This blog was written by Vienne Lin and has been republished with permission.
Vibhor and I are very honoured to have the opportunity to run the QUAL Research Community of Practice (QUAL Research CoP) for our qualitative doctoral researchers. Supported by the Centre for Qualitative Research at the University of Bath, this new initiative is a student-led CoP that welcomes doctoral researchers from different disciplines to ask questions (whether they are ‘silly’ or serious), navigate the often complex, diverse, and lonely space of doing qualitative research, and ultimately grow and thrive together.
Before recruiting members, I have done some groundwork. For example, I designed a logo for our community of practice. Looking good, huh?
I’ve also set up an Eventbrite to chronicle and promote our events. It’s elevating to see that we got 14 followers. I think it’s not bad as we’re just starting as an academic community. Please give us a follow.
Next, Vibhor and I believe it’s crucial to explore what this newly established CoP can do. Therefore, we launched an inaugural meeting with prospective members on 15 December 2022 as well as a Doctoral Roundtable organised by the Doctoral College on 27 January 2023 to invite QUAL researchers to share their thoughts on what activities we can design and create. Our Doctoral Roundtable is also captured by the Doctoral College here.
To start our meetings, Vibhor and I had a brief introduction to the CoP, our backgrounds as well as our research interests. We knew it would be impossible for each participant to discuss their research. As such, we set up some Jamboard slides beforehand and invited the participants to use sticky notes to introduce themselves during the meetings. For example, we put “Vibhor - Social and Policy Sciences, 3rd Year - India, poverty, dignity” and “Vienne - Education, 2nd Year - Cantonese-English bilinguals, second language acquisition, research methods” as examples. The contributions on the sticky notes showed that both sessions were truly diverse in terms of disciplines, research interests, years of study, and types of doctoral programmes.
Following this small greeting activity, we went through the demonstration (see below) and subsequently sent the participants to breakout rooms. Each group was asked to discuss the following three questions.
Q1: What support do we need?
Q2: What sort of activities can help us meet these needs?
Q3: What should be the logistics of our engagement (how often, for how long, where, etc.)
Each group returned in fifteen minutes and reported back to the main room. Here were some of the suggestions made by the groups:
Q1: What support do we need?
- Inspiration! Hearing about different methodologies, experiences, etc
- Networking - find people using similar methods, working in the same countries, etc.
- Creating a safe space to present our working papers
Q2: What sort of activities can help us meet these needs?
- Interactive activities, chatting with other researchers
- Messaging/sharing platform
- Build a network, those who use the same methods, theoretical underpinnings, for example?
Q3: What should be the logistics of our engagement (how often, for how long, where, etc.)
- Basic level of expectation: being willing to give feedback
- Know the agendas of meetings in advance - meeting for a particular purpose
- A mix of online and in-person, possibly hybrid events? Some might be more appropriate in person.
Based on the feedback we gathered and synthesised from the two meetings, we decided to organise three streams of activities. The first of which is the Teams Space. This is where we collectively hold our presence, questions, knowledge and insights, and build our community.
The second stream is the monthly activity which can be a PGR seminar focussed on methodological processes, experiences, learning, and challenges. Finally, the third stream is some self-organised group activities, such as reading or working groups, virtual or in-person meet-ups, and peer reviewing. If you want to see what’s cooking in this community, please join us here. We welcome doctoral researchers at any stage of your journey!
Lastly, we would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Ioannis Costas Batlle, Dr. Bryan Clift, and Dr. Sheree Bekker. Without your guidance, trust, and support, we wouldn’t be able to make QUAL Research CoP happen.
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