Inger Mewburn

Learning networks and the journey of ‘becoming doctor’

Scholars such as Kamler and Thompson argue that identity formation has a key role to play in doctoral learning, particularly the process of thesis writing. This article builds on these insights to address other sites in which scholarly identity is performed within doctoral candidature. Drawing on actor‐network theory, the authors examine the role of material things, what Latour calls ‘the missing masses’, in the process of ‘becoming doctor’, with the aim of unpacking the implications of this for doctoral learning and the journey of becoming a researcher or scholar. Through this approach the authors demonstrate that scholarly identity is distributed and comes to be performed through both traditional and non‐traditional sites of learning. The article concludes by addressing the implications of this for efforts to support candidates in the process of becoming researchers.

Why do academics blog? An analysis of audiences, purposes and challenges

Academics are increasingly being urged to blog in order to expand their audiences, create networks and to learn to write in more reader friendly style. This paper holds this advocacy up to empirical scrutiny. A content analysis of 100 academic blogs suggests that academics most commonly write about academic work conditions and policy contexts, share information and provide advice; the intended audience for this work is other higher education staff. We contend that academic blogging may constitute a community of practice in which a hybrid public/private academic operates in a ‘gift economy’. We note however that academic blogging is increasingly of interest to institutions and this may challenge some of the current practices we have recorded. We conclude that there is still much to learn about academic blogging practices.

Academic superheroes? A critical analysis of academic job descriptions

ABSTRACT For over a decade, debate has raged about the nature and purpose of the PhD, including its role as preparation for working in academia. Academic work has changed a great deal in the last 60 years, yet our doctoral curriculum has remained relatively static. While there is increasing interest in matching PhD programmes to ‘real world’ needs, there is a surprising lack of research to inform research curriculum development at this level. If we take the position that the PhD is still the best way to prepare for academic work, what skills and attributes should we help graduates develop for this destination? This article analyses a set of academic job advertisements and asks: What do academic employers really want from the PhD now?

Troubling talk: assembling the PhD candidate

When PhD students complain it is assumed there are problems and that troubles talk is evidence of a ‘sick’ research candidature or culture. This paper argues that such a one-dimensional reading fails to attend closely to the academic identity work that is done when students talk together. Identity work has become a useful way of thinking about the nature of PhD study in the production of thesis texts, the development of PhD students as scholars and in the practices of everyday doctoral life. This paper extends this work by analysing various instances of PhD student ‘troubles talk’ in everyday interactions between peers and in online spaces where PhD students congregate. Attention to troubles talk allows us to explore how doctoral students might do academic identity work in the ‘hinterlands’ where academic subjectivity and other forms of subjectivity (wife, husband, parent, son, daughter etc.) start to blur into each other.

Lost in translation Reconsidering reflective practice and design studio pedagogy

Drawing on empirical research done in the early 1980s, Donald Schön developed the theory of ‘reflective practice’, putting forward the idea that the design studio teacher is a ‘coach’ who helps students align with disciplinary norms and start to ‘think like an architect’. Drawing on actor-network theory as a tool of analysis and way of thinking, this article outlines an alternative, ‘performative’ account of design pedagogy which both challenges and adds to Schön’s explanations of design teaching and learning. Close examination of teachers and students in action shows the teacher to be but one of a host of human and non-human actors, all of whom work to assemble what we call a design studio. Learning to ‘think like an architect’ is but one possible outcome of this assembling process.

Guerrillas in the [Urban] Midst: Developing and Using Creative Research Methods--Guerrilla Research Tactics

Abstract This paper explores what we are calling “Guerrilla Research Tactics” (GRT): research methods that exploit emerging mobile and cloud-based digital technologies. We examine some case studies in the use of this technology to generate research data directly from the physical fabric and the people of the city. We argue that GRT is a new and novel way of engaging public participation in urban, place-based research because it facilitates the co-creation of knowledge, with city inhabitants, “on the fly.” This paper discusses the potential of these new research techniques and what they have to offer researchers operating in the creative disciplines and beyond. This work builds on and extends Gauntletts “new creative methods” (2007) and contributes to the existing body of literature addressing creative and interactive approaches to data collection.

'These are issues that should not be raised in black and white': the culture of progress reporting and the doctorate

This paper reports findings from Australian research into student, academic and administrative staff understandings of the role and efficacy of periodic progress reports designed to monitor the progress of higher-degree-by-research candidates. Major findings are that confusion of the purpose and ultimate audience of these reports is linked to less than effective reporting by all parties; countersigning and report dependency requirements inhibit the frank reporting of progress and ‘social learning’ impacts on the way candidates and sometimes supervisors approach reporting obligations, running counter to institutional imperatives. We conclude that no ready or transparent nexus between the progress report and progress may be assumed. Fundamentally, this calls into question the usefulness of this process as currently implemented. Arising from this is the recommendation that progress reporting be linked to substantive reviews of progress and embedded in the pedagogy and curriculum of higher-degree-by-research programmes.

Experiencing the Progress Report: An Analysis of Gender and Administration in Doctoral Candidature

Most universities around the world put in place administrative processes and systems to manage student progress. These processes usually involve filling out standardised forms and instruments: managerial tools intended to increase transparency, promote efficiency and ensure fairness by applying the same standards to all. The progress report is a widely used management tool in doctoral candidature in Australia and in other countries which look to the United Kingdom for degree structure and format. This reporting mechanism requires students and supervisors to make a retrospective account of the research done in a given period. The intention of the progress report is to provide a mechanism for recording feedback and an opportunity to clarify communication between supervisors, students and the institution itself on the progress of the research. However, whether these managerial tools achieve these aims in doctoral candidature is questionable. In this paper, we report on findings from a study of progress reporting in doctoral studies in one middle-band university in Australia. We found that men and women reported qualitative differences in their encounters with the progress reporting mechanisms, which called into question the idea that these management tools are gender neutral and fair in their effects or application.

Connecting the Space between Design and Research: Explorations in participatory research supervision

Abstract In this article we offer a single case study using an action research method for gathering and analysing data offering insights valuable to both design and research supervision practice. We do not attempt to generalise from this single case, but offer it as an instance that can improve our understanding of research supervision practice. We question the conventional ‘dyadic’ models of research supervision and outline a more collaborative model, based on the signature pedagogy of architecture: the design studio. A novel approach to the supervision of creatively oriented postgraduate students is proposed, including new approaches to design methods and participatory supervision that draw on established design studio practices. This model collapses the distance between design and research activities. Our case study involving Masters Research Students supervision in the discipline of Architecture, shows how ‘connected learning’ emerges from this approach. This type of learning builds strong elements of creativity and fun, which promote and enhance student engagement. The results of our action research suggest that students learn to research more easily in such an environment and supervisory practices are enhanced when we apply the techniques and characteristics of design studio pedagogy to the more conventional research pedagogies imported from the humanities. We believe that other creative disciplines can apply similar tactics to enrich both the creative practice of research and the supervision of HDR students.