A late developer or developments of late?
The stock PhD viva question pondered in this blog is what would be addressed differently, by me, if my PhD process was beginning again today.
My take on this question is to consider what it is really asking, because it has two potential framings (and one sand-trap to avoid). A first answer is reflecting upon what I have learned to show how I am now a trained and competent researcher. A second is more reflexive of both the research and the researcher. I think the second framing is important to discern, and I am minded to construct a different answer to the first as a product of writing this blog. The sand-trap to avoid is to turn this into a narrative about regrets and mistakes within the submitted research and only being realised at this late stage (to which, if I were the examiner, I would then be following up with “so why do you deem this thesis meriting a doctoral-level standard achieved”?). The two potential framings are next each considered in turn.
The late developer
A first answer (i.e., the one I had in mind as I began writing this blog-thought into being) now seems too shallow. I could, with some justification, point to going down every cul-de-sac I could find; unapologetically walking to each cul-de-sac dead-end, and learning something of why each leads no further. I know myself well enough to know that this is my way of learning. Therefore, I would do that again because it is how I come to be confident in my surroundings.
Stated otherwise, I emerge from the detail to be big picture, and I distrust everything until I’ve spent time with it enough to have context to then apply it (or justify not applying it) and useful for next time. If starting the PhD process again I would probably advocated walking down all such roads to nowhere all over again. However, this revelation is not new insight to me or anyone who knows me. Indeed, I trawled my blog archives to find me musing on such matters as I began examinations for my first MSc:
The point of this answer would be to convey a clarity now understood which could point me more immediately to the best approach to take in conducting this research. If doing it again I could offer the justifications more immediately as to why this was the right approach to take. Throughout my PhD journey my supervisors would (regularly) point to another cul-de-sac walked and a few more months added to the whole. The other metaphor of note was to call these rabbit-holes-i.e., a country-walk made longer by the warrens I needed to pull my head out of. [My rabbit-related first name fits the research version of me well enough]. However, whilst this is all true, and the answer I had in mind as I started this blog, it misses that bigger-picture question. [It’s also a little conceited, reminiscent of a screenplay quote put into Gandalf’s mouth that JRR Tolkien never actually wrote: “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to”].
The developing of late
With that answer dismissed, the newly-found researcher in me can answer this with a coherence to the pre-PhD version of me from 2020. The first answer is the wood-in-tree 🪵response, but misses the trees in the wood 🌲🌳🌳focal point that I now suspect this question really invites. The better answer acknowledges the invited demonstration of application of the learning, rather that just explain how it was learned.
The better answer starts with noting that I’ve come to appreciate the reasoning behind what is so important about seeking out the best practices in applied research. In other words, understanding how the best methods and guidance in their applications sit within the broader framing of methodology. This is not to say start with the methods or even the methodology and work outwards, on the contrary it is to start with the clarity of what is being asked and then apply the methodology that best fits that clearly demarcated question. From this start-point, the better methods and the most appropriate guidance in applying them becomes self-evident as well justified. In retrospect, this is what I have taken great care in being able to establish.
I look back upon my four years and I can now see me wrestling with distinct issues year-on-year. By example, what was the problem I was addressing, took me the whole of my first year. I see me wrestling with demands put upon me but also self-imposed in seeking the justifications in methodological choices. This need for justification characterises my entire second year. My third year was then wrestling with putting these justified decisions into practice. In the sense of gathering and then establishing meaning from my interview-derived data. Specifically using the adopted hermeneutic reasoning and chosen reflexive thematic analysis in tandem. Furthermore, working with this analytic approach alongside the complementary single data-gathering method (semi-structured interview) which I had carefully selected for this purpose in year 2. My fourth year—the extra year borne of cul-de-sacs walked or carrots collected from rabbit holes returned from—is where this all then came together. This fourth year, and specifically the second six months, has demanded I also have command of the literature I am engaging with in the most concrete of terms. To reinforce this latter-day point, the literature review I (re)wrote at the back-end of year four could then more precisely position my thesis as now submitted.
The question of what would be done differently next-time-around can now be addressed more specifically to my journey and my completed thesis. In each of these four years, I have wrestled meaning into shape. On countless occasions I did this the hard way. In countless ways I was establishing the detail, questioning the merits of what I was arguing, being unhappy with that answer and seeking academic supports that offered better reasoning and/or application in establishing new primary evidence. All of this hardship or dwelling upon the detail was directed towards best answering the research question I carefully constructed.
If I did this PhD again, I would have that clearer view of my surrounds. By example, I can tell you why there is much danger in applying a phenomenological approach and not being aware of the contested nature of using such philosophical methodology for empirical purposes. [This will be the topic of my next blog]. Another example, I spent much of my first three years noting how disparate and divided the governance literate can be [another future blog]. I found the authoritative scholars offering partial landscapes of that totality, and in doing so I could skip over thousands carefully crafted words and arguments I had made. This latter-day realisation revealed to me that my own work was complimentary to mapping that whole, but specific to my specific project-form (the public private partnership) as my research context.
The most foundational learning has also been the more rudimentary or foundational concerns for all social scientists as methodological matters, research design, and justifiable clarity behind the overall chosen research approach.
The trees-in-the-wood not the wood-in-the-tree
The foundational methodological learning merits further example. It could be another blog but I make this point in two paragraphs next because it sits with this question of what has been learned and how it has been applied. It is also relatable to many fellow PhD candidate I speak with. Knowing with precision what one’s level of analysis is, what application of the chosen unit of analysis then becomes, and how all is underpinned (and limited) by one’s assumed basis of reasoning and world-view taken; these are the fundamentals. I call them rudimentary not because they are simple, but because they are the rudiments to application as a doctoral-level researcher. These are matters of research design and as methodological questions they become paramount. Knowing what level(s) of analysis one is working at, and what unit of analysis one is applying, are skills and a knowledge I now apply critically to much I critique. They are matters I talk about at length with fellow PhD candidates struggling, much as I did. In my case my unit of analysis are the different intentions which organisations, interorganisational groups, or teams within organisations introduce into projects. The level of analysis is then the space between these entities (i.e., the space that differentiates parties by those different intentions).
Once one has command of methodology and what is important about discerning specifics of basis-of-reasoning and application to research design, important doors are unlocked. A panacea of better and more critical framing of academic rigour, challenges to research validity, and the means to consider the merits of reasoning behind why complementary guidance for specific areas and tasks requires expertly applied context These are learnings and researcher-framings I would apply much quicker if addressing my research problem again. This is trees-in-the-wood (🌲🌳🌳) focal point, not the wood-in-tree (🪵) error of choosing methods in methodology first. This is what I deem important to know if being self-reflexive and/or critiquing research conducted by/for fellow researchers. I present my thesis with confidence borne of applying this rigour and concerned for merited validity of the contribution to knowledge now submitted for examination.
In summary, if starting this research today, I would apply all that I have learned with the confidence of being the more capable researcher. Each of my four years wrestled with specific justifications in what is now presented as my thesis. This thesis is now presented as the researcher with access to the insights and knowledge I now have means to borrow from within the academe at large (and at will). I can justify all decisions made at the end of this four years, but I could get to such decisions more quickly the second-time-around. Such knowledge also now arms me with means to critique at length how my discussions fit alongside the discussions I am engaging in with others doing the same, applied to any academic task at hand.
to be continued…