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After leaving school at 16 and getting married at 18, Jackie Fisher was a mature student, aged 30 and a mother of four, when she began her undergraduate studies, part-time, at the Open University, UK. Four years later having obtained a 1st Class honours degree, she decided to pursue a PhD degree based on her interest in technical innovation and change. She was accepted as a part-time student at Alpha University to which she was attracted because it was carrying out research in this field. On acceptance she was allocated to a Director of Studies, (Professor Brian Freedman) who said he would take a general interest, and a supervisor, Mr. Simon Fox. Until then she had had no experience of a conventional university. She was used to working on her own with material sent to her. Her undergraduate degree had not required her to search libraries for original published material, for example. Her supervisor seem to assume that she would acquire any academic skills necessary and made no attempt to aid or advise her on how to do this. There were a number of other PhD students in this field, and the department arranged for weekly seminars from researchers. But it quickly became clear that the researchers were interested in their topics not in the students, and attendance soon dropped away on the part of Jackie and the other students. Working on her own Jackie thus became very dependent on Mr Fox for guidance and help in her research. Over the next months she began to feel that his supervision was not really adequate. He always seemed to be very busy with other activities, would cancel meetings, and took long phone calls during supervision sessions. In addition, she felt that he did not read with any degree of rigour what she had written. She was not even sure that she could trust him in that he usually became animated only when trying to persuade her to take a particular approach, or to do a particular investigation because he wanted that research done anyway, usually in regard to his consultancy activities. This unsatisfactory situation carried on for many months, and finally Jackie went to her Director of Studies and explained her worries. Professor Freedman tried to persuade her that she was exaggerating the problem. He also interpreted her concerns as a function of a problem of a male-female relationship between Jackie and Mr Fox, although Jackie was quite used to working with men and felt this was not the issue. Professor Freedman arranged for her to meet with a visiting female academic at Alpha but Jackie felt that this person had little interest in her work. Being the energetic person she is, Jackie decided that she would just get on with it herself, even thought she was not getting the training, support and supervision she required. She carried on with her own reading and research work, trying to learn research methodology from books, for example. She carried out her field studies, wrote them up and proposed to submit the thesis for examination. Mr Fox agreed and an appointment was made of an external examiner. This was Professor Ian Franks, a leading scholar in the general field of Jackie's work in technological change though not in the particular approach she had taken. At the viva, Professor Franks said that the work she had done was just not adequate, and he did not see how the work was recoverable to achieve PhD standard. Jackie was therefore awarded an MPhil. This was a considerable blow, since Mr Fox and Professor Freedman had given no hint that the work was anything other than adequate. She felt very disappointed and resentful at this outcome, which she felt was a result of the poor training and supervision she had been given. She also felt that the fact that Professor Franks had been chosen as external examiner when his research concerns were so different from hers, underlined her belief that Mr Fox had never fully read and understood her work. She appealed against the decision, but the Alpha University authorities found that the correct examination procedures had been followed, and confirmed the result. So Jackie retired with an MPhil 'to lick her wounds'. Six months later an opportunity arose for her to take a part-time course, sponsored by her employers in relation to her job, viz: Accounting for Managers. She took the course and passed with flying colours. This restored to her some of the confidence in her academic abilities that she had lost through the previous experience. A year later she saw an advertisement from Beta University for part-time students to study for a Doctorate in Education. This involved doing a number of training workshops at regular week-end meetings with other similar students. There were workshops on research methodology, philosophical foundations, fieldwork techniques and so on. This appealed to Jackie because it promised to give her the training and experience she never got at her last attempt at a doctorate. By then Jackie had changed her job and was now working as an IT specialist in an educational environment, where her task was to encourage the use of IT in learning. She applied, and was accepted onto the course. The EdD students were required to produce eight projects in the first two years as Part I of the degree. These involved learning the professional skills and knowledge necessary to carry out research. The final projects were writing a research proposal for the Doctorate, conducting a literature review and carrying out a pilot project on the topic. Jackie carried these out well and with great enthusiasm, feeling how positive this was and how different from her earlier lonely experience. When it came to preparing for Part II of the course though, researching and writing the thesis, warning bells began to ring. Beta University had considerable difficulty in finding an academic to supervise Jackie with the in-depth subject interest and knowledge that she was determined this time should characterise her supervisor. Jackie possessed a copy of How to Get a PhD by Estelle M. Phillips and Derek S. Pugh (4th ed. Open University Press, 2005) which suggests that academics from any university who are actively doing research on a topic which a student is proposing to tackle will be happy to talk about their work. She therefore contacted an academic who, from her literature review, Jackie regarded as an important researcher on her topic of applying IT to education, viz: Dr Pam Fletcher of Gamma University. Dr Fletcher was very interested to hear of Jackie's proposed study, and was very impressed with the fieldwork access that Jackie had obtained on the basis of her current job. They discussed the way forward and Dr Fletcher suggested a possible methodology to carry out the work. When she heard of the problems that Jackie was facing in finding a suitable supervisor at Beta University, she also suggested that Jackie withdraw from there and register as a PhD student with her at Gamma University. She would then have access to the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge in her subject. After much thought, Jackie decided to do this. To howls of anguish from them, she withdrew from Beta University and registered at Gamma University with Dr Fletcher as her supervisor. Jackie is in no doubt that the structured Part I of the Beta University course was absolutely vital in her progress towards a doctorate. But she is also clear that she was not going to be able to achieve the PhD without a supervisor who was an active researcher in the field, which Beta were not able to provide. At Gamma University, Dr Fletcher was an effective supervisor. She had suggested a methodological approach that Jackie had followed up and found very fruitful. She read carefully all her drafts and made useful comments. She was freely available for appointments for supervisory sessions although she always left it to Jackie to initiate them. Very importantly she gave emotional support - always encouraging Jackie that she could do a good job of research and get a PhD. This was particularly important when the time came for the viva, since the experience of the previous one kept coming back to haunt Jackie. In due course, she presented her thesis and this time she passed with only minor corrections needed. So, more than 10 years after first registering with Alpha University, Dr
Jackie Fisher finally obtained her PhD from Gamma University. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION1. At which points, and in what ways could Dr Jackie Fisher have shortened her odyssey? 2. What lessons should be learnt by Alpha and Beta Universities from this case? 3. Are there any issues in this case which should concern Gamma University? © D.S. Pugh. |