The email read “If you are interested in hearing about a new Ed. Doc. course call Prof…..”  I was in the last year of my masters so I did.  We made a time to meet, I trudged to the other side of the city…he forgot.  Good start!

We eventually did meet and after some discussion about the topic I went away to write what I now know was the D1.  No I haven’t left out enrolment, that didn’t come yet.  The D1 is the idea proposal; you have about 2000 words to play with and some ‘advisors’ to support you.  ‘Advisor One’ felt I should be able to nail the application in 1000 words.  It took about a year to develop it to the point of presentation to the Doctoral Studies Board (DSB).  I thought I was finished… ‘Advisor Two’ handed it back with every full stop and comma checked in the reference list. 

Doctoral lesson number 1: Learn to use Endnote!  That’s an absolute MUST!

Advisors One and Two then sent my idea to the DSB and, to my surprise; I gained provisional entrance to the Ed. Doc. programme.  This is all you can get until your full proposal is accepted and you have presented to the faculty.  That, however, was two years away! 

The Ed. Doc. has four compulsory papers to begin with and each has a block course to introduce the main ideas.  They were described as: unpacking the ideas, looking at theoretical backgrounds, the methodologies, and gradually developing questions, hunches and a thesis.  The first paper was to really examine the ‘big picture’ and is the point at which you leave solid ground and for the next two years gradually learn to balance on jelly.  The pathway I followed had one paper in each semester, each ending with a 10,000 word report, presentation and oral defence with external examiners, advisors and peers.  “Oral Defence?” I asked in hushed tones.  “Yes, you present the work you have done and we question you about your stance and suggest other things to think about.  We have an external examiner as well.”  At that point the equation looked like:

Advisors One and Two started chanting something about “follow the process, you will be fine”…I was in such a state of shock, panic, terror, etc. that I couldn’t have asked, “what’s the process” if I had tried.  By the time of the presentation my heart was pounding and I had practically learned the presentation as a speech.  I got one sentence in when the external examiner stopped me and disagreed with my main stance for my idea.  After the first sentence of my first oral defence (for defence, read inquisition), the words just vanished, the cogency of the presentation evaporated, the Ed. Doc. went down several gurglers within my fragile mind and I went home absolutely and utterly shattered. 

I don’t remember hearing I had passed; just received the dates for the next block course.  Paper two was the theoretical base for the research.  “Pick one theory,” Advisor Two said.  “One!!!??? I actually need bits of several, one doesn’t fit.”  “Just one.”  Frustration was vented in tears and it was the most alone moment for me in the first two years.  No-one seemed to listen, or if they were listening I wasn’t explaining right because they weren’t hearing what I was saying.  It felt like a journey through growing quick sand, no firm ground in sight and the jelly wasn’t quite set yet.

One of the things that had come up in the ‘follow the process’ mantra was “it’s your project, you know it best.”  “O.K. then,” I said, “I want bits of several theories; I can’t do it with one.”  “Well, it’s your project,” Advisor One pronounced.  While that was undoubtedly true, it was then and remains now, ‘my project’, the words of advice were said in a way that inferred that choosing to merge theory dimensions was absolutely the worst decision I had ever made… and yet again, it felt as if the end of it all was looming!

I, however, survived…I endured the report, presentation and even the second oral defence which this time, seemed shrunk considerably in magnitude.  And it was followed by a good lunch.

At this point, I should explain that unless you are an I.T wizard, you should understand that the second doctorate you will be commencing and battling with at the same time as the first, is the technological support one.  More directly, all the tricks that the computer knows that will help you work smarter not harder.  Advisor Three (all hail Advisor Three!) walked me slowly, at first but with gathering pace, through this.  End Note is a wondrous thing...a trick I will mention here is one Advisor Three (all hail Advisor Three!) suggested…write down the key words you use in the End Note programme.  It helps you to be concise across the study as a whole.  (If you don’t you end up, like I was, with a far more ‘fluid’ situation).  You might also do Dr. Lyn Lavery’s ‘long documents’ course or check out her support notes.  If you are feeling really brave, Inspiration and NVivo are brilliant programmes. There are others …but these are my pick and you can do them at Woodhill Park.  Just contact Jenny Hansen.

By this time, Year Two of the programme had commenced and paper three was concerned with that elusive term called methodology.  This was the best of times for me because, it was here I was able to completely lose myself; it was here that I found myself stopping the car several times a night on the way home to write down ideas; it was here was that I asked the checkout supervisor in the supermarket for a paper bag upon which to write down new ideas before I forgot them. 

Doctoral lesson number 2: travel with a notebook!  They come in a variety of colours and they make smart fashion accessories!

At this stage, I encountered two new parts of the Ed. Doc. process: these concern ‘outputs’ and ‘professional enquiries’.  The first is where you take the interesting bits of what you are doing and present them at symposia and/or conferences.  Presentations represent a continued source of terror-filled adrenalin bursts (but that’s just me).  Professional enquiries refer to a myriad of opportunities through which you can try out little bits of the ideas you have about methodologies and methods.  You can do it variously – in your mind (exploring unofficial pilot situations, in your mind again and again and yet again), by way of conversations with mentors and/or colleagues and or friends (so that you can go away and rework things in your mind, again and again and yet again).  Whatever way it’s done, these represent small, manageable and utterly fascinating morsels within the overall journey. 

I’ve tried several of these morsels; they were engrossing and allowed me to see what I might need to ‘tweak’.  (If you are going to engage in ‘thick rich description’, as Geertz describes it, and you’re not used to writing to such a level of depth and intensity of description and evaluation of events, these morsels are to be recommended.  But you might need some practice at generating them.  I certainly did and still do.  In fact, I suspect that it will be a trait of my lifelong research journey).

 
Paper Four involved drawing together everything that had been traversed previously – no matter how wobbly and jelly like, that might have been! 

They said that you needed to do this in order to get an idea of what the ‘D9’ (the dreaded full proposal form) might look like.  Actually, it doesn’t do that at all as the D9 (which really is the full proposal) has lots of very specific categories.  Paper Four theoretically drew everything together at that point and looking back, I actually think I started to feel some much firmer ground underfoot.  At this stage, by the way, it should be commented that of the original six people who had enrolled as a cohort of enthusiastic doctoral candidates, only three were still in the Ed. Doc. Process.  One person had transferred her candidature to a Ph.D. and two had re-achieved sanity and gone back to their lives!

From the end of Paper Four until the D9 presentation to the faculty had been completed, and when that magical moment arrived where a letter was received saying I now, finally, had full entrance to the programme, took a mere flick of time – just another year. 

It was this year that I think was the most vital of all in the Ed. Doc. process.  Planning each part of the contemplated thesis, knowing understanding each part well was time well spent.  But even now, that too has a jelly like form because it’s likely to be a moving feast.

The Ed. Doc. is good if you like deadlines.  It has more structure initially but that probably means the stress is more constant throughout than a Ph.D.  The Ed. Doc. has also been seen as the ‘lesser’ alternative in the doctoral stakes but I for one beg to differ.  It’s just structured differently and as professionals, the excitement of developing and applying new knowledge almost from the beginning is not to be passed up lightly.  Would I do it again?  Hmnnnn…

To be continued…more lessons to come.  Feedback and discussion welcomed.