Notes to help with constructing a doctoral thesis for examination
Jack Whitehead 7 December 2006-12-07
Having attended several examinations of doctoral theses, as an examiner appointed to exercise judgements in relation to criteria set by the Academy, and even more as a supervisor (where I can't participate!), I thought it might be helpful to set out briefly some issues that examiners focus on as they make their judgements on whether to recommend acceptance of the thesis by the Academy.
The obvious point not to miss is to ensure that the thesis does address the issues in the title/question and as set out in the Abstract. I say this because some theses I've examined have required amendment because of this point!
In my experience the question the thesis has answered is often clearest when the thesis is completed. You will need to check the length of the Abstract in the guidelines for submission, but in 300 words you should set out the central contributions of your thesis. The language used in the University's criteria for the examiners includes, originality of mind and critical judgement, extent and merit of the work and matter worthy of publication. Your Abstract should be clear about the originality of your thesis, the standards of judgment you have focused on and give some indication of the significance/merit of your thesis in relation to the issues engaged with (extent).
Because everyone I'm working with is engaged in some form of action research I do advise you to include in your introduction some references that focus a reader's attention on the originality and significance of your action research in terms of standards of judgment for practice-based research. For example you could draw attention to the Furlong and Oancea report:
Furlong, J. & Oancea, A. (2005) Assessing Quality in Applied and Practice-based Educational Research. Oxford; University of Oxford, Department of Educational Studies
Retrieved on 30th September 2006 from http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:lz1CTUH-ukgJ:www.bera.ac.uk/pdfs/Qualitycriteria.pdf+John+Furlong+assessing+quality&hl=en&client=firefox-a
To stress the importance of appropriate criteria you could also refer to the following because there was much concern expressed after the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise that practice-based research was not being judged with appropriate criteria:
'Where researchers in higher
education have undertaken applied and practice-based research that they
consider to have achieved due standards
of excellence, they should be able to submit it to the RAE in the
expectation that it will be
assessed fairly, against appropriate criteria' RAE 2008
(From page 1 of the Furlong and
Oancea report)
Because there is much debate about the nature of appropriate standards of judgement for evaluating the quality/validity of practice-based research you can explain how your thesis is making an original contribution to the development of appropriate standards of judgment.
I'm also suggesting that in your introduction you draw attention to any original methodological or epistemological contributions your thesis makes. Because your action research involves a self-study of your professional practice, it would be wise to explain that you are clarifying the meanings of your embodied ontological values in the course of their emergence in your practice/enquiry. In clarifying these meanings in the public communication of your thesis you are forming the living epistemological standards of judgment which you use to evaluate the quality/validity of your knowledge-creation.
In your critical evaluation of the ideas of others I would make some reference to research on the development of appropriate forms of representation for action research
http://www.nipissingu.ca/oar/new_issue-V821E.htm
If you want to show your originality in terms of exploring the implications of inclusionality (this is where my own research interests lie) I think that you will need to explain that you are exploring the epistemological and methodological implications of a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries that is connective, reflective and co-creative. You can access Alan Rayner's writings about inclusionality at:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/
and his 2004
paper published in Philosophicus on
Inclusionality
and the Role of Place, Space and Dynamic Boundaries in Evolutionary Processes
at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner/arphilosophica.htm
You can also listen to his radio interview from the 9th December 2006 at:
http://newfrontier.com/asheville/the-revolution.htm#12-09-2-06
and read his
notes on 10 questions and answers about inclusionality at:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner/arradio091206.htm
In terms of your methodological contributions I think you are most probably engaged in a process of methodological inventiveness of the kind outlined by Marian Dadds and Susan Hart in their book Doing Practitioner Research Differently:
" The importance of methodological inventiveness
Perhaps the most important new insight for both of us has been awareness that, for some practitioner researchers, creating their own unique way through their research may be as important as their self-chosen research focus. We had understood for many years that substantive choice was fundamental to the motivation and effectiveness of practitioner research (Dadds 1995); that what practitioners chose to research was important to their sense of engagement and purpose. But we had understood far less well that how practitioners chose to research, and their sense of control over this, could be equally important to their motivation, their sense of identity within the research and their research outcomes." (Dadds & Hart, p. 166, 2001)
"If our aim is to create conditions that facilitate methodological inventiveness, we need to ensure as far as possible that our pedagogical approaches match the message that we seek to communicate. More important than adhering to any specific methodological approach, be it that of traditional social science or traditional action research. may be the willingness and courage or practitioners – and those who support them – to create enquiry approaches that enable new, valid understandings to develop; understandings that empower practitioners to improve their work for the beneficiaries in their care. Practitioner research methodologies are with us to serve professional practices. So what genuinely matters are the purposes of practice which the research seeks to serve, and the integrity with which the practitioner researcher makes methodological choices about ways of achieving those purposes. No methodology is, or should, cast in stone, if we accept that professional intention should be informing research processes, not pre-set ideas about methods of techniques." (Dadds & Hart, p. 169, 2001)
Dadds, M. & Hart, S. (2001) Doing Practitioner Research Differently, p. 166. London; RoutledgeFalmer.
You might also wish to connect the narrative form of your thesis to Jean McNiff's ideas in her chapter on My Story Is My Living Educational Theory for the new Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology (Clandinin, J. 2006, London; New York, Sage – due for publication December 2006 – 2 copies ordered for the library). I've got a copy of the final draft before publication if you would like a copy before you read the chapter in the Handbook.
As we are all engaged in some form of practice-based research in particular personal, professional, economic, political, social and global contexts, what we do is likely to be influenced by some local, regional, national and global policies and the power relations that sustain existing social formations. As any enquiry into our professional practice is taking place within a context that is influenced by and could be influencing such economic, political and other policies, as well as historical and cultural influences, you could strengthen the relatability of your enquiry by connecting it to the dialectical, dialogical and inclusional relationships between your practice and the social formations in which you are living and working.
For example, you may be explaining your actions, your influences and your learning in ways that include your spiritual, political, economic, sociocultural and sociohistorical understandings. Sometimes I have seen some confusion in the examination of a thesis because it is not sufficiently clear which form or field of knowledge the thesis is claiming to make a contribution to. As an examiner I always appreciate a clear statement in the introduction about the nature of the knowledge the thesis is making a contribution to. It is also wise to explain how you have engaged with appropriate literature. In an action research enquiry it is not usual to carry out a traditional literature review to distinguish gaps in the literature so that one's originality can be located in relation to this gap. While it is now possible to do this kind of literature review, because of the great extension of the field, it is more usual to demonstrate a creative and critical engagement with the ideas of others as the action research progresses, so that the engagement with the ideas and the influence in the enquiry is part of the development of the enquiry as well as the contribution to knowledge.
My supervision is influenced, as I think you know, by a commitment to the decision in personal knowledge (Polanyi, 1958) to understand the world from my own point of view as an individual claiming originality and making judgments responsible with universal intent. I also continue to be influenced by Habermas's ideas on learning and social validity. I found the two volumes of Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action, an awesome achievement and focused on his point about learning in my supervision:
"..... I have attempted to free historical materialism from
its philosophical ballast. 'Two abstractions are required for this: I)
abstracting the development of the cognitive structures from the historical
dynamic of events, and ii) abstracting the evolution of society from the
historical concretion of forms of life. Both help in getting beyond the
confusion of basic categories to which the philosophy of history owes its
existence.
A theory developed in this way can no longer start by
examining concrete ideals immanent in traditional forms of life. It must orient
itself to the range of learning processes that is opened up at a given time by
a historically attained level of learning. It must refrain from critically
evaluating and normatively ordering totalities, forms of life and cultures, and
life-contexts and epochs as a whole. And yet it can take up some of the
intentions for which the interdisciplinary research program of earlier critical
theory remains instructive.
Coming at the end of a complicated study of the main features of a theory of communicative action, this suggestion cannot count even as a 'promissory note.' It is less a promise than a conjecture." (Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
Habermas, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two: The Critique of Functionalist Reason. Oxford; Polity.
In thinking about the relationship between the generation and evaluation of your living theory and the empirical knowledge generated by social and other scientists I like to use Habermas' point below that
'...practical reflection which critically appropriates this intuitive knowledge requires a social perspective that goes beyond the first person singular perspective of somebody acting on his preferences.' :
"Freedom is no longer exhausted by the ability to choose
in accordance with maxims of prudence but finds expression in the will's
capacity to bind itself through insight. The significance of the term 'insight'
here is that a decision can be justified in terms of 'epistemic' reasons. Since
epistemic reasons generally support the truth of assertoric statements, the use
of the expression 'epistemic' in practical contexts is in need of explanation.
Pragmatic reasons depend on the preferences and purposes of each particular
person. Only the agent himself, who knows his own preferences and purposes, has
the final epistemic authority to judge these 'data'. Practical reflection can
lead to insights only when it goes beyond the subjective world to which the
actor has privileged access and pertains to the contents of an
intersubjectively shared social world. In this way reflection on shared
experiences, practices, and forms of life brings to awareness an ethical
knowledge to which we do not have access simply through the epistemic authority
of the first person singular.
Bringing to consciousness something implicitly known is
not the same as acquiring empirical knowledge. Scientific knowledge is
counterintuitive, whereas reflexively achieved insight critically appropriates
a pretheoretical know-how by making it explicit, contextualzing it, and testing
its coherence. Ethical insights result from the explication of the know-how that
communicatively socialized individuals have acquired by growing up in a
particular culture.
The most general elements of the practical knowledge of a culture have become sedimented in its evaluative vocabulary and in its rules for the use of normative sentences. Actors to not just develop conceptions of themselves and of the life they would like to lead in general in light of their evaluatively charged language games; they also discover attractive and repulsive features of particular situations that they cannot understand without 'seeing' how they ought to respond the them. Because we have intuitive knowledge of what is attractive or repulsive, right or wrong, and in general of relevance, the moment of insight here can be distinguished from a corresponding disposition or preference. It consists of an intersubjectively shared know-how that has gained acceptance in the lifeworld and has 'proved' itself in practice as the shared possession of a cultural form of life. It enjoys 'objectivity' in virtue of is social diffusion and acceptance. Hence the practical reflection which critically appropriates this intuitive knowledge requires a social perspective that goes beyond the first person singular perspective of somebody acting on his preferences." ( pp. 25/26)
Habermas, J. (2002) The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. Oxford; Polity.
In the generation of living theories your first person perspective includes your evidence-based reflections of how you are including insights from such social perspectives in your practice.
Many examiners raise questions
concerning the validity or trustworthiness of the contributions to knowledge
made in the thesis. Drawing on Habermas again from his work on communication
and the evolution of society, in terms of social validity, I often recommend
the use of his ideas on the four
validity claims we make in reaching mutual understanding. That is, our
communications should be comprehensible. We should provide evidence for our
assertions. We should reveal the normative background of our communication and
we should reveal our authenticity in interaction through time. He sets out
these criteria in his 1976 text on communication and the evolution of society.
Habermas,
J. (1976). Communication and the evolution of society, London; Heinemann.
I
think the explicit submission of accounts of learning to these criteria of
validity helps me to strengthen the validity of the accounts and avoid the
creation of a mythologizing discourse.
By a mythologizing discourse Bernstein (2000) means a
discourse that disconnects the hierarchy of success internal to a school from
social class hierarchies external to the school. (I think his point about
mythological discourse can be used in the generation of any explanation in any
social context). He says that this involves the trick of creating a mythological discourse and
that this discourse incorporates some of the political ideology and arrangement
of the society:
First of all,
it is clear that conflict, or potential conflict, between social groups may be reduced or
contained by creating a discourse which emphasises what all groups share, their
communality, their apparent
interdependence.
By creating a fundamental identity, a discourse is created which generates what I shall call horizontal solidarities among their staff and students, irrespective of the political ideology and social arrangement of the society. The discourse which produces horizontal solidarities or attempts to produce such solidarities from this point of view I call a mythological discourse. This mythological discourse consists of two pairs of elements which, although having different functions, combine to reinforce each other. One pair celebrates and attempts to produce a united, integrated, apparently common national consciousness; the other pair work together to disconnect hierarchies within the school from a causal relation with social hierarchies outside the school." (p. xxiii)
Basil Bernstein's Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique
2000, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc
When I think of the sociocultural influences of my own practices I draw on Edward Said's ideas in his Culture and Imperialism and his Beginnings. For example I draw on his idea of culture from:
"As I use the word, 'culture' means two things in
particular. First of all it means all those practices, like the arts of
description, communication, and representation, that have relative autonomy
from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist in
aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure. Included, of course,
are both the popular stock of lore about distant parts of the world and
specialized knowledge available in such learned disciplines as ethnography, historiography,
philology, sociology, and literary history.....
Second, and almost imperceptible, culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each society's reservoir of the best that has been known and thought. As Matthew Arnold put it in the 1860s.... In time, culture comes to be associated, often aggressively, with the nation of the state; this differentiates 'us' from 'them', almost always with some degree of xenophobia. Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent 'returns' to culture and tradition." (Said, pp. xii-xiv, 1993) Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism, London; Vintage.
And from his work on Beginnings I find support for my use of the idea of 'influence' as central in my research into educational influences in learning:
As a poet indebted to and friendly with Mallarme, Valery
was compelled to assess originality and derivation in a way that said something
about a relationship between two poets that could not be reduced to a simple
formula. As the actual circumstances were rich, so too had to be the
attitude. Here is an example from
the "Letter About Mallarme".
No word comes easier of oftener to the critic's pen
than the word influence, and no vaguer notion can be found among all the vague
notions that compose the phantom armory of aesthetics. Yet there is nothing in the critical
field that should be of greater philosophical interest or prove more rewarding
to analysis than the progressive modification of one mind by the work of
another.
It often happens that the work acquires a singular
value in the other mind, leading to active consequences that are impossible to
foresee and in many cases will never be possible to ascertain. What we do know
is that this derived activity is essential to intellectual production of all
types. Whether in science or in the arts, if we look for the source of an
achievement we can observe that what a man does either repeats or refutes what
someone else has done – repeats it in other tones, refines or amplifies
or simplifies it, loads or overloads it with meaning; or else rebuts,
overturns, destroys and denies it, but thereby assumes it and has invisibly
used it. Opposites are born from opposites.
We say that an author is original when we cannot trace
the hidden transformations that others underwent in his mind; we mean to say
that the dependence on what he does on what others have done is excessively
complex and irregular. There are works in the likeness of others, and works that
are the reverse of others, but there are also works of which the relation with
earlier productions is so intricate that we become confused and attribute them
to the direct intervention of the gods. (Paul Valery, 'Letter about
Mallarme', in Leonardo, Poe, Mallarme, trans. Malcolm Cowley and James R.
Lawler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 241.
Valery converts 'influence' from a crude idea of the weight of one writer coming down in the work of another into a universal principle of what he calls 'derived achievement'. He then connects this concept with a complex process of repetition that illustrates it by multiplying instances; this has the effect of providing a sort of wide intellectual space, a type of discursiveness in which to examine influence. Repetition, refinement, amplification, loading, overloading, rebuttal, overturning, destruction, denial, invisible use – such concepts completely modify a linear (vulgar) idea of 'influence' into an open field of possibility. Valery is careful to admit that chance and ignorance play important roles in this field; what we cannot see or find, as well as what we cannot predict, he says, produce excessive irregularity and complexity. Thus the limits of the field of investigation are set by examples whose nonconforming, overflowing energy begins to carry them out of the field. This is an extremely important refinement in Valery's writing. For even as his writing holds in the wide system of variously dispersed relationships connecting writers with one another, he also shows how at its limits the field gives forth other relations that are hard to describe from within the field." (Said, p.15)
Said, E. W. (1997) Beginnings: Intention and Method. p. 15. London ; Granta.
I'm hoping you find these notes useful. If you've any thoughts on how I might help further with the creation of your thesis, do let me know.
Love Jack.