Equity in higher education – An Australian researcher

My PhD is incorporating publications and we (being my supervisors and I) agreed early on that the first 2 would be literature reviews. That became Scoping Literature Reviews (SLR) quite quickly as systematic literature reviews did not suit as well. The trouble has been that they insisted I examined every single search result I had, almost 3000 of them and it took me a long time. I was not highly motivated and it was the most boring thing I have had to do in a long time. What made it worse was that they gave me 2 example SLRs, one where one of my supervisors was an author and another example from a top rated journal. In BOTH of those the authors had decided to only go through a certain number of search results (1 was the first 300 and the other was the first 500). But I wasn’t allowed to do the same thing and I think it’s fair to say I was bitter about that.

I know why the others capped it around that mark – because after a certain point I occasionally got a new or different article but essentially I learnt nothing new at all. It took me another 6 months to go through all those search results but I could have told you my findings at the start of that 6 months. Most of the studies were American, most looked at gender, race and participation in STEM courses or they just talked in general about “disadvantaged” students. The most common type of study had a pre-test using some form of self-efficacy scales, then there was some kind of intervention, or pedagogy they were examining, then a post test with the same self-efficacy scales.

So every PhD meeting for 6 months they would ask about my progress. I would say I’ve got X left to do. They would ask what I have learnt and I would repeat that I’m still seeing American studies etc etc. I would then ask if we could discuss the method for my project or a question about confirmation and they would say “don’t worry about that yet, just focus on the literature.” This went on for 6 months.

They kept saying I needed to identify the three main themes in my project. I told them right near the beginning that would be self-efficacy, enabling programs and equity groups (ie the 6 student groups our government targets as marginalised/underrepresented etc). They kept asking about this and I kept repeating the same three themes.

Finally we got to the point where they seemed to accept that I was confident enough about those themes and “the literature” in general and they asked me to write 3 to 5 pages on each theme. That was in April – 4 months before my confirmation has to be done. I would have started that that in November or December if it was up to me.

So I wrote 5 pages on enabling programs in a day. Took another couple of hours to edit it 2 days later and then worked on other things for the 2 weeks I had to do that. I could do that because I had already read all the literature I needed. At times I had to go searching for an article because I hadn’t memorised the authors, but a large chunk of if just came straight off the top of my head because WHILE I was laboriously going through the 3000 search results I was also working on all my other research projects and READING!

They were impressed. Anna (my principle supervisor) called it “polished writing” and had ZERO comments put on it. Stuart, my other supervisor who was also my honours supervisor, commented that he didn’t expect me to be able to write so concisely and fit it all in 5 pages. I wanted to tell him that he hadn’t read anything I have written since honours which was 2018, so of course my writing had improved. I bit my tongue.

Anyway, the story repeats for the other 2 themes. They did have some comments and suggestions of course but all in all the way it went was that I just threw it together from everything I had read and it didn’t take me very long at all, and they were happy with it. It infuriates me that they probably think that is because of their advice to just keep plugging away at the SLR results when in fact it was because I avoided doing the SLR and did my own reading outside of that!

One area did stand out and that is enabling pedagogy. I know a lot about the purpose of enabling, the diversity within enabling programs, the political policy and context behind them and I guess stuff around how effective they are. I did not learn anything new in these areas throughout this whole process. I did learn quite a bit about benchmarking and the political stuff that is going on whereby they want to standardize enabling education. At the moment each university essentially does whatever they think is right. So I learnt a bunch there and also about the different pedagogies we see in enabling.

Mostly I have focused on critical pedagogies, pedagogies of care and transition pedagogy. But I didn’t realise I needed all that information until I had written all 3 sections and decided I needed to link self-efficacy to enabling programs by showing that the enabling pedagogies had the 4 methods of improving self-efficacy sort of naturally in-built. So again, a little frustration that I wasn’t able to write those sections sooner and give myself more time to read in more depth about it all. I still feel like I have barely skimmed the surface of the enabling pedagogy literature.

In the mean time, despite being encouraged NOT to do this, I’ve done been reading research methods books and written sections on things like the advantages of mixed methods, epistemology, theoretical perspectives, chosen phenomenology and then email interviews as the ideal method and written a few pages arguing why it’s the best for my research questions. I knew a year ago that this was the approach I wanted to take but I could never convince Anna and Stuart of this.

So my confirmation is meant to be done before my 2 year anniversary which is August 3rd. I am going away for 3 weeks very shortly and wont be able to do a lot while I am gone. So essentially, as of Tuesday when I had the last PhD meeting with them, I had 1 week, holidays, another week and then the confirmation report had to be submitted. That’s two weeks for all the people counting! And I had just then got confirmation that they are happy with email interviews as a method. With two weeks to confirmation! Not at all how I would like my time to have been managed. If I hadn’t gone against their advice and written about the method I would be frantically doing that now.

And the worst thing is the Anna has the attitude that writing about the method is the easy part. I told them both, very explicitly, that my strengths are all around literature review. I see links and themes and can write a literature rather quickly because it suits my way of thinking. But I have never ever written a method section in a paper. I have never had to justify my choices and link methods to research questions. I don’t know if I’m any good at it or not. I don’t know what level of detail is needed or how the evidence is woven into it. I have of course read many method sections but in journal articles not confirmation reports! And let’s face it, journal articles vary a LOT when it comes to how much detail and justification is given for method sections.

So I have asked for feedback on the stuff I have written and fair to say I’m frustrated and stressed about the whole situation! BUT that’s not the end of it!

The project is mixed methods right? So an online survey and then email interviews to follow that up and dig a deeper. Well I knew I would have to talk about that in confirmation, justify why I choose that as the approach etc. But I didn’t realise that the survey questions and interview questions would all have to be done before confirmation! I’ll save it for another post but that is what I am working on at the moment – writing a jolly online survey, from scratch. In 2 weeks, no pressure!

I really feel like Khaby Lame (that guy that debunks life hacks) saying “I told you!”

I will absolutely write an entry about where my PhD is at now and then keep that updated but I think the story so far is really worth telling. I have been working as an academic for 6 and a half years now, 5 as a sessional (casual) and then the last 1.5 years here at CQU, part time, 0.5 FTE. I have known right from the start that I needed a PhD if I wanted to get from level A to B (pay rise) and that to get ongoing work it was pretty much required as well.

There was never any doubt that I would eventually get a PhD, but it was something for “down the track” and not something I was going to jump into. As the years went by and my sessional income jumped up and down, looking more precarious every semester the urgency I felt got bigger and bigger. How long could I hold out on sessional wages? How long could my partner take the stress of not being able to make any financial plans?

I have known for years what my topic would be. Ha! In the end that changed! I wanted to look at religion and how it impacted transition to university. But I didn’t get top marks in Honours and that had a domino effect. I then couldn’t get into a PhD at Monash and have the supervisor that I wanted. My second choice had retired and my third choice had moved to Queensland! So I got to a breaking point where I decided I just needed to pick a topic, and a supervisor and jump in!

I knew I would be happy as long as I was looking at something that would help students from marginalised groups, basically as long as I was looking at improving enabling programs it was all OK! So I needed to pick a theory or concept that I could apply to enabling students. I toyed with looking at grit or resilience but then settled on self-efficacy. I had done psychological studies as a major in my undergraduate degree so I knew a bit about self-efficacy AND there were a couple of academics in the School of Education that worked in and around it. Problem solved!

It sounds simple doesn’t it? Wanted to do a PhD. Felt an urgency to get it started. Picked a concept and a group of students. Wham! Go! I’m not sure how accurate that story is! In one way it is totally true and correct. In another way there was hours and hours of contemplating if I was doing the right thing. This is a SIX YEAR project. I am going to have to be 101% committed to it. My choice in topic and supervisors could make all the difference. It is what is going to shape my career. I will be an expert in that topic – better choose wisely!

One could over-think these things for a millennia! I choose to ignore my brain when it started second-guessing. I realised that I would be a part of many different research projects and all I needed was some expertise to contribute to each one. Self-efficacy is not just a fad, it’s been around a long time. It’s not going to suddenly stop mattering in education. When it comes down to it I can shape my career and if I don’t want to be stuck as the self-efficacy enabling expert I can break away from that. I couple of projects and a few publications on another topic and everyone will probably forget I ever muttered the words self-efficacy. I don’t expect I will need to distance myself from this topic, but I know I could if I need to.

I’m going to do my confirmation of candidature sometime in the next few weeks and I don’t regret jumping in yet. I don’t feel like I have learnt much on the journey so far. It’s been more laborious than anything else. I guess I just FEEL like I should have learnt more but mostly I’ve just been doing a lot of reading… and every new thing that I read just re-affirms what I knew already. Don’t get me wrong I have added bits and pieces to my knowledge. I know a lot more now about enabling pedagogies that I ever did before. But the majority of things I have been looking at I could have guessed if anyone had asked, or I already knew. Still I have memorised quite a few more authors, and specific publications etc. That will come in handy I’m sure!

So my advice to anyone thinking about doing a PhD is this: Don’t get hung up on the details. Know what it is that you really care about – what problem do you want to fix? And then don’t worry too much about any of the other details. As long as your project is going to help with that problem that you are passionate about – jump in and just do it!