Groupfie: Hanis (top photo; from left Hanis, Sharifah, Azlina, Matluba (me ;) ), Nik and Roxana)
We, the PhD Landscape Architecture students of ESALA meet fortnightly for an informal gathering in any available place nearby our office. The venue is mostly the board room or if not available then in ECA cafe or Cafe Truva just opposite Evolution house. We have named it 'Research ADDA'. Adda is a Bengali word which means an assemblage of friendly talkers, most popular is adda over tea at a road side shop named 'tong er dokan'. The name says it all as we want this meeting very informal where PhD students of Landscape Architecture (in fact not limited to LA only, there are students from Architecture and also Moray House School of Education too) will share with each other the challenges they are facing, the goals they are achieving, the rewards they are having from their supervisors and bla bla bla.. Its talking about everything (read 'research' ;) ) about a PhD students' life over some tea (cha) and snacks (ta).
We had three meetings so far. In the very first meeting we (who knew each other before) introduced ourselves (read 'our research'), talked about what we are working on, at which stage of research we are at the moment and what short or long term goals we have. I am not going into the details. But it was really great to know about each others' previously known works in a kind of new way. After the meeting we talked about what we wish to achieve in next two weeks' time and decided to talk over the table of content of the thesis in the next adda.
The second meeting got more people in. We were talking about the first year review (as Roxana is going to face it in two weeks and Nik will soon too). And then we discussed about the structure of the thesis. Well, it might sound like a really serious meeting but believe me all of these were discussed in such an informal and spontaneous way. Azlina and Hanis were almost vomiting because of the too much sweet hot chocolate (don't try it in cafe Truva). My latte was fine ( a bit cold). Roxana wanted to present her report in front of us in the next meeting (started sound boring again? ha ha).
We had the third meeting today in one corner of the board room. Along with discussing the first year review presentation we focused on presenting our analysis with which most of us are struggling at this point. Some of us are working on purely qualitative study and some are working on a mixed methods research. Azlina as the most senior member of the adda enlightened us with her approach of presenting the results of quantitative analysis where the results chapter actually contain a head (introducing the method she is applying, why she is applying it), body (purely the results without any 'fat') and the legs (a summary of the results and an indication of the next section of analysis). In the previous adda Azlina also mentioned about her supervisor's suggestion to the results chapter fat-less, stuffed with only the 'meat' i.e. results.
Sharifah is struggling with presenting the qualitative analysis. She mentioned about two approaches- either presenting each of the participants as a case or finding the themes/common points from her content analysis and presenting that way. Both Azlina and Hanis are going for thematic analysis for their qualitative data and me too.
I was talking in detail about how I am presenting my results as I truly needed their suggestions or may be assurance that my approach is right. The assurance from your peers make you feel better. I have millions of data and its really a nightmare to put them all in one volume of dissertation. Nik has mentioned something really helpful- not to present every bit of it and making the results simpler. I think its a great idea. Lets see what my supervisors suggest about it. I might only present about the four key elements- motivation, peer relation, perceived bodily activity and exploration of the environment without going into the details of the elements they consist of. It might be difficult for me than to link those with other qualitative data in the discussion section.
At the end we talked about the importance of keeping a research journal where one can write in one's own way what approaches he/she is thinking of , the rationale for taking that approach i.e. a day to day account of one's thoughts in a very informal way which a research student will keep to himself/herself. It is really helpful as it does not let you forget any important or even not so important step of your research. I wish we had such an adda before and someone would have told me about keeping a research journal in my first year. The idea was so unclear to me at that time. I think better late than never and I can start any moment. Today?
See you all in the next research adda on the 10th of September, 2015.
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