Eventyr

On Research

Before they could undertake any sort of research, they would first have to learn how to talk, how to move, and how to avoid being killed by diseased rats.
-- From: 'Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom' by Aaron Delwiche

How true, I thought.

Informing Myself

• Phase 1: Read PhD comics and note the similarity.
• Phase 2: Realise that (although you tell other people to use information radiators or, more generally, ensure they have an informative workspace) you do not practice what you preach.
• Phase 3: Clean the shared office whiteboard, only to realise it is still inconvenient for your purpose.
• Phase 4: Locate where you left your mobile whiteboard, and move it to the right office.
• Phase 5: Lose time struggling to re-assemble it single-handed.
• Phase 6: Create a system so you can see the work you have planned for the next week/fortnight/iteration
• Phase 7: Hit your head on the desk repeatedly now you can see how you over-planned.

Well, that was my day anyway. 

Finding My Inner Grit

(I don't know if this post is an apology to myself, or just an acknowledgement so I don't forget.)

Doing a PhD is hard.  It can be lonely and unrewarding for long periods on end.  It can be detrimental to your mental health.  You need to have self-confidence, motivation and ability. Above all, it requires the grit and determination to see it through.

I lack grit and determination; I like having external deadlines I can run late for, and I'm easily distracted by all the other interesting things I could be doing.

This was a hard thing for me to get.  I'm starting my fourth year and still not finished.  Financially this is not a problem for me, but I should be further along.

I let things slip, I took a break for three months and then on my return I never quite got back on track.  I blamed my health, my other commitments, and so on. I never blamed just myself.

Fundamentally, being brutally honest, it is my fault and noone else's.

The problem is that PhD's are demanding of you in a way that working or taught study is not. Demanding in a way I had never needed to deal with.

Noone is managing you.  Noone is there to give or enforce deadlines.  Noone is there to stop you from making mistakes.  Noone is there to make you feel guilty for not doing your work.  There is the possibility that you'll have a hard time even just finding people to chat to about your research. 

You have to manage your time.  You have to make your own deadlines and stick to them.  You have to make sure you don't slide into bad habits.  You can get help and advice from your supervisors but only if you ask them for help, and help them help you.  You have to go out and make connections.  You have to go out and discuss your half-formed ideas with others.  You have to make sure you are not doing your own thing for years.  You have to seek help, not just ignore your problems.

In much of this I failed, but now I must draw on what little inner reserves I have, correct my mistakes, and get this finished.  It is time to face the fact I am an adult and responsible for my own choices.

I need to go find my determination to see this through.  I don't think it will be easy, but I hope I will be a better person by the end of it.

Reviewing my Research

So I defended the next stage of my research as challenged.  Kinda.

I clarified a lot of things which I had forgotten to say and learned some important lessons:

• Be explicit
• Focus

I shaped an analysis plan for this coming year which effectively showed I need to:

• Work very hard
• Focus

Unfortunately some issues are still unresolved.  As I am looking for my hypothesis to arise from my data I am currently in the worrying position of being able to produce a thesis suitable for social science and of interest to practitioners, but that in itself isn't necessarily a passable informatics thesis. 

This could be a serious problem, especially if my data proves less amenable than I hope.  Sadly my data doesn't support incremental analysis - it is all or nothing, so I cannot fail fast.

I know I can do this, but I am mildly amused that I have effectively just argued that I be allowed to conduct waterfall research.  Single loop: Gather, Analyse, Deliver.

I have also promised to focus.  This means cutting back on all my other commitments and getting on with my research for a change.

We shall see next Easter how well this has all succeeded.  Until then, wish me luck.

Finding Feedback

Having found myself with the task of setting up a last minute conference feedback form for XPDay I went to do some research on varieties of feedback forms.  Or at least I tried.

It never occurred to me how little research has been done into conference feedback as opposed to teaching feedback.  (Or else I was just looking in all the wrong places!)

On the basis of not being able to find proved approaches that were still interesting, I developed my own.  I'm curious to see whether anyone will use it for more than just comments.

Survival Skills for the Graduate Student

I'll love any talk that opens with quoted music (Making it up as I go along) and some really astounding figures, this held very true for this session.

Shannon Duvall (Elon University) and Michele Pagnotta (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) ran a really interesting session on 'Survival Skills for the Graduate Student' aiming to give hints and tips to help improve mental well-being during graduate school.

The statistics are impressive.  From the 2004 Berkeley Graduate Student Mental Health Survey:

• 50% of graduate* students suffer from emotional or stress-related issues
• 10% seriously considered suicide
• 1 in 20 considered it

I plan to delve into those figures later (might be interesting for stimulating discussion with the first year PhD class I lead), but that is an amazing and worrying finding.

They started by talking through Michele's Top Tips:

• Wise Mind (make decisions you are really happy with, by keeping a balance in your mind between emotion and reason)
• Acting Effectively (do things that will work, most effective.  Don't use SHOULD.)
• Don't Worry, be happy (worrying is not problem solving)

And then Shannon's Top Tips:

• Focus on the Facts (don't worry about Imposter Syndrome, not provable, not a fact)
• Advisor Relations (ever-evolving, professional, vital to your happiness and success)
• Be Professional (it's ok to have worries and doubts, but don't forget to keep your academic relationships professional)

Further advice:

• Set Your Goals and document your activities and meetings
• How to Ask for things (Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce)
• Communication with advisors (ask directly for positive feedback)
• (Everyone was told to write down) MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS (ask, ask, ask)
• Act Confident (you don't need to be confident, you just need to 'act' confident)
• Getting Motivated (remember that progress comes in waves, intentionally take breaks)
• Get Going Again (clarify goals, prioritise and break down)
• Review your Work Schedule
• Gaining Motivation (develop small, medium and large rewards, guild-free breaks and cheerleading statements)

They gave an interesting introduction to the five areas involved in keeping your vital life balance (in order of importance):

• Personal Growth / Care
• Relational Growth
• Community Growth
• Spiritual Growth
• Professional Growth

You don't have time not to take these things not into account - they are critical to your mental health.  Keep yourself physically healthy and relax to reduce stress.  Make sure to attend to current relationships, it is a priority goal.

All in all, sensible and useful advice.  It is really worth visiting the Mental Makeover website, where they have a downloadable handout related to the session.

A lot of people rushed to queue to ask questions when they opened the floor, with more eagerness than I had seen in any other session so far.  What they spoke about had related in some way to everyone in the audience.

----

* The term graduate is equivalent to post-graduate in the UK - an interesting difference and a grammatical mystery worth pondering at another time.

----

Johanna Hunt
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum

PPIG 2007 - When PPIG met Wagner

I was luckily funded (after winning the draw at WIP-PPIG 07) to attend the Psychology of Programming Workshop 2007 in Joensuu in the Lake District area of Finland on 2-6 July 2007.  The programme was the most ambitious yet; featuring keynote talks through technical papers, a doctorial consortium, tutorials, and a wide range of evening activities.  I have written a full review for the PPIG Newsletter but here are some of my highlights:

The workshop opened quietly on the Monday with the Doctoral Consortium, allowing us early-days researchers the chance to chat about our research and build up our confidence for the main conference.  Discussions were focussed on research methods and approaches and detailed and interesting questions were asked after each presentation.  Most importantly we were reminded to never start with a research method, but instead a theory or question that needs to be evaluated: What’s my question?  What evidence will satisfy?  How will I collect the evidence?  And the interesting questions: What do people say they do?  What do they actually do?  We also received good advice on how to read research papers, some ideas I intend to share with the Research Methods class.

There were two great tutorial sessions I attended:

• An informal tutorial on eye-tracking and potential application when researching programming.  We were taught about visual attention and Fovea cones, the history of eye-tracking systems from 1898 through to modern eye-tracking systems, and potentials and challenges for such systems in the context of studies of programming.  The main focus of the tutorial was a hands-on experience using an eye-tracking system to conduct research. 
• A tutorial introducing phenomenography (about which I knew nothing) and grounded theory.  We were given real data we could use to practice the two types of analysis, and I was extremely comforted to find that  I seemed to have a high level of inter-rater agreement with the original researchers using both approaches.  This gave me significantly more confidence that I have it in me to complete my own research. 

Tuesday-Thursday were dedicated to paper presentations:

• On the Wednesday I enjoyed hearing about follower and gatherer roles in role based programming, particularly entertained by the speculative language presented which was called ROTFL (Role-Oriented Titillating but Fictional Language). 
• The ‘Experiential Report on the Limitations of Experimentation as a Means of Empirical Investigation’ advised us not to rush empirical studies with software organisations, and to remember that the controlled experiment route is not always optimal.  We were encouraged to consider how such data can still be rigorous and potentially useful. 
• On the Thursday I was intrigued by two of the closing presentations. Sue Jones' research showing that more experienced students have higher mental rotation ability - she wondered whether mental rotation could be improved. 
• Stuart Wray presented an analysis of SQ and EQ (Systemizing and Emotional Quotients) correlated against programmer aptitude.

On the Wednesday was the interesting discussion on ‘Children's mental/operational models of programming—Do children's programming tools miss something?’  We discussed the activities performed by children, mostly on the internet, which involve programming activity without being explicitly recognised as such; parameter tweaking, optimisation, variation and composition of components (e.g. skins), and the creation of simulations, animations and games.  A variety of questions were approached:  Is it programming if it is fun, simple, socially-led?  Are there generational differences in the mental models being developed?  Do these ‘play’ experiences generalise or lead to correct abstractions for developing programming skills?  Where does algorithmic theory fit in these experiences?  If there is a difference what does it look like and what are the implications?  Should more formal programming be taught earlier in the curriculum?

The trip to the Orthodox Monastery of New Valamo provided us with an interesting tour of the attractive monastery grounds and learned of the history of the monks who live there.  The Byzantine conference dinner was a lovely affair and I admit to being very taken by the Valamo-made berry wines, which were delicious.  I just wish I could buy it in Brighton...

As ever the best bit of the workshop was the number of humorous awards awarded at the end.  These included:

• ‘Most Desperate Attempt to Win a Prize with a Ridiculous Prize Suggestion’
• ‘The ‘p-word Prize’ (For yet another paradigm)’
• ‘Prize for the Largest Number of (Childhood) Stories’
• ‘Philosophy of Methodology Prize’ (for articulating when grounded theory is grounded theory)
• ‘Prize for ‘Running out of Time’ the Greatest Number of Times’
• ‘Prize for Conducting a Discussion with Himself in Public’
• ‘Prize for the Clearest Bottom Line’
• ‘Best Look-Alike Prize’
• ‘Most Stoical Scapegoat Prize’
• ‘Prize for Well-Formed Questions’
• ‘Most Invisible Session Chair Prize’

All in all PPIG 2007 was a wonderfully organised and varied workshop.  There was no shortage of interesting things planned, which helped to create an amazing environment.  I just wish my luggage hadn't been delayed in both directions...

My photos of this enjoyable trip to Finland are available here.

The Story of Research

At the end of May I presented at a one-day symposium on reading and writing research at the Sussex Institute at the University of Sussex called ‘The Story of Research’. 

The first keynote ‘Representing Lived Experience: Making Principled Decisions’ by Professor Andrew Sparkes, was interesting and relieving in equal measure. 

The questions he posed which I particularly noted:

• How are you going to write it?
• How are you going to represent it?
• Be explicit about what you are doing and why!
  • Scientific / Realist / Confessional / Autoethnography / Poetic / Ethnodrama / Ethnographic fiction / Creative fiction/mixed genres
• How do you judge them?
• Narrative Poetry – Learning through the power of language
• Who do you want legitimacy from?
• (RAE as farce)
• Think about who we are when we are writing.

The talks were fun, although I regretted attending the second keynote as it resulted in an unfortunate coffee-spilling incident.   (Yes, I knocked it everywhere and over others.) 

Seven Points

The seven secrets of highly successful PhD students

1. Care and maintenance of your supervisors
2. Write and show as you go: This is show and tell, not hide and seek
3. Be realistic: It's not a Nobel Prize
4. Say no to distractions: Even the fun ones and the ones you think you must do
5. It's a job: That means working nine to five but you get holidays
6. Get help: You are not an owner-operator single person business
7. You can do it: A PhD is about intelligence and persistence

Interviews

Have almost completed this set of research interviews.  Feels like hours and hours of work - and I have let myself get behind with other things.  I've even managed to break my small microphone in the process.

Some rough spots with the questions, but I know what to do for the future.

Getting there though - and good to have data I can include in the experience report.