from this blog is, sometimes you just have to jump in and engage with the data. If it takes weeks or months to really understand the data as it has done with me, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you are able to return to the textbooks and be able to better understand the concepts of qualitative research and be able to begin to argue the concepts most relevant to your own research, whilst being able to argue which are not, and perhaps attempt to extend the scope and definitions of qualitative research.
It’s a journey, and it’s a journey of continuous improvement.

Keep going! You can get there! Believe in yourself and your capacity and capability to produce your thesis and promote your research!

Alex Darracott : 14 Oct 2018 22:57 |  Tags: Literature Methodology Qualitative Reflections Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem