Finding my Doctoral Focus
Research Monday, September 28th, 2009
Organizational Theory. Professional Development and Adult Learning. Curriculum and Instruction. Literacy and Literacies. Social and Participatory Media. Learning Communities. Leadership. Teaching and Learning.
These are my areas of interest and I’ve explored each one in some context during my doctoral work. For the longest time, I thought my doctoral work would focus on how school cultures influence teacher innovation — nope, but I have a great book idea and I’ve learned how to be a much better leader. Then, I thought it would be how teachers come to seek enhancement to their instructional practice — close, but nope, I left with a small research project that resulted in an instructional road map to use when working with teachers.
Now, I feel I’ve committed to the direction of my research that embodies many of my interest and should serve to be an important study for both schools and educators.
The problem, however, is that I am struggling to frame it, so I’m hoping that blogging about it and the potential commentary from it might help.
My Focus
The role of social media and online networks in the lives of educators is just fascinating to me and has driven the purpose of my study:
The purpose of this ethnography study is to describe the culture of online learning communities and the act of social media participation by teachers.
What I’m hoping to do is document through observations, interviews, and artifacts, the world that exists for many teachers online. In other words, I plan to explore the self-directed learning and connecting that occurs through daily participation in social media and the creation of professional learning networks.
What are your thoughts on this potential study? Does this have value in education? to teachers? to administrators? How would you adjust the purpose to be stronger? Would this study be better served using a different methodology: auto-ethnography or phenomenology ? Is there a better direction? Should I narrow the focus to perhaps just blogging?
These and many other questions continue to frustrate me! Feel free to share any insights or concerns.
Image from Will Lion CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Related posts:
- Reflection on Blog Study
- My Future, My Decision: LA Finding A Way In
- Curriculum Assumptions
- A Reflective Look at Online Professional Development Session Notes
- The Missing W
Short URL: http://www.ryanbretag.com/blog/?p=1207
Hi Ryan,
Be careful that you don’t suffer the troubles of combining too much into a question. This is interesting stuff, and any of what you mention can bloom into a naturalistic dissertation.
I notice two foundational issues, the issue of culture and the issue of the world of self-directed learning.
I think you need to further hone in on what it is you want to get out of this. An ethnography is great, provided you have a narrow focus and define really what you’re looking for. If you find something else, fantastic, but it helps to be able to define what you are seeking to learn.
Are you trying to figure out how the culture of social media (and there are different cultures for each major site, I’d argue, so that’s a big problem) impacts teachers?
OR
Are you trying to figure out how self-directed learning impacts teachers? Then are you going to specifically look at self-directed learning with social media? I’d argue there was self-directed learning long before social media. Teachers have always read books, I presume.
If you focus on just blogging, you will make life easier on yourself. There is a cool study by Dave Wiley who studied Slashdot (he’s @opencontent on Twitter) and he looked at certain metrics of the community.
If you focus on blogging, you can also run cool metrics like word frequencies and other fun phenomenological metrics.
Just my thinking “aloud”..
Chris Craft
Hey Chris:
Thanks for the insights — always enjoy hearing what you have to say and it adds a lot to my thinking.
I’m not interested in how self-directed learning impacts teachers. I’m more interested in how this culture, this online community, is shaping the professional growth and development of teachers. To get there, I need to establish if it is a culture/subculture.
I’m also interested in what motivates teachers to spend this amount of time online: is it lack of prof dev at their own school, perception of PD being poor at their school, isolation, etc. However, I’m not sure this is the direction I want to take at this point.
I keep going back to blogging and have this feeling I’m going to land there. It just seems like too much for one doctoral student to attempt a massive study of number social networks and medias — perhaps I’m building to a larger study done by a team of quantitative and qualitative researchers once my doctorate is finished (hint, hint…)
Ryan, I am a bit behind you in my dissertation timeline but reading your post is like reading my own thoughts. I want to thank you for posing these questions and I look forward to following your journey. My focus is still fermenting but I am fascinated by PLNs. How and why educators use them. This pulls in the self-directed educator but that is not really my focus. I want to know why one teacher will spend hours reading blogs, tweets, wikis, etc. and find them so useful but another teacher will find it all useless. I hadn’t thought of looking at the problem as an ethnography study. That is interesting.
Good luck with your research. I’ve just started my second year of classes so have another year until I have to have my topic finalized.
Nancy
Hi Nancy:
Thanks for the thoughts and encouragement.
I’m really not sure how this will all come together at this point or if ethnography will be the best method for this research nor am I convinced that I’ll go forward with it.
Like you, I am fascinated by what is happening online and I’m very interested in what this means for teachers as professionals and learners. However, since I can’t seem to get my framework together correctly, I’m starting to lose a little faith here.
Learn from me and start getting your mind wrapped on your topic. I waited too long and took too many paths (good paths ones produces some great things but added nothing to me getting through this), so I sit here in a very bad spot.
In any case, I wish you the best – your interest in hours spent and decision making on value is excellent; I hope you pursue that piece. The How and Why are the two questions that drive me, too, so we will cross paths again no doubt.
Ryan
Ryan,
Here is my free advice (it is worth what you paid for it)
On the topic – keep it simple (limit the scope and the variables – especially if doing qualitative research) and pick something that has some decent research written about it already or something you can connect to similar research. The lit review can be brutal if you have a topic nobody else is talking about. Look for connections between your topic and existing research – learn – connect – create your own understanding. You will live this topic for way too long – so make sure you can love it.
The question – pick one you don’t know the answer to yet. Seriously, one that you have no idea how you really feel or one that you don’t know where exactly it will go. Nothing kills dissertations faster than knowing the ending before you start. Find a problem and try to solve it by understanding those around it.
Organization – spend time at the start figuring out a system for organizing your review of literature materials and your method of research. For the stuff you gather for the lit review: It does not matter what that system looks like or if other people think it is wrong, crazy, or impossible to understand. It could be baskets, folders, electronic files, or big piles of papers – just find something that works for you. For me it was post it notes. Each color was a theme or idea. I could then put little deeper ideas on each post-it. Then I would sort and collate based on color (sometimes the same piece of research covers many themes). If you use folders – don’t conserve paper – if an article covers multiple themes (usually each folder is a theme) make a copy for each folder (or basket or pile).
The Writing Process – Starting a dissertation is much like starting to blog. You write for yourself first and don’t care about who will read it. Make sure you pick something that really interests you. At the end of it all you will probably be the only person in the world that carefully reads every word.
Hopefully later, rather than sooner, you will start to loose ownership of your great work. Others will tear it up, reshape it, and attempt to “make it better”. At these points just remember it is an exercise – a medieval rite of passage. Take their advice, meld it into your vision, and go back to learning about yourself. There is a careful balance between your learning and others’ expectations. Your first goal is to get it done – this is not a place to hold to your principles of how a masterpiece should be created. It is a big homework assignment – treat it as such.
Find a spot that is your writing cave – where your stuff and you can live. Escaping to this place will start to tell your mind that this is the place where you work and will help get things going.
Write something everyday. Even if you write about what you plan to write.
Write something everyday. Even if it is a list of tasks.
Write something everyday. Even if it is a re-write of yesterday’s work.
Write something everyday. This is the most important thing to remember.
I’m on my own journey toward a doctorate and having been writing for a while. I advise:
1. Be as narrow and specific as possible. Exactly who are you studying and why. What instrument will you use to study them? Not doing this will produce worthless data and wasted energy.
2. Be passionate, it will get you through the many hours of writing and rewriting.
3. Remember that you are interpreting the results and making meaning of what is happening in your study not writing what you think, your theories, etc. (which is what blogging is).
Ryan,
I just wanted to check in and let you know how impressed I have been as you have been forging your dissertation experience. Your presentation was amazing and I very much look forward to following your experience and assisting in any way possible should you find it helpful.
-Dean