07/03/2012 by lizit.

The past three months have been the most difficult of my doctoral journey so far. I did start to write a blog post a few weeks back, but was not really able to express what I wanted or needed to say. I am now in a better place and able to reflect on the experience and look ahead.

In the draft post written at the end of January/beginning of February, I said:

I’ve been pondering whether or not to blog the ups and downs of the last few weeks and have decided that now is as good a time as any to do so. If I had been writing just before Christmas, what I would have written would have been very different. I was at a very low point and seriously questioning whether it was worth continuing with my DPhil. I have turned a corner, but am still feeling very fragile and doubting whether I can actually complete the journey, but I am able to look at things more rationally.

Anybody following this blog would know that up until the end of November, I was in a good place with my work. I felt that I knew what I was trying to do and I was doing it. I had set myself some fairly demanding writing targets and was achieving them. I had restructured the way I was presenting my work in a way that made sense to me and I was generally pretty happy with the way things were progressing. So what went wrong? And why is it coming together now?

What went wrong?

Around the end of November, beginning of December, three things happened, each of which contributed to me becoming very depressed about my work - and very angry that I might not be able to do what I had set out to do.

Firstly, my supervisors cast doubts on the way I had re-organised my work. I was not following a conventional thesis format and this was likely to cause problems when it came to the thesis being examined. I considered I had strong reasons for wanting to structure my work in the way I was doing and that my theoretical stance was not understood. I had a sense of being required to write something that was not going to be ‘my thesis’ in order to comply with convention, whether or not convention made sense in the context of what I wanted to say.

Secondly, I got ill. OK, it was only flu-like cold, but as I am asthmatic, it went to my chest and I spent a couple of weeks feeling really grotty and took about a month to begin to feel well again. Truth is, I was probably mildly depressed as a result of being definitely under the weather and feeling totally stressed out about my thesis.

Thirdly, I got comments on the writing I had been doing during the previous weeks. Although I could see the rationale behind some of the comments, others I felt much less happy about as they were encouraging me to put more weight on some parts of my work than others in a way that made no sense to me.

What happened to resolve the dilemma and put me back on track?

Firstly, I realised that I was not powerless but had choices. I could choose to walk away completely, or to present my work other than in a thesis. I have learned a great deal over the past three and a half years and I could choose whether to complete my planned journey or head off in a different direction.

Secondly, I had supportive friends. Not friends that tried to comfort me, but friends who listened to my tale of woe, accepted my account and gave me space to be angry, frustrated and depressed, only offering advice once I was in a place to hear. Those folk know who they are, but they are found in #phdchat on Twitter and amongst colleagues at University of Sussex.

Thirdly, although my supervisors were not happy with what I wanted to do, they had confidence that I could complete my DPhil and one in particular took the time to explore why things had gone so radically wrong. This gave me a sense of being understood and provided a platform for negotiation and agreement on a way forward based on an honest appraisal of the potential risks.

What are the outcomes of this process?

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of the past three months is a very real sense that I own my work. I owned it back in November, but now I simultaneously have both more invested in it and less. That may seem odd, but I have accepted that what I am doing does not follow conventions and that may not meet the approval of examiners. That is OK and my decision and if it means I do not get to wear a floppy hat at the end of the process, that is fine. At the same time, I do believe in what I am doing, and do regard not only the content but the approach I have taken as valuable. If it is not valued by formal academic measures, that does not make it less worthwhile, but it places more responsibility on me to find ways of disseminating my work.

Secondly, there is a change in my relationship with my supervisors. From my perspective, there is a new honesty in our exchanges, perhaps because we have locked horns, and found a way forward. When I get to the end of the journey, I will be interested on getting their thoughts on this perception.

Thirdly, I think my writing is improving. I am more self-critical, in a positive sense, and more aware of the need to ensure the rationale for my approach and argument is transparent, even if it sometimes means labouring the point. Because my approach has been challenged, I have read more, understood more and am more confident.

Where now?

Get the thesis written!

Posted in personal rant, peer support, thesis, writing, experience, ownership, reflections, empowerment, learning | Print | 4 Comments »

28/06/2011 by lizit.

Time spent over the last couple of days reviewing my thesis outline, plus a supervision session and reading a couple of Inger Mewburn’s thesiswhisperer blog posts (PhD Grief and 5 ways to kill your darlings) has got me thinking.

It must be a couple of years now since my supervisor suggested I draft an abstract for my thesis, written as though it was done and dusted and I had achieved what I wanted to achieve. Having a tendency to do as I’m told, I followed the advice and I found it a useful exercise, not only in enabling me to sort out my focus, but also as a document which I could review and revise as my ideas developed. While reviewing my thesis outline over the past couple of days, I realised that I needed to revise the abstract yet again. Having done so, I then looked back over the last year and realised that ideas which were central to the abstract a few months ago, are no longer there, but other ideas which either were not present, or were peripheral are taking centre stage. I am seriously beginning to wonder if rather than me owning my thesis, whether it actually has somehow acquired a life of its own.

In some ways, this follows on from my previous blog where I responded to Jeffrey Keefer’s question about there being no space for communities of practice in my research. It can only be 3 months ago that I was arguing that communities of practice were central to my research and my thesis. Where has all that thinking and work gone? It is clear my thesis is rejecting it as part of itself - I’m sure it wasn’t my decision to put that whole chunk on one side.

Not only does my thesis seem to have decided that things that are meaningful to me have no place in it, but it also seems to have replaced them with things which are more theoretically complex, though possibly ultimately more interesting. And I’m sure it has done this without any assistance on my part!

What I have realised is that the areas that getting chopped are not being chopped because they are not of interest, or are not important, but because they are not central to my research question. They are currently in suspended animation, waiting to be revived and acquire their own lives. The areas that remain and are taking over, are not triffids, but are emerging as I allow myself to look into some of the deeper reaches of the iceberg. They are challenging because they are forcing me to think in ways that don’t come naturally to me. I’m a pragmatist and problem-solver - what am I doing getting caught up in theoretical concepts and philosophy? Come to think of it, why on earth am I doing a DPhil - no let’s not go there today!

I think perhaps it is time for me to take thesis in hand and threaten it with the pruning sheers if it doesn’t stop growing and developing interesting side shoots. Hang it all surely I should be in charge of my thesis and not vice versa!

Posted in experience, personal rant, empowerment, reflections, ownership, learning | Print | 1 Comment »

31/05/2010 by lizit.

I’ve managed to plough through Liz Stanley’s “The auto/biographical I” and to read far more quickly Goodson, et al’s “Narrative Learning”. I want to capture some of the main ideas for me from the two books.

First and foremost is Stanley’s argument that there is no real divide between autobiography and biography - they are both part of the same and are constructed accounts of a life or part of a life.

The idea of a constructed account is evident in both books. Stanley uses a number of biographical accounts to demonstrate how the author has present a construction which omits essential and important aspects of the life being presented. She also shows how different authors can and do present very different interpretations of the same life. Such constructions often say as much, or more, about the author and their presuppositions than they do about the person. Goodson, et al, also make it clear that personally narrated life stories should not be considered as objective accounts, but rather they are the interpretation of the past that makes sense in that time and place and are liable to change as a result of further life experiences; in essence a life story narrative is a construction of one’s life and how it is currently understood.

Another common thread in both books is that our stories are part of other’s stories. When I hear somebody else’s story, it becomes part of my story. Whether or not I reference my own story, in telling the story of another in some senses I am telling my own story. This relates to the construction of stories described in the last paragraph, but it also relates to the inter-relatedness of humanity.

Goodson, et al, focus on learning, and recognise that learning takes place in a wide range of different settings and that often learning experiences, that are recognised as such, are triggered by specific events or critical incidents. In considering stories, they looked for learning potential (evidence of learning from the story) and action potential (what the story teller does with the learning). Whereas learning is frequently defined as involving some kind of change in the learner, Goodson, et al, appear to recognise that much of the learning implicit in people’s life stories has much more a tacit dimension and is not recognised by the story teller.

What are the implications for me and my research? Firstly, there is a clear recognition that when I hear the stories of others learning in relation to the autistic spectrum domain, my own experiences and understanding of those experiences influence what I hear and how I hear it. My reactions and responses may well say more about me than the person I am talking to. How do I guard against denying the voice of others because I am listening too much to my own voice?

Secondly, and perhaps less importantly, I am predetermining to some extent the nature and structure of the story by the initial question I ask. Clearly I do not want a question as open as “Can you tell me about your life?”, but maybe I need a question which invites people to tell me about the autistic spectrum domain from their perspective without suggesting a starting point. On the other hand, maybe for my purposes the semi-structured account is more efficacious if I can ensure that I leave room for people to include the stuff I may not ask about and may not realise that I want to know about.

Goodson, I., Biesta, G., Tedder, M., & Adair, N. (2010). Narrative Learning. Abingdon: Routledge.
Stanley, L. (1992). The Auto/Biographical I. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Posted in tacit dimension, stories, biography, experience, learning | Print | No Comments »

23/03/2010 by lizit.

For a few weeks now I have been clear that my DPhil is about the learning journeys of those involved with supporting and caring for children and young people on the autistic spectrum.  Having read a lot of articles with varying degrees of relevance, it is becoming clear that this needs some refining. Most of the literature on parents with children on the spectrum seems to focus on parents of children with classic autism, rather than Aspergers or HFA, and much of it looks at support needs, especially around the time of diagnosis and several articles include parents of children with either autism or Downs syndrome. My focus is on the high functioning/Aspergers end of the spectrum and I need to reflect this in my title.

The other contentious area at the moment - no doubt there are others waiting to appear over the horizon - is the categorisation of participants. I have been dividing people into parents, professionals and non-professionals and recognising that some people may fall into more than one category. However, this may not be the most appropriate or helpful categorisation. The idea behind splitting off professionals was to identify those with a formally recognised qualification from those without. My reasoning lay in the privileging of  knowledge that is formally accredited over other knowledge, but it probably isn’t as straightforward as that.

For example, two teachers are both professionals with a formally accredited qualification in education. Both may be employed as SENCOs, but one may have additional specialist qualifications and several years experience of working with children with special needs and the other may have taken the role on because the school needed a SENCO and it was a way of getting a promotion, but have little experience or special knowledge of SENs or related administrative procedures.

This suggests that I may be looking at a generic/specialist split, but I am unsure that will meet my needs. I already know that social care staff, even senior, highly qualified care staff, are on lower pay scales than teaching staff. Am I therefore looking at two different things: professional as measured by possession of a formally recognised professional qualification and specialist as measured by knowledge and experience within the domain.

This also challenges my third category of parents. Some parents may also have professional qualifications and/or specialist knowledge in the domain.

This would suggest that the professional, non-professional and parent categorisation is only useful in terms of identifying the jobs people might be doing within the domain. As my focus is on learning journeys (how, what and why people know about the autistic spectrum), it may be that I need to slice across the roles and instead be looking at those with accredited qualifications, those with specialist knowledge but without accredited qualifications and those with neither accredited qualifications or specialist knowledge.

Probably need to think about this a bit more…

Posted in Aspergers/HFA, categories, specialist knowledge, qualifications, experience, learning | Print | 1 Comment »