PHD Year One – Done!
My first year as a doctoral researcher is now behind me and it is time to look back on what I achieved in 2023. If you want to read more about my first semester, check out my review of Spring 2023 here.
My Ph.D. courses
I applied to university pedagogy courses, but they are very popular and I was not chosen this time, therefore I didn’t have any courses this semester. In hindsight, that was probably for the best as I was very busy with both work and my research.
My research
Autumn 2023 was a very important semester for my research, as I finished data collection for both substudy 1 and substudy 2. I enjoyed having such clear goals for the semester and being able to tick them off one by one.
- Screening articles for the systematic review (substudy 1)
- Having a meeting with two of my colleagues about the screening
- The next step for the review is a quality appraisal
- Conducting all student and teacher interviews for substudy 2
- Collecting all learning diaries from students
- The next step is to finish checking interview transcripts and to continue coding the data
What I enjoyed the most, was conducting all the interviews and being able to hear the research participants share their ideas and experiences. In total, I recorded 12 hours of student interviews and at this moment I feel all the interviews went rather well.
In my career as a teacher for adults learning Chinese in China, I often discuss different learning and culture related topics with my students. Sometimes my students just wish to share their struggles in a new language and new country with someone who has gone through the same. I believe that years of experience with these discussions and learning to become an active listener, helped me a lot when doing research interviews.
I also spent a rather long time writing my interview guides for the pre-course and post-course interviews. I am planning to write a little bit more about the interview process in a separate blog article.
Applying for funding
This year I applied for funding from four or five different organizations and the success rate was 0%. It was sometimes demotivating to receive one bad news after another, but at the same time, I realized how hard it is to get funding, especially since I have not published anything yet. The quest continues for 2024 and I am keeping my fingers crossed for some good news!
In January 2024 I try to first put my energy into finding travel funding to join an international conference in Spain, where I am accepted to give a poster presentation on my research.
Good news!
The best surprise I got last year, was an email to inform me that my poster abstract had been accepted to an international conference in Spain in May 2024. My brother-in-law, who has a Ph.D. in a completely different field, encouraged me to apply for conferences and not to say no to my own applications, letting the conference organizers decide if my proposal is good enough of not.
Now the challenge at hand is funding the international trip from China to Spain, covering everything from flights to conference and accommodation. Again getting funding is difficult, but I can only try and send out the applications anyway! I am also considering paying the expenses from my savings, but that is of course far from ideal as the price tag is rather high.
No matter what, I am just so happy that my poster abstract was accepted and that there is interest toward my research.
Pros and cons
Let’s sum up my first year as a Ph.D. student, first the pros:
- The poster abstract was accepted!
- Data collection was completed successfully
- My supervisors are excellent and easy to approach
- Being able to work together with my colleagues
A few cons:
- Again difficulties in combining a full-time job with demanding research
- No success in finding funding
All in all, I am still very happy I decided to pursue a Ph.D., I certainly believe I am on the right path.
Goals for 2024
Finally, just a few goals for the new year:
- Applying for funding!
- For substudy 1 (systematic review) finish quality appraisal and start the analysis and writing. Finish the paper this year.
- For substudy 2 (empiric study) finish checking transcripts early this year, finish coding early Spring and start writing analysis, prepare the poster for the conference in May, and finish the paper this year.
- Decide the journals I want to publish in, aiming high!
- Toward the end of the year, start thinking about substudy 3.
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