Report of the PhD proposal writing workshop
MAGAART
Hanne Kirstine Adriansen
Karen Valentin
Heilyn Nunez Camacho
Content
List of participants 2
PhD students 2
Faculty 2
Preliminary programme 3
E-learning components, the online phase 3
Face-to-face workshop 4
Programme 5
List of participants
PhD students
Name / Faculty / Discipline / E-mail1 / Hemlal Paudel / HSS / Pol science /
2 / Gaurav Tandul / HSS / Pol science /
3 / Dhruva Raj Ghimire / HSS / Rural Development /
4 / Ram Babu Sah / HSS / Rural Development /
5 / Suman Kharel / HSS / Rural Development /
6 / Madhav Pd Bhusal / HSS / Rural Development /
7 / Maheshwor Paudel / HSS / English /
8 / Shiva Raj Pokhrel / HSS / Geography /
9 / Dev Raj Aryal / HSS / Journalism /
10 / Amrita Devi Sharma / HSS / Nepali /
11 / Rudra Pd Ghimire / HSS / Economics /
12 / Sunita Shrestha / HSS / Psychology /
13 / Tara Pd Bhusal / HSS / Population Study /
14 / Taranath Bhattarai / FOE / Education /
15 / Kalpana Gyawali / FOE / Health Education /
16 / Dharama Dutta Tiwari / FOE / Math Education /
17 / Bala Ram Adhikari / FoE / English Education /
18 / Hikmat Bdr Khatri / FOE / History Education /
19 / Netra Sharma / FOE / English Education /
20 / Kusum Raj Subedi / FOE / Health Education /
21 / Radha Paudel / FOE / Health Education /
22 / Renu Kumari Singh / FOE / English Education /
23 / Lal Bdr Rana / FOE / English Education /
24 / Suman Shrestha / FOE / Geography Education /
Faculty
Professor Lekhnath Sharma, Tribhuvan University (TU)
Professor Bhim Subedi, Tribhuvan University (TU)
Professor Basudev Kafle, Tribhuvan University (TU)
Assistant Professor Heilyn Nunez Camacho, Aalborg University, (AAU)
Associate Professor Karen Valentin, Aarhus University (AU)
Associate Professor Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Aarhus University (AU)
Preliminary programme
The preliminary programme had three components:
· e-learning, ‘pre-workshop’ using Moodle: early March
· Face-to-face (FtF) workshop KTM: 27th to 31st of March
· e-learning ‘post-workshop’ using Moodle: late April
The e-learning components were to be developed by faculty at AAU in cooperation with the faculty at AU and was based on AAU experiences with problem based learning and e-learning using Moodle.
The FtF workshop should be a mix of lectures, presentations by participants, exercises, reflection time, and group work. It is important to consider and discuss the balance between so-called universal academic standards and locally TU-defined demands for a Ph.D. proposal throughout the course.
E-learning components, the online phase
The first part of the Proposal Development Course took place from March 4th to 20th, 2015. This was an online phase and Maseno University created the course in Moodle and also created and communicated the access information to the participants.
The overall goals were to establish a sense of class community that allows participants to get to know each other before the face to face workshop and to develop the first work with their research proposal. With the aim to achieve those goals 4 activities were designed in Moodle:
1. Introduction forum: this was an open forum where the participants were encouraged to present themselves. The aim of the activity was to get to know each other and have an overview of the participants.
2. Brainstorming about expectations: using the brainstorming tool, the participants were asked to present their expectations for the course. It was expected to clarify expectations of the participants, for both, online and face to face part.
3. Literature search for making a literature review: participants were asked to create a profile in Academia and Researchgate and encouraged to use Google scholar. The activity aimed to support literature review, free access to academic resources and dissemination of publications.
4. Research proposal: participants should develop a first draft of their research proposal and upload it to moodle. This activity aimed to create bases for meaningful learning during the workshop.
There was a very low participation during the online part of the course. Only 2 people participated in the introduction forum, none body participated in the brainstorming activity. None of the participants created their profiles in Academia, Researchgate. Due to the low participation, we modified the last part and asked the participants to e-mail their proposals to the Karen and Hanne. We then made a drop box folder, where we shared the proposal with the other faculty members. We received 10 proposals before the deadline and another 3 after.
We also made a drop box folder with the literature for the course. 10 participants accessed this folder. This is another indication of the IT-skills and ICT-literacy. Due to the low response during the online part, we applied a short questionnaire during the face to face workshop in order to get some answers. A quick analysis of their responses showed that the main reason to not participated was the low ICT competences of the participants and lack of knowledge about how to use Moodle.
Based on the results of the questionnaire, the experience with the first online part and the knowledge of the local partners, it was decided to change the post online workshop part for a face to face training about Moodle. This training was carried out by TU faculty.
Face-to-face workshop
The programme was finalized by the AU and TU faculty at a meeting in Kathmandu the 26th of March. We included some of the planned e-learning activities in order to enchance the ICT-skills of the participants. The first day of the workshop took part at TU. The next day, the workshop was relocated to a conference venue at a hotel in Kirtipur due to problems with the electricity and acoustics at TU.
The programme can be seen at the next page. We deviated from the programme whenever the need arose to adjust to the participants’ needs. For instance many wanted individual feedback on their proposal. We found time for doing that during the group work in the afternoon the second day. Also, we did not follow the programme with lecturing in the morning and group work in the afternoon; instead we generally mixed group work and small discussions in pairs and lecturing all during the day. For the fourth day of the workshop, the participants could either write their proposal at home or join each other and the TU faculty who would assist.
On the third day, the TU-faculty changed the medium of instruction to Nepali which changed the energy in the room and the participation. There was much more laughter and the participants were much more engaged.
During the evaluation the participants noted:
· Work more, not just listen
· We were given exercises, no examination of the work
· Make us work, so after end of workshop, we will have some product in our hand
· I have learned so much and got so nervous
· Listening little, doing more and getting feedback on what we have done
As we had built in group work, we were a bit surprised to hear this. We believe that it had to do with:
· Different expectations, the participants had expected to have a finished PhD proposal in their hands when they left
· The language issue. For some of the participants, English-medium teaching was difficult especially with the AU-faculty who spoke with an unfamiliar accept and sometimes too fast.
Programme
Date / Session I / Session II / Session III / Session IV9:30-10:30 / 10:30-12:00 / 12:00-12:30 / 12:30 -2:00 / 2:00-4:30
May 27 / Opening Programme
(senior authority will inaugurate the programme) / Introduction of proposal format and features(presentation and discussion): Discussion on acceptable and questionable proposal some examples
BD Kafle and BP Subedi / Tea and snacks / Journey from Research interest to Research Questions: contextualization and fixing the problem
(presentation and discussion)
Hanne and Karen / Group works and presentation
(BD, BP, Hanne, Karen and other)
10:00-11:30 / 11:30-1:00 / 1:00-1:30 / 1:30 -3:00 / 3:00-5:00
May 28 / Literature search and writing of review: some practicalities and styles of writing
HKA/KV / Group work on writing literature review
HKA/KV/BDK/BPS / Tea and snacks / Developing theoretical/conceptual/practical Framework for the research(presentation and discussion
HKA/KV / Group work on preparing theoretical/conceptual/practical framework
HKA/KV/BDK/BPS
May 29 / Research Methods for Qualitative Research
HKA / Quantitative Methods
BDK/BPS / Tea and snacks / Group work/simulation activities in research methods(with preparation of tools)
BDK/BPS / Group work/simulation activities in research methods(interview, observation, survey)
BDK/BPS
May 30 / Working on individual proposal
BDK/BPS / Working on individual proposal
BDK/BPS / Tea and snacks / Working on individual proposal
BDK/BPS / Working on individual proposal
BDK/BPS
May 31 / Data analysis(for proposal)
BDK/BPS / Reflexivity: Position and roles
HKA / Tea and snacks / Ethics on research
BDK/BPS / Presentation and question answer
HKA/BDK/BPS
1