Making sense of what i've read

Just a quicky...there are some developments in the PhD, but lecturing full time and running around trying to keep modules and programmes running and working effectively means i've been neglecting my PhD and my blog.

However, i have been trying to find out a way of making better sense of what i've been reading and the picture to the right is hopefully the start of that process. I promised my supervisors something in October - let's just hope that i can deliver something before we get into December!

Books are kept on a shelf... but what is a shelf?

I realise it's been a very quiet couple of months on this blog, so my apologies first of all for not keeping to the First Law of Blogging - update regularly.... I must admit i've found it pretty hard going and i've not been that inspired by the whole process recently. But that doesn't mean i've been sitting idly doing nothing. I may not have written up brilliant chapters on theoretical perspectives, or made as much "progress" as i thought i was going to a few months back, but i have been doing some things.

Firstly, i've been talking to people - learned types who know stuff about my research topic: senior doctors/medical educators, both of the champion and sceptic variety, doctor-managers, doctor-leaders and trainee managers who work closely with doctors and they've given me some brilliant insights into this world.

Secondly, i have been reading a lot (and i mean a gargantuan amount about management research approaches/strategies/methodologies etc etc), moving effortlessly between confusion, enlightenment and confusion again, whilst i try to work out the significance of the much vaunted "-ologies" to my project. So, today, for the first time, i am going to share with you where i think i'm at. It won't appear as much of a breakthrough to you as it does to me, but at least it means i can look back at this blog in months to come and say "yep, that was where i was then..."

I will be doing ethnographic research, asking doctors of various ilks about a particular curriculum development. I will watch them at work - as well as asking them irritating questions and i will be trying to work out what they say and whether they mean it, without trying to cast any aspersions as to their veracity, and what the hell difference it makes to them as doctors, people, learners and educators. My epistemology is essentially a social constructionist one (but please don't ask me to explain that to you if you stop me in the corridor, i'll act nervously and start shaking) and my ontology is pragmatic realism....exactly!

That brings me to the book/shelf thing. As far as i'm concerned, there are things called books and mankind has worked out a rather neat way of storing them and/or showing them off on things we call shelves. They exist and most folk call them by those names. But as to how we decide to use them for that purpose or not is really up for grabs. We put pot plants on them, or photos; we organise them so that we can see at any one time how many library books we've borrowed (or not). They might also be put into our offices and workplaces to help organise us, to constrain us, to restrict us or for many other reasons; it's all a matter of how we interact with them. Now if only i'd have decided to do a PhD in shelving....

The Joke About The Long Face (With Apologies To Horses And Bar Tenders)

A part-time research student walks into a bar. The barman says, "Why the long face?" The PTRS replies, "Aargh, you know, i'm suffering from need-more-time-for-my-PhD-guilt." And so the joke goes. Since this blog is about my experience of doing a PhD, it's only fair that balance is strived for in my posts. So whilst i am over the medium and long term incredibly excited about my research and how much better it makes me as an academic (which i truly believe is the case), i am currently very frustrated about my short term progress. I had an absolutely brilliant supervision about three weeks ago and since then i have achieved bugger all.

Why? Here goes... marking, picking up moderating for others due to circumstances no one would wish for, HEA teaching development bid, paper on problem-based learning for in-house journal, new module development for external / EIG clients x 2, current module management for external clients, dissertation supervision, module preparation for next year following recent planning day (before i forget what we all said!)... now this is no 'cry-for-help' or pity-request, much of what i've described above i have actively sought, pursued and volunteered for - the current financial and HE climate means that not only do you have to 'do stuff' for the good of your job, but it would be entirely foolish to think that you can just curl up and focus internally on your own defined workload when there is work (and income/opportunity) out there that others want you to do.

The trade-off? Well my research of course. I have a gazillion things i want to read, some bits i want to write and learn more about and i want to generate some momentum so i have a chance of having the even greater opportunities that having a PhD affords before i'm due for retirement (or the glue factory!). So what to do? Well, this catharsis-that-is-blogging helps somewhat, because i've largely got the current frustration off my chest. Tomorrow, i am meeting a doctor in London who might be able to give me some wonderful insights into my research area. And yes, i need to probably have a holiday as incongruous as that sounds, but one that allows me to put some clear blue water between that stuff above and my research. So here's to the first two weeks of July. I now know what i have to do before then and what i get to do when i come back!

The 'boundaries' of social media in research

Interesting stuff, this social media. Being someone who uses Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Blogger (obviously) and is famed for never being further than 2cm away from his mobile phone (well the football results are important!), i never realised how much more social media could offer for a research students. Aside from this self-reflective blog and my use of Twitter as a 'lurking' mechanism that keeps me in touch with the really clever people and what they're thinking and writing, there is a certain etiquette, or so i thought, about HOW MUCH you should share of your research. I'm not planning to get into a big debate about intellectual property rights and so on, but since 'PhD research' and 'originality' are supposed to be close bed-fellows, it does make you wonder where the boundaries might exist between safeguarding your own research career and sharing with and learning from others.

So anyway, what i learned yesterday thanks to one of those Clever Social Media People, is that this sort of technology can help to define your research identity and build your own research brand. And there are a million other really useful social media tools beyond the well-known multi-national FTSE100/Fortune500/BlueChips, such as Delicious (for creating index tags, useful for keeping track on key areas of the literature), Wordle (for word clouds and seeing prominent research themes) and Hashtags.org that have amazing potential for being useful to researchers.

BUT...and there's always a but, how do we engage with all of this whilst we're supposed to getting on with our research and with those aforementioned IPR issues? I know 'sharing' is the new socialising, but as we know from the music industry's fight with filesharers and how closely guarded academic publishing is, there is money to be made from all this - and yes, potentially, from that very research we are all doing right now. And if not cold hard cash, then at least individual and institutional prestige, reputation and more interesting work awaits those that 'know things'.

Like waiting for a bus, three brilliant connections come along at once

On Wednesday, i attended The King's Fund's NHS Leadership and Management Summit where they launched the findings of a six month consultation into, yes you've guessed it, management and leadership in the NHS. By the good grace of my university i was able to attend, firstly because i teach health care management and thought it would be relevant to me and my students, but secondly because one of the 'streams' was on emerging leaders, with a particular focus on clinical leaders...so two birds with one stone and all that.

My research is about how change is introduced into healthcare organisations, specifically the recent introduction of management and leadership elements into medical training, so i was, of course, hopeful that i could glean a bit of information from the sessions and perhaps make a contact or two, but what i didn't expect is for me to make three very good contacts, all of whom are keen to help me with my work. So, in one of the plenaries, i just happened to be sitting behind a trainee doctor involved in management and leadership from the East Midlands (we're going to catch up again soon); in a workshop, i met a trainee doctor who's already working with a trainee manager (likewise we're arranging to meet soon) and from one of the speakers, i have a contact working with trainee doctors encouraging them to get more involved in management and leadership (email sent, awaiting reply).

Now, these may come to nothing, but it made me appreciate how a combination of pushing to attend a seemingly relevant event, added to the slightest bit of 'networking courage' can add up to a lot. No one else was going to make that happen for me, so perhaps that's a lesson that can be filed under 'how to get ahead in your PhD.' Oh and i got to meet Gerry Robinson, you know, the bloke off the telly...

Research Training 1-0-1

So, having spent the last couple of weeks powered-down and in the offline world, i returned to things today with some slight trepidation facing an all-dayer of research training. The trepidation stems from the fact that my experience of research training to date has been, how can i put it...mixed. You can understand that there will always be a focus on getting students through their PhDs and ensuring they all receive a consistent approach to the PhD training process. The problem with that is that the PhD, by its very nature, is such a specific and individualised programme it's difficult to see how generic, one-size-fits-all training can help the individual.

My previous research experience has been threefold: one dissertation as an undergrad and two as a masters student, with the universities i studied at offering some basic training in research (quant vs qual etc...). That means i started my PhD not knowing my ontology from my epistemology and being continually frustrated with trying to work out what my various research framework, strategy, methodology, approach, design etc looked like (P.S. not much clearer a year in).

So my point is, where is that point at the start of the PhD process that says, "Simon, you are a somewhat unique individual and we can see from your previous experience that you are sadly missing an understanding of basic research philosophy, so we're delighted to tell you that we have laid on this personalised plan to get you up to speed on all things research." Quite! Now i realise that producing a package tailored to every individual would be nigh-on impossible, but where is the recognition that, despite my dearth of research knowledge, i may actually have done other things, learned other things, damn it, might even be good at some other things and that some of that could be taken into consideration/mitigation when forumlating my training programme?

I'd like to have had that imaginary conversation at the start of my PhD, one that recognises i'm busy with my teaching commitments as a full-time member of staff, so the research training i subsequently attended was then targeted at what i really needed, rather than having to have ticked every compulsory course box. After all, without beating the point to death, the PhD is a highly-personalised programme of research so the rhetoric that supports that ideal needs to itself be supported by those responsible for ensuring PhD progression with personalised and targeted research training for the benefit of the PhD student. And on that point, today's training was, happily, something i had nothing to worry about.

It's a marathon, not a sprint

On the day of the London Marathon, it's an opportune time to reflect on the nature of doing research. As a young researcher getting to grips with the finer detail of ontology and epistemology and all that jazz, i'm never quite sure where all this is heading, but i've always loved learning and i've got loads of questions that i want to know the answers to (although i know it's not that simple), but i don't know how i might go about asking them. Now a runner, looking forward to their next race, would go about the 'answering' of that particular question by setting themselves a goal, preparing for it by putting time aside to train and probably mix and match their preparation methods to give them a decent range of experiences and aptitudes for the big day. You have goals, you have a time in mind in which you want to finish, you practise and that helps you work out how good you might be and therefore what you might be able to achieve, or at least it tells you what you need to do to improve and so on.

Now doesn't that sound somewhat similar to doing research? So what might my goals be? Well, i can't think about the end yet because i have no idea what it looks like, but i can break it down, focus on short or medium term goals and then push on from there. Whereas doing a BA or an MA might be equivalent to a sprint or a middle distance, the PhD is definitely a marathon of sorts. But the goal of this marathon of mine stretches beyond the PhD itself - it is to become a better, more rounded academic and as far as i can articulate what that means it is about becoming a good lecturer, one who creates an enjoyable and interesting learning environment for students and also a good researcher, one who wants to push forward the boundaries of his own understanding to help him with his teaching and help his students learn productively and deeply.

And somewhere along that journey there is "getting the PhD" - perhaps that's the equivalent of realising you've got to start incorporating speed or track work into your marathon training if you're really going to become any good, if you're really going to be able to push on at 20, 21 miles when the burn sets in and you hit the dreaded wall - but it is not the 'final' end point, it's just another step on the way. So perhaps this PhD is simply my first marathon and like any good runner knows, you've got to deal with what's in front of you first before you can dream about how good you might one day be.