All 58 entries tagged Thesis

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) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

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!

Alex Darracott : 06 Oct 2018 20:01 |  Tags: PhD Planning Qualitative Reflections Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current State of Play: Findings Chapters

Within qualitative theses, more so than the research design chapter, the findings chapters are impossible to plan from the beginning because the chapters are derived from the data, and not from existing theoretical constructs. More appropriately perhaps it is best to say that the chapters are the products of well grounded, verified and validated interpretations of what is happening in the data relative to the research questions, and which eventually leads to the development of codes, categories and themes.

The findings chapters have obviously not been planned or structured yet, although I have written and continue to write extensive theoretical notes about what I observe in the data and the way in which different codes are being formed (in the tune of the where, how, when, where, and why questions). Eventually I shall be writing theoretical notes about the development of categories and themes, although in some sense I have begun writing about them because, due to the integrated nature of qualitative research, development of codes, categories and themes are not isolated phases. They are integrative, interconnected phases: as you code the data and observe similarities and differences between similarly coded data segments, you become aware of a potential category or theme. This awareness, therefore, leads to the production of notes about the potential category or theme. The production of these notes continues through every phase and stage of the data analysis through to writing the formal findings chapters.

I am using the plural expression here because it is expected that there shall be multiple chapters, with each chapter referring to a particular theme. Each chapter shall detail what the theme is, the way it has been constructed, its theoretical constructs, and the validation and verification process. This process involves comparing the construction and concepts of the theme to relative, published findings not only to verify and validate the theme but to also discover any possibilities of contributing to existing discussions relative to the theme e.g., through discussing the way that my theme differs from other similarly identified themes. Perhaps this could also present opportunities to merge themes, or to perhaps help towards building a united understanding between similarly defined themes. The creative opportunities are potentially limitless.

Each theme chapter shall also discuss relations with other themes found in the data, eventually leading to a thematic map of the phenomenon of interest, which could be given a separate chapter. I am guessing that either each theme chapter or the thematic map chapter shall additionally contain explanations about the way in which categories (which are a level down from themes) combined to form a theme, as well as the associated codes and data segments.

There are other chapters of the findings being considered and this includes a chapter referring to any quantitative findings and other chapters referring to other aspects of the phenomenon of interest. I am not able to decide for sure on the findings chapters until I have finished with qualitative data analysis (coding scheme, its validation, and the development of categories and themes). It is this aspect that shall drive any other need for further data analysis. I have plans in place, but not able to confirm till I have gone through the qualitative process.

I do aim, however, to have made further substantial process of data analysis and associated writings of the potential findings chapters by Christmas!

Alex Darracott : 06 Sep 2018 18:54 |  Tags: Findings Thematic Analysis Themes Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Currrent State Of Play: The Research Design Chapter

This is the chapter that shall describe, explain, evaluate and critique the development of my new approach (coding scheme) of exploring the phenomenon of interest. The chapter shall also describe and explain the development and application phases of the coding scheme and the way in which categorical and thematic development took place. Therefore, the chapter prior to this deals with a variety of research designs that were tested, whilst this research design chapter deals with the research design that was actually used in the Ph.D. project.

This chapter is a continuous, ongoing and progressive document because it is being written at the same time as data is being analysed. With a quantitative research project the typical process is to write the research design chapter first before carrying out data analysis, but with the qualitative analysis I am finding that I am writing the research design chapter and performing data analysis concurrently. It depends on preferences: some people might like to write their methodological chapters before carrying out the research whilst others might write their chapters afterwards. But with me, I’m writing the chapter as I progress through the phases and stages of data analysis. For me, it makes sense to write about each stage and phase as I encounter each of them because, as I would be engaging with that phase or stage at the time, I can fully elaborate and explain the processes I used within that particular phase or stage.

Because the chapter is work in progress, the structure of the chapter has not been finalised although I have a rough outline of the chapter in place. These include sections that discusses, evaluates, critiques and explores my philosophical beliefs and my personal background (interests, beliefs, experiences, knowledge prior to the Ph.D., etc.), and their possible impact on the development of the coding scheme and categorical and theme development (a process called ‘Researcher Reflexivity’). The outline also includes sections that discuss the methodology and the data collection and analysis methods.

I feel that I have made fair progress with this chapter. I have written lots and lots of notes about my beliefs, experiences, philosophies, my critiques and use of methodology, methods etc. and continue to do so. It’s becoming a matter soon to simply knit these sections together to form the chapter, and work out what I need to develop next. What I am focussing on currently, however, is comprehensively detailing and explaining how I am analysing the data; the phases and stages of data analysis that shall result in the new coding scheme and the identification and development of themes. The writing of this section, obviously, shall continue for as long as data analysis continues.

Lots of editing and rewriting to do, obviously, but I think on the whole I have wrote a considerable amount but shall need to knit the sections together after the data analysis process. That way, I can observe where I need to go next with the research design chapter. Writing the chapter especially the specific data analysis section at the same time as carrying out the data analysis has, however, helped tremendously with documenting with precision and accuracy exactly what I am doing, where, when, how, and why.

Alex Darracott : 06 Sep 2018 18:51 |  Tags: Methodology Philosophy Research Design Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current State Of Play: The Methodology Literature Review

A Ph.D. is a continuous journey of exploration, critique, evaluation and questioning. It is a critical, reflective, evaluative, and analytical engagement with reality, with self-knowledge and understanding, and the knowledge that exists in published literature. If you take the Ph.D. and your research seriously enough, these intellectual investigations can extend beyond the Ph.D.

The key fact to remember is that a Ph.D. does not represent the conclusion of your research, but represents the beginning: it lays the groundwork of your publishing interests, and the disciplinary fields within which you desire to explore and contribute further. It involves the contribution or invention of something new, with potential opportunities to expand upon this contribution and invention through post-doctoral opportunities. Whatever is created during the Ph.D., for example a theory or model, can be situated within different philosophical, theoretical and technological contexts with a variety of different participants. This would lead to evidencing the authenticity, validity, verifiability, transportability, and usefulness of the theory or model. Subsequent explorations beyond the Ph.D. can even lead to amendments and adjustments to your theory or model, and even extensions and specific versions designed for particular contexts and circumstances. This existing journey of research and development is a nuanced experience and you cannot really, fully predict where it shall go with any sense of certainty and accuracy.

With qualitative research in particular, questions and research directions related to the phenomenon of interest can and do change, therefore it can take a long time before you are settled on a particular set of questions and directions. This could be misconceived or misinterpreted as you not knowing what you are doing or that you keep changing your mind flippantly. This is a complete misconception of qualitative research, because when a qualitative researcher changes direction they do so intellectually.

Change to directions and questions come not as a result of hunches or emotions, but as a result of an intellectual engagement with the data, with interpretations of this data, and literature. It takes time to really understand the “layered” existence of data and the many ways in which data could be observed and perceived, and should be observed and perceived in a way that aligns with your broader, general research interests and objectives.

The very essence of engaging with qualitative research is that directions and questions change over time, and if this is intellectually justified, elaborated and explained with each change then you are evidencing and tracking your learning and development. These changes can be justified through these reflections and observations in the thesis. Intellectual justifications, elaborations and explanations are constructed as you deepen your understanding and appreciation of the complexity of the reality that the data represents.

Deepening your understanding of the data arguably occurs if you are given the time to investigate various ways in which data can be analysed and not simply accept the first approach you come across as most suitable just because it has been used most often used in existing empirical literature. The most often used methodology, approach, etc. is not always the most suitable for your own research context. Invest your time in thinking about what is really correct, what isn’t correct, and if any sense of correctness could actually be achieved (without your research project collapsing in on itself and fall into relativism!).

It is through what has been discussed so far that eventually led to the construction of the methodological literature review.

Essentially, this chapter is the narrative of how my research has evolved over the four or five years of thinking about the research issues, experimenting with different analytical methods, experimenting with different philosophical theories, and contemplating and reflecting deeply upon different methodologies. Questions related to these issues are ongoing and will no doubt stretch beyond the Ph.D. (might be important to note unanswered questions in your thesis: that way you can address them at the VIVA examination and also show ambition and commitment to post-doctoral opportunities).

But as it is, this chapter begins to tell the narrative of the development of my approach, the way that my approach differs from others relative to the objectives of research explorations of the phenomenon of interest, and the way that my approach could possibly complement other approaches.

The approach that I am developing did not come to me immediately, nor was the approach based on the first set of ideas and answers that I had when attempting to align research design with research issues and initial research questions. It has taken years of reading existing literature, of comparing and evaluating existing theories and models, of understanding how and where these theories and models have been applied, and of understanding the general context of their application and of critiques that exist regarding their effectiveness and usefulness. Reading and evaluation of these theories are ongoing though more now with the aim of justifying and evidencing the need for the new approach to exploring the phenomenon of interest.

The feature of this chapter is the exploration, comparison, evaluation, and critiquing of the philosophies, methodologies and analytical methods that I have tested against the data, research issues and evolving research questions in order to find the most suitable approach to exploring the phenomenon of interest. Philosophies include realism, constructivism, relativism, interpretivism, and constructionism. Methodologies to be included are mixed methods and qualitative. Analytical methods include a variety of discourse analyses, grounded theory approaches, content analysis, and thematic analysis. From these evaluations and critiques, a picture begins to build that explains the way that my approach to exploring the phenomenon of interest has been constructed. Full elaboration of my approach shall take place in the Research Design chapter.

This is going to be a big chapter, and is a reason why the literature reviews had to be changed to make space!

Alex Darracott : 06 Sep 2018 18:48 |  Tags: Design Litreview Methodology Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current State Of Play: First Literature Review Chapter

A literature review chapter has been dropped whilst the other two planned literature reviews have been completely redesigned and have been given new purposes. I shall discuss the first literature chapter in this blog and in the second, I shall discuss the second literature review chapter.

The changes to the literature review chapters are as a result of greatly expanding the scope and purpose of the research design chapter. I shall discuss the research design chapter in a later blog post, but here it suffices to say that the research design chapter has changed in order to address the need for qualitative research theses to go into much greater detail of methodologies and methods and to explain the role of the researcher’s biography and background knowledge in constructing the interpretations and analysis of data. The process of explaining my role and the way in which my biography has influenced the research findings is known as ‘researcher reflexivity.’ I am currently planning this to be extensive and comprehensive, and, therefore, the literature reviews had to change.

As some of you longer term readers might know, at the beginning of the year I was going to delve into discussions about the relationship between society, culture and Education. These discussions would have paved the way for discussions about technology and their use in society and culture eventually getting round to their use in Education. Some of these discussions are being shifted to the Introduction section to give the research context a wider perspective and therefore have been dropped from the main literature reviews, whilst some of the other planned discussion points have been dropped completely to save space. The topics that were dropped were deemed to be the least relevant topics.

The first literature review, therefore, has been rewritten completely and leans now towards the idea of comparisons. The chapter offers critical evaluations and comparisons of explorations of the phenomenon of interest across different technological contexts. These comparisons are being used to justify the use and appropriateness of this research’s technological context relative to the phenomenon of interest, and the research’s aims, objectives, and outcome intentions. The use of tables is appropriate here, as each table contains details about the findings of relevant comparative, empirical literature. These findings from each table have been and continue to be compared across each table in order to identify patterns, similarities and differences. From these patterns, similarities and differences, comparisons and associated discussions can be made.

Tables are effective at presenting large amounts of empirical information, and efficient at being able to assist with a variety of comparisons and pattern identification within existing literature. The use of tables within the literature review process affords important and extensive learning opportunities including the development of analytical skills through comparing tables and forming observations of data patterns across the tables, and developing synthesis skills that enable the learner to synthesise large amounts of published findings.

Theory is an important topic of discussion in terms of its position and role not just in the research design but also in the position of theoretical discussions in the thesis. My main concern at the moment is, if I discussed, critiqued, evaluated and compared theories in the literature review I would be giving the impression of having a deductive approach. A deductive approach to understanding the phenomenon of interest means that an existing theory or model would be tested against the collected data, therefore requiring extensive examination of existing theories in the literature review. From my understanding, a qualitative approach typically does not use a deductive method and, therefore, testing theories is not an aim of qualitative research.

Instead, qualitative research aims to construct theories, models, schemes or frameworks from the data; or, arguably more precisely, derives from our verified and validated interpretations of what is happening in the data. This would be using an inductive approach, or a retroductive / abductive approach. The discussions of theories, other models etc. shall take place in later chapters, particularly in the findings chapters where a role of each chapter is to verify and validate themes.

The structure of the literature review is complete in terms of the sections and topics that I want to discuss, although the actual content is still work in progress. Where sections need further development, I have used footnotes to inform and remind myself of the direction of section development, for example in terms of developing ideas, developing arguments, and the way to increase section cohesion, consistency and coherence. A handy tip here, therefore, is to use footnotes to document any thoughts or ideas that you might have to push the development of a section further. If, for example, a particular sentence or paragraph captured a thought that I want to develop further, I would describe such development opportunities in the associated footnote. Using footnotes in this way makes the draft cleaner and more coherent, as well as making everything flow more logically and clearly, and helps to clearly indicate which idea is to be specifically improved or developed in a way that had been described in the footnote.

The content is still work in progress but I am happier with the structure and the way it is now panning out.

That’s the latest updates for the first literature review chapter!

Alex Darracott : 05 Sep 2018 21:59 |  Tags: Litmanagement Litreview Planning Reflections Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current State Of Play: Thesis Structure

I have altered the thesis structure several times relative to the research design. I have come to understand over the years that research design is not driven by the thesis: the thesis, its structure, its content and layout is guided by the research design. Quantitative, Mixed Methods and Qualitative research designs all influence the structure and ordering of the thesis in various ways.

I have thought about Mixed Methods and Qualitative theses given that I have been fascinated by both research designs. But now I am focussed on qualitative as the main component of the research, with quantitative analysis involved as deemed necessary, but as a smaller component that complements the qualitative.

It could almost be argued that in some way, quantitative data shall be embedded in a bigger qualitative project in order to provide a broader and more detailed picture of what is happening with the phenomenon of interest within the research context. I am not sure if this could be classed as mixed methods though. I would call it multi-method, because the collected data would serve both quantitative and qualitative and the quantitative analysis would be based on qualitative findings. Multi-method means multiple methods of, for example, data analysis used in the same methodological paradigm, in this case qualitative. It could still be a mixed methods approach but an embedded approach, but I shall have to think about this more. That said though, Mixed Methods is a continuously evolving methodological field with continuous potential for new contributions of creativity, innovation, possibility and lots of debates. Either way, the qualitative provides the framework within which the thesis is being developed, given that the qualitative side of the Ph.D. is considered the largest aspect.

Anyway, the the following thesis structure is now in place:

Introduction: this is going to be a chapter that shall be formally written last. This chapter shall simply introduce the research problem, research context, research issues, the need and value of the research, the research questions, research aims and objectives, research outcomes, and who the research is intending to benefit.

Literature Review, Setting The Scene: this chapter sets the scene and the key outcome of this chapter is to justify why a particular technological context is being used relative to the problems, questions etc. introduced in the introductory chapter. This involves evaluating and comparing each context relative to the phenomenon of interest. I am also attempting to engage with discussion and debate about terminology, and to provide my own definitions of different terms relative to the technological context, and attempt to address ambiguity and conflation.

Methodology Literature Review: this is a critical and analytical evaluation and comparison of different philosophies, theories, coding schemes, methodologies, and methods used to explore the phenomenon of interest within contexts very similar to the Ph.D. research. Additionally, the chapter shall report on the testing, evaluation, comparisons and critiques of different research methods in order to justify the most suitable approach to the research project. The actual approach used for the research project shall be described, explained, evaluated, critiqued and tested in the research design chapter.

Research Design: provides a full elaboration the research design phases including full details on the philosophies, methodology, methods and approaches that made up the design. The chapter shall also consist of design evaluations and shall comprehensively relate every part of the design to the research context, issues, problems, outcomes and questions. There shall also be a full discussion on the way in which the coding scheme and the themes were developed, tested, verified, clarified and validated.

Following the design there shall be chapters dedicated to discussing the coding scheme in more detail, as well as discussing identified categories and themes, and their interrelationships. Also as and where necessary there shall be chapters associated with thematic maps, and any quantitative analysis that takes place. It’s difficult to plan these chapters out though, because the chapter structure and content emerges from the data and not emerge from pre-existing theories and models. Hence, the structure and content of these later chapters are continuously emerging from the data analysis. There shall also be a chapter or a section of a chapter revolving around the application of theory in practice.

That’s the thesis at this time! Next are blog posts that cover a couple of the initial thesis chapters: the literature reviews.

Alex Darracott : 05 Sep 2018 21:39 |  Tags: Design Qualitative Reflections Thesis Thesis Structure |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Current State Of Play: General Observations

Literature Review

Since writing the previous blog post back in early August, I have focussed on restructuring and rewriting the literature review sections, and have adjusted the scope of the literature as well as collected and analysed further literature. Thoughts and arguments within the literature review have been reconstructed and extended.

The literature review now has a beginning, middle and concluding structure, and this is the structure I intend to use for each chapter though written in a way that the introduction connects with the conclusion of the previous chapter, and the conclusion section leads into the introduction of the next chapter. All the sections in the literature review are interconnected: they might refer to different topics, but these topics are related in a way that logically, coherently, consistently and cohesively constructs thoughts, ideas, arguments and perspectives.

Unsurprisingly, as with everything at postgraduate level it is not quite black and white. With all Ph.D. theses, every chapter should also be referencing the first chapter: the introduction, where the research context, issues, problems and questions shall be presented and discussed. Referencing the first chapter gives each chapter situatedness, context, a framework for the chapter discussions, and a guide whilst allowing for open mindedness, flexibility, originality, creativity and innovation. Each chapter, therefore, needs to state the way in which it addresses research problems, context, purposes or questions, or a mixture if necessary.

With qualitative research where themes are to be developed, each chapter is related to each identified theme. The theme chapters are expected to adopt some sort of network structure where every chapter relates to and cross references each other. I shall probably discuss this more at a later time.

Effectively, the literature review has been completed for now! The next round of edits shall take place before Christmas or at some point early next year.

Thesis Structure

The thesis has been structured to an extent. I say to an extent because it is impossible to plan chapters related to findings within a qualitative research project because essentially the structure and content of these chapters are led by observations in the data and the framework and themes that emerge from the data. The structure leans toward the qualitative nature of thesis structure production, as shall be discussed more in a future blog post.

Research Design

Unchanged at the philosophical level (essentially, moderate realism ontology with an interpretivist epistemology), though the methodology has changed from mixed methods, to grounded theory, and to now more general qualitative methodology with the potential for some quantitative data to be embedded within it. The quantitative data would be used to complement and support the qualitative and perhaps be used to further evidence some of the claims made from the qualitative observations and thematic development.

Regardless of the quantitative, it is the qualitative that drives and dictates the research and, therefore, drives and dictates the structure of the thesis.

Data analysis appears to be leaning towards a mixture of concepts and processes from thematic analysis (particularly the aspect on developing themes), grounded theory (such as constant comparisons, maximising variance, open coding features, and theoretical sampling), and retroductive / abductive reasoning. The relationship between these approaches and the way they have been and are going to be used shall be explained in the thesis and discussed on here when appropriate.

Alex Darracott : 05 Sep 2018 21:24 |  Tags: Design Litreview Reflections Research Design Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ph.D Update: Thoughts About The Literature Review And Thesis

My gosh, that was a manic week! Focussed on the rewriting and restructuring of the literature review and the thesis more generally. Through the chaos and deep thinking of the new role of the literature review, and dealing with the, at times, feelings of being overwhelmed (trust me, I’d rather be overwhelmed with ideas than be underwhelmed with no ideas), clarity has just started to come through.

I feel more confident and happier now with the new and continuously developing structure of the literature review and the thesis more generally. I feel that now I am beginning to structure the thesis that reflects the nature of a thematic research design, and my Ph.D. experience so far in general. I have discussed the thematic research design in some detail in previous blog posts.

If I were to offer a single word that characterises the new structure of the thesis, it would be: “comparisons.”

I have learnt that to attempt to write as a high calibre thesis as possible, it is not just about critiques, reflections, situating your own research, presenting and evaluating research design and presenting and discussing findings and their applications (in a nutshell) but it’s also about comparisons. By this, I mean, using my experiences of thinking about different philosophies, of using different methodologies and methods as a basis of writing reflective, reflexive and critical comparisons that build towards philosophical and methodological arguments for the research design.

Use the comparisons as a basis upon which critical and reflective thought can be developed, along with where you can clearly evidence, present, demonstrate and show progress in your understanding and deepening knowledge and skills as a researcher.

This is something that has struck me a while ago, particularly when I understood the value of comparing different methods and methodologies. The value lies in using the thesis as a means of charting, highlighting and documenting the development of how my understanding has developed over the years.

A thesis in this sense might, among its many roles, play the role of a historical document. It could be considered a document that guides the reader through how you have come to your philosophical, methodological, and methods selections, and the justifications and arguments that you present, through examining and analysing the comparisons that have taken place.

These comparisons could be at the philosophical level, methodological level, methods level, data source level, and also comparing different types of findings the same phenomena within different types of literature.

It is no wonder I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed……..

But that’s the way a Ph.D. is and that’s the way I like to progress!

What of the thesis now? I have now divided the thesis into two main parts. The first part deals with the introduction chapter and the literature review chapter and combined I am allocating around 30,000 words. My literature review, when all the notes I have dotted around are combined, comes to about 20,000 words but this is in the process of being completely rewritten and restructured with a new purpose and new functions for my research project. This is work in progress and I will probably talk a little more about this soon. It suffices to say that in order to make way for a lot of new ideas and inclusions I am dropping a fair number of planned discussions that I consider are no longer relevant or needed for understanding my research.

During the past week, and shall be continued for a while, I have been going through the literature review chapters and notes dotted around to decide what I am going to keep, to decided what is to be kept and amended, and to restructure in order to add in new, relevant discussion points.

Sometimes when writing the literature review it is just a case of trying out different presentation approaches e.g., tables, in order to save space. Tables are really useful because they can help to cut down on repeatable information and can help present information more concisely but with the same meaning; or even enhanced, depending on the way the table is constructed.

The other 50,000 words of the thesis represent the real meat and beast of the thesis. I have expanded this section by about 15,000 words in order to accommodate new chapter ideas. Working out the structure, and obviously the content, is work in progress. Currently though, the idea is to write: a methodology based literature review (this would involve the comparison and critique of different coding schemes and approaches the phenomenon of interest ); the comparisons between different approaches to analysing the same type of data at the philosophical, methodological and methods level; the Ph.D. research design itself, and then chapters and sections referring to different themes, the coding scheme itself, and its application in learning contexts. Not to mention the inclusion of more critiques of literature within certain parts in order to verify and validate the developing themes and to discuss the way that existing published themes can be developed further.

This big section of the thesis came about from many reasons, some of which occurred as I began to write about my methodology. These reason include: the need to be reflexive, the need to fully and elaborately document the way in which the new coding scheme is being developed, the way in which phenomenon data can be explored, and also the need to include methods of verifying and validating themes. There are many other reasons but these are the core reasons. I shall talk about each of them in time!

Everything is a work in progress. Sometimes you might feel completely overwhelmed but as I said earlier it is better to be overwhelmed with continuingly new, developing ideas than be underwhelmed with no ideas at all. Keep writing, keep experimenting, keep thinking, and keep going!

‘till next time!

Alex Darracott : 10 Aug 2018 22:30 |  Tags: Litreview Reflections Thesis Writing |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ph.D. Update: Research Design And Approach Now Certain!

The main output of my research shall now be a new coding scheme designed and developed to assist with the analysis of social learning processes, with the potential to move towards contributing thematic, conceptual and possible theoretical understanding of the phenomena of interest. The development process of this coding scheme (the data analysis process) has been inspired by writers of thematic analysis and grounded theory. The coding scheme’s development process (the actual development of the coding scheme) questions some aspects of existing ways in which to develop coding schemes. Sub stages of development are being proposed and shall possibly continue to be proposed as I go through the phases of analysis.

That, folks, is basically the nutshell take away conclusion of the past couple of weeks where I have completed another full round of coding the data and taking a break from coding in order to deeply reflect on my research purpose, objectives, direction, and research design. Phew! There is clarity in the world of organised chaos!

Reflecting on my journey of the Ph.D. so far, I have experimented with and thought about various types of analytical approaches related to exploring the phenomenon of interest, and have thought deeply about the type of data source from a philosophical perspective. E.g., what can I know about the phenomenon from this type of data source? In what way is this data source different to other data sources regarding what can be known? What knowledge can potentially be revealed about the phenomenon from this data source? What can I use to extract this knowledge from this data source? What are the differences between different methods of extracting knowledge both in general and related to the data source? What would different methodologies and methods tell me? What best fits the research questions, research problem, research objectives, and research context in general? In what way can my philosophical beliefs determine what I can know? What are the limits of my knowing? What limits are placed upon my knowing? Do I need to overcome these limits to know more? If so, in what way could this be achieved? And so on and so on.

All these questions have led to various different answers e.g., through comparing different methods and methodologies regarding the questions of what I can know, what can be known, and what can be known and revealed from the data source about the phenomenon of interest. And this I shall be explaining and exploring in great detail in the thesis!

When you are developing a coding scheme, establishing a time frame can be difficult. You might have identified the stages and sub stages of coding scheme development, but it’s fairly impossible to determine a time frame. This is because developing codes from the actual data, developing categories from the codes, developing themes from the categories (this is a broad, typical process of coding scheme development), and writing the methodology chapter are all performed pretty much concurrently.

As you are thinking about the codes that reflect different events and activities of your data, you are thinking about the ways in which similar coded data could be categorised. In turn, you begin to think more abstractly and more theoretically about the way in which categories can be related and placed defined into themes. Themes are the broadest, most abstract, and most theoretical constructions of the coding process, and they explain the data as a whole related to the phenomenon of interest and the way in which you want to explore the phenomenon of interest.

As you can therefore imagine, coding data with the intentions of developing categories and / or themes is not a linear process. Not to mention, every single stage involves writing lots of theoretical memos, which capture your thoughts, theories, assumptions, hypotheses, questions, queries and ponderings of the data, code, category, or theme (and relations within and between codes, categories, and themes).

As a result of all of what I have discussed, the focus of the thesis on the latter chapters (the methodology chapters and the subsequent chapters dealing with discussions of what has been found) is on the qualitative process of coding, category development, and thematic development. At a rough guess this might come anywhere between thirty thousand to forty thousand words of the thesis though perhaps more. I shall talk about the process of writing a qualitative thesis within the context of developing coding schemes in future blog posts.

The research, therefore, has moved away from generating a new theory (as was proposed originally via the use of Grounded Theory) towards developing a new coding scheme, with the intentions of developing and extending existing themes of understanding, and create where necessary new themes, regarding the phenomenon of interest.

The qualitative research field is additionally awash with limitless debates about the ontological, epistemological and methodological levels of interacting with qualitative methods and qualitative approaches. I am not kidding here: recently I have come across many different perspectives and arguments regarding a single approach to sampling for qualitative research, and have also come across many, many arguments for and against and perspectives on qualitative control criteria particularly around the terms “validity,” “reliability,” and, “generalisability.”

I intend on engaging with debates and discussions as every level and every stage of qualitative research.

And that, folks, is what happened in a nutshell during the past couple of weeks since the previous update!

‘till next time!

Alex Darracott : 03 Aug 2018 21:25 |  Tags: Categories Coding Design Methodology Thematic Analysis Themes Thesis |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem