Working at Doctoral Level

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Working at Doctoral Level

• Martin Johnson
• Director, Salford Centre for Nursing, Midwifery
  and Collaborative Research
• Editor, Nurse Education Today

2
What is a Doctorate ?

• UK PhD, DPhil - long thesis (60-80k)
• UK Clinical and professional doctorates
• Sustained study in depth at the same level but
  with a more practical application
• Key ideas
• Originality, creativity, critical thought,
  scholarship, rigour, depth, reflexivity

3
Problem Areas?

• Literature
• Perspectives
• Methods
• Sampling
• Style
• Discussion/Conclusions
• Dissemination

4
Literature Review Issues

• Lists of previous work
• Too circumscribed (UK only)
• Only last five or ten years
• Descriptive
• Must be critical
• What does critical mean?

5
An ideal literature review - rarely seen

• Review less studies, in more depth. Take a whole
  page or more. Pick out examples of influential,
  good, or less good, research criticise
• methods
• sampling
• perspective
• any ethical issues
• analysis
• conclusions
• inappropriate generalisations

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Perspectives Get to the Data

• Phenomenology
• lived experience
• Heideggerian hermeneutics (spell it properly)
• Husserl, Merleau Ponty
• Grounded theory
• Glaser and/or Strauss
• Get to grips with interpretivism
• Dont let these things dominate
• Read around, but you will find it hard to say
  anything new about these

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Spurious theoretical perspectives/approaches

• Symbolic interactionism
• Grounded theory
• Phenomenology, Heidegger, Husserl, others
• Complicated philosophical frameworks for
  describing simple surveys of small numbers of
  people
• Nursing theory
• Examples

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Whats wrong with quantitative research?
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Absence of the right methods

• Which is the best and most useful experiment
  that you use in your practice or teaching?
• How many of you have undertaken a randomised
  controlled trial of a nursing intervention?
• Any other experimental research procedure?
• If you want to show that any intervention makes a
  difference, you need an experiment of some kind.

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Survey Methods

• Questionnaires
• Too few
• Only one centre (n1)
• Not validated
• Not enough demographic detail
• Statistician not involved
• Inappropriate use of significance

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Whats Wrong With Sampling ?

• 8 10 students MSc
• 20 students and a few lecturers PhD
• People rather than events
• People at hand (e.g my group of students, or the
  tutors at my department) rather than people who
  can inform
• This is, for many purposes, a sample of one, not
  many.
• As true of quantitative as qualitative
  researchers
• Advantages of questionnaires rarely used, i.e.
  many sites and many persons

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Importance and Statistical Significance (anon)
Here, in the case of accountability, on a scale
of 1 to 5, the actual difference in opinion
between qualified nurse groups is 0.15 (3.64
minus 3.49) On a five point scale that amounts to
1/35th It may have happened by chance in only
2.7 of cases, but is it important?
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Qualitative Methods

• Excessive convenience again
• Whatever method claimed
• Semi-structured interviews
• Focus groups (even more convenient)
• Participant observation avoided

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Scholarship

• Attention to detail
• Diligent and consistent referencing
• Lay review by friend good at English
• Peer review by experienced author/postgraduate
• Use your tutor/supervisor sparingly for close
  detail. Theyre not really here to put
  apostrophes in
• Format, spell checks, grammar checker (not 100
  reliable)
• 5 minute test

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Poor Style

• The author thinks that
• It was hypothesised that
• As Johnson argues. When Johnson is yourself
• It is not more academic to do this
• Shirks responsibility for opinions
• Great writers dont do it!

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Bertrand Russell

• Philosophy is a word which has been used in
  many ways, some wider, some narrower, I propose
  to use it in a very wide sense
• (History of Western Philosophy, 1946)

17
Carl Rogers

• I believe that all teachers and educators prefer
  to facilitate this experiential and meaningful
  type of learning
• (Freedom to Learn, 1969, p5)

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Erving Goffman

• I have been using the term performance to
  refer to all the activity of an individual which
  occurs during a period marked by his continuous
  presence..
• (On the presentation of self in everyday life,
  1959, p33)

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Christine Webb

• In this paper I shall discuss my experiences as
  a feminist, nurse and sociologist studying
  womens perceptions of having a hysterectomy
• (Journal of Advanced Nursing, 9, p249, 1984)
• See CWs Editorial, How to make your article
  more readable, JAN 2002, 38, 1, 1-2.

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Summary improving your thesis

• Practice critical evaluation of literature not
  lists!
• Avoid spurious philosophical perspectives
• Sample the people who know, not your own people
• Develop quantitative and qualitative skills
• Avoid dated pseudo-academic style
• Read the best writers for depth, (often not
  nurses) and at least 6 or seven successful theses
  in your own field and at the relevant level

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Martin JohnsonUniversity of Salford

• m.johnson2_at_salford.ac.uk