A student blog as part of the Doctoral Roundtable Series organised by the Doctoral College
Vibhor and I were pleased to have the opportunity to host an online Doctoral Roundtable on Developing Research Skills Together as QUAL Researchers with a group of enthusiastic and like-minded people on 27 January 2023. It took us by surprise (in a good way) to learn that a highly dedicated participant woke up at 4 am just to be with us! This makes us realise that ongoing peer support for QUAL research is essential as some of the doctoral researchers are not based in Bath and that there needs to be more space for qualitative researchers to share their work and journeys.
From September 2022, the Centre for Qualitative Research at the University of Bath is setting up a community of practice (CoP) for doctoral researchers engaging or interested in qualitative research. This is a student-led, student-run 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. As Vibhor and I believe it’s crucial to explore what this newly established CoP can bring, we launched this Roundtable to invite QUAL researchers to share their thoughts on what activities we can design and create.
To start with, 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 the sticky notes to introduce themselves during the meeting. 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 sticky notes showed that the session was truly diverse in terms of disciplines, research interests, years of study, and types of doctoral programmes.
Following this small greeting activity, we divided the participants into four breakout room groups. 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.)
We went through the demonstration below and subsequently sent the participants to the breakout rooms. Vibhor and I had to choose a room to join. I was curious to hear what the participant who woke up at 4 am said, so I joined room 4.
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, 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.
About Doctoral Roundtables
This blog was written as part of the Doctoral Roundtable Series, a forum for doctoral researchers to connect with others to share experiences and ideas in a peer-to-peer environment. All topics are student-led. The programme can be found online on the Doctoral Roundtable webpage. If you are interested in facilitating a session then please email doctoraldevelopment@bath.ac.uk.
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