Step by step: My continuing PhD journey
PhD research truly is a marathon event. It is completed one step at a time. Sometimes you can see the finish line, even if if is only in your imagination. At other times you feel as if you are getting nowhere. There are moments when you may feel a renewed energy. This mostly comes from some of the spectators and cheerleaders on the sidelines, but sometimes comes from an internal mental push to keep going. However it happens, it is an important factor in pushing toward completion. My friends and networks create this impetus to keep going. A recent message highlights this support.
I have reached that moment when I can feel the push as I step past a wall of inertia and take the next steps toward completing this PhD. I have, over the past two months, received and achieved committee approval of the research proposal, with the first submission and subsequent revised submission receiving critical and essential feedback to improve the research plan. I now have a re-energized momentum to keep going, to take the next steps in this marathon. This weekend I am working on laying out specific and measurable markers for my progress through the foreseeable process of completing the research. I may not yet see the finish line, but I can lay out a sequence for what I need to accomplish next.
First step: complete the research ethics application and submit using the university’s online portal. I’ve worked on a draft version, but the formal submission means I need to review that draft and make sure it best describes the proposed research and all the ethical considerations necessary for approval. I will review the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS-2) on the Ethical Conduct for Research with Humans (Research Council of Canada, 2014) and the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) recommendations (franzke et al., 2020; Markham & Buchanan, 2012) to ensure that I demonstrate awareness and compliance with current recommended ethical guidelines.
Next step: begin doing the web-based gathering of information about potential participants. Since I don’t know if they will agree to participating in my research, and since REB approval is required before I approach them to become participants, This preliminary work will be a cursory search and glance at the open accessible information related to each participant. Privacy and confidentiality of web-based information such as social media accounts, course syllabi, and university specific data available on the internet is considered non-intrusive since there is no direct interaction with the researched individuals. Such data gathering does not require research ethics board (REB) approval (Research Council of Canada, 2014). These digital artifacts can reveal the participant’s openly available OEPr and MDL as revealed in their internet related “documents, records, performances, online archival materials or published third party interviews” (Research Council of Canada, 2014, p. 16). This initial examination of participants’ open and online digital artifacts can be conducted prior to REB approval, but will be held in confidence pending the signed consent form.
I have reached out to one teacher educator who models an open educational practice and have tested my research interview protocol. In this way I was able to make adjustments to the protocol that was included within my final research proposal submission. Through this practice session, I was able to also learn how to use the transcription service Otter.ai for the video recording and determine some of the time commitments I need to make as I move into the interview phase of the research. I was also able to test out the word cloud production using the de-identified version of the interview transcript. All of this preliminary work will help me fine-tune and adjust the process as I step into the research phases of my PhD work. As I took these first steps into doing PhD research, I began to experiment with versions of a research journal in both digital and paper versions.
References
franzke, a. s., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., & Ess, C. (2020). Internet research: Ethical guidelines 3.0. Association of Internet Researchers. https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf
Recommendations from the AoIR eEthics wWorking cCommittee (Version 2.0) [AOIR Ethics Working Committee]. http://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf
Research Council of Canada. (2014). Tri-Council policy statement: Ethical conduct for research involving humans. Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique_tcps2-eptc2_2018.html
