 Hello, this is a short video about my Amazon book, 10 key components of doctoral research maximizing alignment and significance. And basically what it tries to do is to talk about the 10 central components in any doctoral research project and think about how they might be aligned or misaligned, and obviously in general one's aiming for alignment, making the whole thing join up right across the piece. So what are the 10 key components? First one is the research questions addressed and they're absolutely crucial in giving shape to the project as a whole, setting out the limits of it. Second one is the ontological position adopted, in other words the nature of reality as seen in this project, and that of course is partly conditioned by the nature of the project and the research questions being asked. Is it concerned with the social construction of reality with perceptions and the influence of perceptions on actions and so on, or is it dealing with something more, quote, factual? The third key component is the epistemological position adopted, in other words the limits of what one can actually say, the limits of knowledge in this topic area. So that's thinking about the nature of knowledge and what can be known about it and really that ties into another one later on. The next one is the domains of literature deployed in the thesis, and I've made another video about that and another Amazon book is forthcoming on deploying literature for advantage. The fifth is about the context of the study, whether it's a single site case study, multi site case studies, whether it's a sample selected from a population, whatever it is, and the sixth one is related to that, the nature of the quote sample, the word sample doesn't apply very well in some kinds of qualitative research but we'll use it. So the nature of the sample in inverted commas selected in that context or context. The seventh is the types and extent of data collected, again the scare quotes are necessary, and analyze so the types of data. The next related to that is the theoretical lens or lenses through which those data are viewed, so which kind of theory you're deploying and why and how. The ninth is the outcomes of the data, the outcomes of the study as a whole, and of course you can see how that ties straight back to research questions and how those data are presented and then finally the conclusions drawn and the claims made related to that. So those are the ten key components and I've provided a list of those and if you want you can divide that list into three broader categories, the details of the design, so that's the research questions, the domains of literature deployed, the context of the study, the sample and the types and extent of data, so that's numbers one, four, five, six and seven, so that's the details of the design. Then social theory is a second kind of broad category, so there we're talking about the ontological position, the epistemological position, and the theoretical lens or lenses, so that's numbers two, three and eight of the ten key components, and then finally the results, third category, the outcomes of the data analysis and the conclusion, so that's numbers nine and ten, and I think one of the key messages is you know it's easy to get lost in the detail in doing research for a doctoral thesis over two, three, four, five years whatever it is, and to forget about these broad questions of how does it hang together, are these things aligned, these different components, these different categories, so I'm suggesting that you practice zooming in and zooming out, in other words seeing your project from a kind of helicopter level from time to time, and then going back down to a detail. So what are some examples of misaligned projects? Well there are multiple ones, these ones are drawn from reality, slightly exaggerated to make the point clearer. For example, a project that takes an ontological position, which stresses the social construction of reality, but then takes an epistemological position that says that it's possible to generalize to a very large number of context, the findings of the study problem there is that social constructionism tends to stress contextual contingencies, the significance of context. Another example would be academic staff's attitudes towards a particular technological innovation, online learning using virtual learning environments for example, but only collects data from learning technologists, not from academics. A third example would be a design, research design based on the in-depth study of one institution, but then making claims about the implementation of change generally, and that is problematic unless theory is well deployed in such cases. So I think you can identify seven deadly sins, I like the structure of the seven deadly sins, in terms of misalignment. First one is drawing conclusions and making claims about significance, which are not related to the research questions. So that's misalignment between components one and component one and component 10. Second one, selecting a context, a sample, types of data, which are not appropriate to fully addressing the research questions. For example, by emitting different types of context, emitting respondents, or types of data, which would be significant for a comprehensive response to the research questions. So there there's misalignment between components five, six, seven, and one, the research questions. So there's quite a bit of misalignment going on in that example. Third one is drawing conclusions based on data which taken together can't sustain those conclusions. For example, making claims which don't have any basis in the data presented, or are based on the researchers preconceptions or preferences, rather than the research. So that's misalignment between components 10, seven, and eight. Fourth one, presenting a literature review, inverted commas, don't much like that phrase, which fails to critically address the deficiencies as well as the strengths of the theoretical lens deployed. And so failing to acknowledge the things that the theory used casts into the shadows, because a theory will always obscure some things and illuminate other things. For example, by adopting a social constructionist perspective, which fails to acknowledge the possible occlusion of structural conditioning of behaviors and so on, that's too locally focused. So that's misalignment between components four and eight, and possibly related to component two as well. The fifth one, making claims about the nature of reality, in other words, the ontological standpoint, the second component, which are not reflected in the claims about what can be known from the data, the points at the end. So that's components two, three, nine and 10. Six one penultimate one, selecting contexts on samples in ways which have no clear linkage to the requirements of the research questions. So in other words, there's a mismatch between the research design and the research questions, which is pretty serious. One of you get to examination with that in place. So that's components five, six and one. And then finally, adopting a theoretical lens or lenses, which really don't do any work for the research in terms of analysis and conclusions. So that's components eight, nine and 10. And in the book, I give some examples of heavily misaligned project report on the one side, a real one. It's not a PhD thesis. It's an article based on research in a single institution of higher education. But in my view, it contains many of these errors of misalignment, some of the sins. And on the other hand, the PhD thesis, which is very well aligned. So I go into detail about both of those. And I also present my analysis of an abstract in relation to the 10 key components, abstract of a PhD thesis, as well as offering some comments on two other abstracts in terms of the claims for contributions being made. So that's about component 10, conclusions drawn claims made. So here are some questions for reflection about the alignment in your project or your proposed project, using these 10 key components thinking about them. First one, do my research questions and my sample mesh properly? And how do they mesh? Are the types and extent of data collected in the vertical column as appropriate to my research questions? Are there other data that might be more appropriate? Is the quote sample selected appropriate in relation to the overall context of the study? Does my literature review, nobody commerce, my deployment of the literature, let's say, cover all the areas necessitated by my research questions. Other methods used in the study, and the consequent extent and types of data collected adequately addressed in my overview of the literature and engagement with it. Do the ontological position and epistemological position hang together? Are my theoretical lenses and my ontological and epistemological positions well aligned? Or is there some misalignment between them? Do my conclusions rest firmly on the data obtained? Can I tie lines, draw links clearly between the conclusions and the data? Are the ontological and epistemological positions set out in the thesis compatible with the research questions asked? Do the types of data and what I want to do with them align to the ontological and epistemological positions I've adopted? Do my conclusions and my research questions fit? Are the questions, are the questions unanswered or conclusions not asked about in the thesis? And finally, are my conclusions sufficiently delimited in relation to my research design on my truth claims reasonable, in other words, from what I've done? So those are the kinds of questions one might ask oneself about the alignment or otherwise within one's own research. Now, there is an argument to say that some level of misalignment is okay. Abes, for example, in two articles says this, the researcher should consider experimenting with the choice and application of theoretical perspectives, bringing together multiple and even seemingly contradictory theoretical perspectives to uncover new ways of understanding the data. Rather than being paralyzed by theoretical limitations or confined by rigid ideological allegiances, interdisciplinary experimentation of this nature can lead to rich new research results and possibilities. That's Abes 2009, page 141. And yeah, I think there is quite a lot to be said for that kind of argument. Actually, in her examples, she doesn't stray too far into contradictory conjunctions of theory. And the problem for a PhD researcher is it's a high stakes project. And being too experimental can result in problems. Really, what you don't want to do is to get into a situation where there are fundamental contradictions. And so some experimentation, some bringing together of previously perspectives not put together is fine, but be careful about going too far into what she calls Abes' course, hybridity, borderlands and so on. The danger for the doctoral researcher is being accused of adopting incommensurable perspectives, incommensurable theoretical positions and so on. And if your examiners begin to think along those lines, then there would be some serious changes to be made. So move with care is my advice in stepping into the borderlands that Abes talks about. Okay, thanks very much indeed.