The Sisyphean Routine of Summer

Supervisor, commend me for I have worked. It is four months since my last post. And how I have worked. The time between posts a measure, really, of the 'grind' that I now feel.

Two summers ago I skipped through my summer reading list, confident that each tome was contributing clearly to my knowledge and understanding of my substantive topic. I look back fondly at an early post like Summer Holiday Versus Term Time, and whilst I clearly felt overwhelmed as term began, there was so much fun in those first forays into the literature. Today I wade through the ever-increasing pile, knowing in my heart of hearts that I can never read or do enough to complete this Sisyphean task because the pile grows more quickly than I can deal with it. (Would people just stop researching and publishing stuff so that I can keep up?!) Reading also seems to take longer than it did because I need to join everything up; whereas in the beginning it was all fresh and new and exciting and differentiated in its own right.

There have, of course, been some breakthroughs; a few more of those milestones (I remember the first, vividly) which are so important in keeping going:

• I successfully completed the requirements for the second year and will move into my third year of doctoral study.
• I completed the Introduction to Qualitative Methods course and an essay on a 'research method'. I have called this the 'study group research interview'. It shares some characteristics with a focus group interview, but it is also very different in lots of ways.
• I participated in the first five of the study group research interviews and have transcribed four fifths of the recordings.
• I have begun (very tentatively) coding.
• I found a book which has unified lots of my reading. I wish I'd read it near the start, but it wasn't published then. Still - happy days.
• I was (fortuitously) invited to review another journal paper which has helped me to consolidate all sorts of theoretical ideas in relation to the classroom.

So, I have my first sets of data. I have a date with 'NVivo'. And I have some of the feelings associated with a first date: the nerves, the great expectations, the overwhelming inadequacy, the restlessness...
But coupled with this is the mundane of the routine, the drudgery, the predictability of a marriage - in for the long haul.

My routine for the summer amounts to between five and ten minutes of transcription daily (which is still taking me up to an hour) followed by at least one hour of reading, note-making and reflection and a crossing of something else from the 'to do' list. So it amounts to about two hours per day, but probably equates to fifteen or so hours a week. It should be more, but there are these small things called children that require entertaining over the summer. Even so, that is more than double my term-time work-rate. There are four and a half more weeks of the summer holidays remaining, so another sixty hours or so to go. It is strange to think that when I go back to school I shall be sixty hours further ahead.

A Treadle! A Treadle! My Kingdom for a Treadle!

Newly ethics-approved and now officially 'in the field', I have undertaken my first group interviews with the teachers in my department.

I have about an hour and a half's worth of audio split across two sessions, so far, and have now begun the process of transcription. I've been trying to use a well know transcription app (one that sounds like St George may have tried to fight it at one stage) and, it would be fair to say that has not been terribly successful.

The first ten minutes of audio took me nearly four hours to transcribe that way.

Then I remembered that in a past life I was an audio typist (those long summer holidays had to be spent somehow) and so I just ditched the technology and got on with the transcription manually. Oh for a treadle like in the good old days at the insurance firm...

I have got faster and faster and I am up to approximately an hour's labour for twenty minutes of talk. 1:3. I don't know if this is a good ratio or not. What I do know is that I feel thoroughly familiar with these discussions - I know them inside out. They are fascinating, incredibly rich; dialogue which felt pretty ordinary as it happened is absolutely loaded with ideas and suggestions for reading teaching - ideas which might easily get lost if such careful attention were not being paid to them. Which makes me wonder what gems might get passed by, acknowledged but then not acted upon, in an ordinary department meeting when pedagogy is under discussion.

At least through the collaborative action research model that I am using participating teachers will be able to review exactly what has been said at each stage as we shape our project more fully.

Now, on to coding...shudder.

Back In the Room

The 'Drowning in Data' courses offered at the university seem particularly attractive now, since that is what is beginning to happen.

Session 1 of the Introduction to Qualitative Methods course has galvanized me into action. I was put into a 'group' and had actual 'homework' with a deadline. That's been a while. An essay is required at the end of this module. That has also been a while.

And, since our next topic is interviews, in preparation I have been busy transcribing the first of my group interviews.

I have begun to arrive at some (unscientific) conclusions:

1. The dictation app I am trying to use is worthless.
2. Transcription is extremely labour intensive. The first ten minutes' worth of talk took nearly four hours to transcribe.
3. It gets a bit quicker. The next ten minutes I managed in an hour. Though this is still an unfeasible ratio.
4. These interviews generate a huge amount of data (insightful, this one).
5. I need to back out of the talk more. I seem to have dominated the discussion at one stage in the middle.  Note to self: shut up!

Still, if nothing else, it seems I am definitely back in the room. I have the second class today, followed by my first supervision session of the year, and I feel that I have been working at it non-stop since last week. I have done (most of) the reading for today's class. Deadlines, gulp. Odd being taught again, but I quite like it.

Full Steam Ahead

Ethical approval for my research was finally granted on the 11th January. It was a strangely muted moment; after all the fuss and fight through November and December perhaps there ought to have been fanfares and popping corks. Alas, there was nothing more than the funny buzzing vibration that signals an email notification to mark it.

So I now have the green light to go ahead and my first two 'declarable' sessions with teachers take place in the next fortnight. The data collection therefore begins in earnest from this point, and it is, perhaps, somewhat fortuitous that these two professional learning meetings fall so close together: a happy accident of the mock exam marking period just before Christmas which meant that December's session had to be postponed until now.

I have also applied to undertake a fifteen hour introduction to qualitative methods course which runs, ordinarily, as part of the MSc. If nothing else it may help me get back into the right frame of mind to immerse myself in my studies once more. (From which comment the keen reader might infer that I am not, currently, in such a frame of mind.)

And a further step in the right direction may occur as I prepare for a presentation this Friday to PGCE students at another south coast university on developing a reading culture in school: it will require a revision of material and thinking and I am looking forward to it.

Waiting Game

After last term's hiatus, I am still not entirely sure if I am back on track.

I have revised my timeline, rewritten my proposal, managed to avoid intermitting, eaten humble pie, submitted for ethical approval, and survived.

But I am yet to pass ethical review and the clock is ticking. And all the while that I don't have it, the scheduled research sessions with my teachers and the rich data collected therein can not count.

Still, I remain, for the time being at least, a PhD student, and enjoyed a little fillip this week as my first article appeared in a peer-reviewed academic journal. (And read by at least one person, according to Twitter!)

Hard Times

I have called this post 'Hard Times', but in truth it is from another of Dickens' novels that I find the quotation to capture my mood... 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...'

I have, for the last week or so, considered giving up, known that was definitely not an option, decided to do it anyway, convinced myself not to. Been elated by what I have done so far, and nearly destroyed by the thought of what has to come. I have written some difficult emails to important people and spent hours and hours and hours making what I hope might be final revisions to my proposal.

I am caught between the timetables of the university and of my institution. I have been encouraged to reach for the stars by one of my supervisors, dragged back down to earth and devastated by the other, patronised by the attempted consolation in relation to 'the difficulties of doing a PhD while working full time in a school!'

Right now, I don't know quite what will happen. This could be my last blog post.

No one said it would be easy...

Bigger Hurdles: Proposal and mini viva

The new school term began on Monday and the dust has not yet settled, but 10.00am this morning was the time scheduled for my mini viva. It has been a busy couple of months. I gave my formal presentation of my proposal on the penultimate day of the summer term, then met a draft proposal deadline for my supervisor the day after we broke up. Much reading about methodology over the summer before two bound copies of the finished proposal were submitted last week (with a good twenty minutes to spare before the deadline, I might add).

I arrived in plenty of time to go over my notes and my proposal carefully. At 9.30am I reassured myself that in a couple of hours, whatever happened, it would all be over. I wasn't especially nervous; this was in the spirit of giving a taste of what the format of the actual viva would be like and provided a further opportunity to engage in healthy debate about aspects of the proposed research. As the 'invitation' explained: Always with the desire to have a good constructive discussion, the aim of the viva will be to clarify aspects of the proposal to help make sure it provides you with a basis for a workable bit of PhD research - with lines of enquiry likely to be similar to those that were raised during your recent proposal presentations, and generally taking up the different aspects of what makes a good workable proposal.

The first few questions began, 'Can you elaborate on...' and were fine and fair. I warmed to my themes. But, after that my terminology was questioned extensively, my research questions were pulled apart and my methodology was under fire. I faltered, I internally questioned my whole approach. Never has a sip of water tasted so good as at the end of the mini viva. It felt tough, very tough indeed.

I was sent away for twenty minutes whilst  it was discussed and, given the vigorous questioning, I feared the worst.  But - ultimately the comments were complimentary and I came away with a referral of five required responses, and a short turnaround time before submitting amendments to the proposal. They said:

The proposed research addresses an important area and you demonstrated a deep and reflexive knowledge of its complexities both in the written proposal and in the wide-ranging discussion that took place during the mini viva. The following requirements should help to consolidate these ideas with a view to embedding them more explicitly in the approach to data collection: 
1. Once the core terms/constructs addressed in the study have been finalized the title should be reviewed to ensure that it is consistent with these. You should also make sure there is no unintended hint of deficit.
2. The research questions should be revised to ensure best fit with the core constructs/terms and the methodological approach. Each one should be accompanied by a line or two of explanation so that the rationale underpinning the question is made explicit.
3. Develop and insert a diagrammatic representation of the research process so that it is clearer how the different elements and methods relate to the specific areas for exploration and intervention. Provide a page or two discussion on the methods chosen and why, linking this the literature and to two or three specific examples of focus group questions, areas for observation etc. 
4. Insert a single paragraph in Chapter One that highlights the school/research context in which the proposed research sits as discussed in the mini-viva.
5. Revise the timeline to ensure this fits with the timeline for obtaining ethics approval.

I think it felt good because it was hard. I feel as though I have survived a gladiatorial contest. I am exceedingly glad that it is done.

Now for ethical approval...