Part time EdD student:

The summer has completely flown by and i feel like all i have done is work (my full time job) whilst parenting my 2 year old son and trying to read for my EdD in and around and when I can. We managed a week in Wales by the beach and that was heaven to simply switch off and enjoy a sunny week. Admittedly the laptop did come with me and I read a journal or two per night just to feel like i was keeping on top of things. I had an assignment deadline early September and when i got into writing my assignment I realised that this task had asked a lot more of us than previous assignments. I had a couple of days where I panicked and I scolded myself for leaving things a bit last minute. I had some really insightful and motivating chats with my supervisor and I hunkered down and made my deadline. With Covid and the constant changing rules and the increasing pressures at work, I have really questioned my position as a doctoral student throughout the summer and I have gone from thoughts and feelin...

When contemplating applying for a PhD I was pretty set on the fact that my research would have to be quantitive in terms of data-heavy, or qualitative where I only considered interviews as a source of data. Without being either of these, how could my research possibly contribute to existing knowledge and be of any value to both the academic and wider societies? Having been on my EdD course for almost two years I have been exposed to a wide range of methods for data collection and this has really inspired my thinking as I develop my own plans for my research. I am also in a lucky position to be working at a university where I interact with academics on a regular basis and I hear a lot about their research and the methods that they use in data collection and this, combined with my studies has really opened my eyes to vast opportunities available in conducting research. My most recent study-block on the EdD course introduced a number of methods for data collection and all of these methods...

At the moment my studies are getting to me as I am in a spiral of constantly second-guessing myself and I want to write about it here to try and undo some of the harsh feelings I am going through. Now anyone that knows me will know that I am not someone to give in easily but my latest assignment has really played with my head. Assignment: This assignment came in two parts - part 1 was a ten-minute presentation looking at a particular situation through the lenses of two theoretical perspectives. The second part of the assignment is an opportunity to take the same presentation and expand on it in a written assignment. I think where my struggles come from is that I perhaps don't fully understand the two theories that I have chosen and that I haven't read enough. For the presentation, I scored 66% which is a fantastic mark here in the UK, so I am obviously doing something right. In preparing for the presentation I was never fully happy with the content of the presentatio...