Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals

Transcription

1 Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals

2 CRITICAL ISSUES IN THE FUTURE OF LEARNING AND TEACHING Volume 12 Series Editors: Britt-Marie Apelgren, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Pamela Burnard, University of Cambridge, UK Nese Cabaroglu, University of Cukurova, Turkey Pamela M. Denicolo, University of Surrey, UK Nicola Simmons, Brock University, Canada Founding Editor: Michael Kompf (Brock University, Canada) Scope: This series represents a forum for important issues that do and will affect how learning and teaching are thought about and practised. All educational venues and situations are undergoing change because of information and communications technology, globalization and paradigmatic shifts in determining what knowledge is valued. Our scope includes matters in primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as community-based informal circumstances. Important and significant differences between information and knowledge represent a departure from traditional educational offerings heightening the need for further and deeper understanding of the implications such opportunities have for influencing what happens in schools, colleges and universities around the globe. An inclusive approach helps attend to important current and future issues related to learners, teachers and the variety of cultures and venues in which educational efforts occur. We invite forward-looking contributions that reflect an international comparative perspective illustrating similarities and differences in situations, problems, solutions and outcomes.

3 Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals Edited by Pamela Burnard, Tatjana Dragovic, Julia Flutter and Julie Alderton University of Cambridge, UK

4 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: (paperback) ISBN: (hardback) ISBN: (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2016 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations vii xi xiii Introduction 1. Fields and Oceans: Helping Professional Doctorate Students to Orientate Themselves and Navigate through Their Practitioner Research Journeys 3 Julia Flutter Part 1: Mapping Doctoral Practices 2. The Professional Doctorate 15 Pamela Burnard 3. PhD: Been There, Done That: So, Why Do a (Second), Professional Doctorate? 29 Karen Ottewell and Wai Mun Lim 4. Three Agendas for Researching Professionals: Challenging and Developing Your Thinking about Your Doctoral Practices 43 Simon Dowling Part 2: Theorising Doctorate Journeying 5. The Art and Craft of Professional Doctorates 63 Tatjana Dragovic 6. The Teacher as a Learner: Theorising a Shift in Mindset at the Start of My Professional Doctorate Journey 75 Gavin Turner 7. Professional Doctorate Researching and the Changing Self : A Personal and Professional Journey 91 James Edward Knowles 8. Moving from Practitioner to Researching Professional: Shifts of Identity 101 Denise Whalley v

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 3: Generating Impact 9. Constructing Impact 115 Julia Flutter 10. Whose Stone Is It Anyway? Articulating the Impact of Exploratory Doctoral Research for Professional Educators 127 Rebecca Kitchen 11. Leading Professional Change through Research(ing): Conceptual Tools for Professional Practice and Research 141 Riikka Hofmann Conclusion 12. Connecting the Voices, Journeyings and Practices of the Doctorate for Professionals 157 Julia Flutter About the Contributors 163 vi

7 PREFACE Being a researcher is a challenge. Being a professional practitioner in education is a challenge. The idea of being a professional who bridges both practice and research describes well someone who is doing a professional education doctorate; an even greater challenge, which has been largely under-represented and under-theorised in higher education globally. Who elects to do a professional education doctorate or doctorate of education? Professionals who are practitioners that is, those who practice and develop expertise ( do it ) in a profession and wish to become researchers or scholars who study it and conduct research. The researching professional is a hybrid category of those who do it and study it simultaneously. Professionals who elect to do a professional (education) doctorate differ from those who elect to a part-time PhD because they may not be researching their own practice. Among the many problems with which doctoral communities must grapple is the practical dynamics of what makes professional education doctorates really worth doing. When do people feel most empowered, engaged, and creative? When do both new and established doctoral researchers, and their supervisors and lecturers, feel most challenged and stimulated: when doing research or when supporting or teaching students working on professional doctorates? The initiative for a book on Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals, encompassing a variety of different viewpoints, from students to lecturers, supervisors and course managers, arises from a need for critical insight into the doing, supporting, teaching and learning of doctoral research. The purpose of this edited volume is, primarily, to explore the distinct research practices and unique journeying of professional practitioner-researchers and their supervisors and lecturers who stand at the centre of doctoral education. While the topics feature critical issues that characterize professional doctorates, the ways in which these scholars have chosen to address their journeying illustrate the diversity of voices in practice, with project examples from within and beyond educational settings. This volume offers the first institutional-specific 1 collection in the form of a collaboratively authored volume, with the purpose and goal of sharing the livedthrough debates, deliberations, challenges and experiences of a group of professional doctoral students, their supervisors and lecturers. This book is designed to help professional doctoral students and their supervisors and educators understand what doctoral education means in contemporary practice and to reflect on, address and integrate, an understanding of the practical and theoretical issues involved in journeying as a doctoral student. It provides a valuable showcase of key themes and contemporary issues as experienced by a diversity of voices in an international vii

8 PREFACE community of professional doctoral students and their educators whose voices will relate to an international audience. This group of doctoral students draws from diverse disciplines which include education, business, veterinary science, physiotherapy, and counselling. The book showcases the mapping of professional practices at different phases and stages of a five year doctoral journey, the imperative of reflexivity as one moves from practitioner to researching professional and scholar identities, and the placing of practice at the centre of doctorates. Within the scenario of one institution, the aims of the volume can be articulated as questions, such as: What does it mean to be a doctoral researcher and what practices are of central concern to the critical reflexivity and positioning involved with the outer and inner journeys it engenders? Why and how do writing practices challenge and delight doctoral researchers, supervisors and doctoral educators engaged in creating and supporting the development of innovative portfolio doctorates? And what is their notion of a professional doctorate and doctorateness? When do studies make a ripple and/or a splash? How do we think about and address crucial issues surrounding the outcomes and impact of our research? How does theorising practice play a role in the creation of a new professional identity (of a researching professional) and in the journeying of a professional doctoral researcher, supervisor and doctorate educator and how do professional doctorates represent, facilitate and generate impact on practice and participation within and across disciplinary and institutional structures and practices? The aim of this book, therefore, is to engage and explore some of the critical issues for doctoral students and educators in the teaching and learning of professional doctoral journeying. The voices of novice researchers, as well as developing and established researchers, are put together to create, in their own right, a rationale for why professional doctoral research matters. The manner in which the book has been compiled will give doctoral educators and students an innovative and appealing way of deliberating on the diverse paths and critical issues arising in professional doctoral research which reform and transform professional practice. The contributions highlight the latest theories and research approaches which have been developed in practice. The book is divided into three main parts: Part 1 Mapping doctoral practices, Part 2 Theorising doctoral journeying, and Part 3 Generating impact. The poem that follows is offered as a way of thanking every author who shared their journeying, their voices and their research with us, the readers. It is also an expression of (and site for disturbance of the usual way of being and becoming, thinking and doing, teaching and learning), what it is to be a professional researcher. Sometimes it s just not enough to talk or reflect, read or write in conventional forms about the rich and fruitful experience of doctoral work. I encourage all doctoral educators and students who read this book to embrace the question and issues raised within Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals and to maybe rethink the role that writing has in your practice, and how it is represented in doctoral education and in research. viii

9 The Reflexive Researching Professional by Pamela Burnard We talk, we reflect, we think, we share the individual account How this or that rap or rhythm, practice or perception, article or chapter moves us We do. We study. We theorize the ripples that change us How personal the practice; How professional practice is personal Reflecting on the person, the profession, the researching professional Doing a professional doctorate How practice is reflective yet may not be reflexive How practice can be research or practice as research Playing with and reflecting on ideas, opinions, assumptions and experiences, Documenting, representing, seeing and re-seeing and unpacking practices with new Sight, in-sight into words, images, metaphors Reflecting on the unspoken Articulating the taken-for-granted Reflexively fighting familiarity Doing and theorizing research Doing research, as researching professionals Into the night Doing research, writing our selves Without silencing voices Theorizing professional lives Writing our selves in re-search Pamela Burnard PREFACE NOTE 1 University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, Doctor of Education programme (see ix

10

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank all of our contributing authors for their work, their willingness to attend to detail, and their generosity in sharing their professional doctoral journeying and examples of practice. We would also like to thank the team at Sense Publishers, in particular Michel Lokhorst (Sense Publishers Director), Jolanda Karada (Sense Publishers Production Coordinator) and Series Editors Pamela Denicolo, Nicola Simmons, Britt-Marie Apelgren and Nese Cabaroglu for their support and advice. Thanks are due to our friends, families and colleagues for their support and encouragement, and especially to the EdD cohort for our initial and ongoing discussions and reflections on doctoral journeying as professionals which stimulated the idea for the book. We gratefully acknowledge support from the EdD supervisors and advisors along with the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge (who funds the annual EdD one-day-conference) which featured some of the themes shared in this volume. The front cover s image, Water drop close-up, was retrieved from the public domain stock photograph website Skitterphoto ( accessed on 19 May We also thank David Litchfield ( an illustrator from Bedfordshire in the UK, for the particular colouring of the cover design. The idea of the cover s metaphor of water expresses the flow of ideas and the fluidity in identity experienced by our contributors in their lives as researching professionals; the ripples emanating from the droplet remind us of the circles of influence which emerge through their work, expanding outwards towards, as yet, unknown destinations. We hope that this volume provides a source of inspiration and ideas for all those who work in doctoral education and that it may stimulate a deeper consideration of what constitutes doctorate journeying for professionals all over the world and how this innovative form of knowledge creation can contribute to future global needs. xi

12

13 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Chapter 1 FIGURES Figure 1. The scholar-practitioner and practitioner-scholar differentiated 24 Figure 2. The professional doctorate its purpose and distinctiveness 25 Chapter 4 Figure 1. Agenda One: The researching professional s positioning 49 Figure 2. Agenda Two: Knowledge produced by a researching professional 51 Figure 3. Agenda Three: Ethical challenges to funded research 55 Figure 4. Three agendas for funded researching professionals 57 Chapter 5 Figure 1. Hero s journey (adapted from Campbell, 1949) 67 Figure 2. Overarching identity of the researching professional 70 Figure 3. Flow according to Csikszentmihalyi (1990) 72 Chapter 6 Figure 1. A summary of different types of knowledge influencing my position as a researching practitioner (adapted from Cain, 2015, p. 494) 85 Figure 2. A continuum of the shift in mindset during my first term of professional doctorate study 86 Chapter 5 TABLES Table 1. Overview of the art and craft of professional doctorates as exemplified in students and doctoral educators /supervisors practices 73 xiii