Open Access“A structure that other people are directing”: Doctoral Students’ Writing of Qualitative Theses in Education
Author(s) -
Tom Dobson
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5151
Subject(s) - apprehension , affordance , creativity , qualitative research , pedagogy , sociology , focus (optics) , academic writing , creative writing , psychology , social psychology , visual arts , social science , physics , optics , cognitive psychology , art
Research suggests the teaching of the writing of doctoral thesis is decontextualised and that a traditional form, antithetical to a student’s paradigm or theory, has become canonized. Written to disrupt the traditional journal article form, this article explores the traditional form of theses through interviews with eight doctoral students in a School of Education. 5A’s creativity theory, where actors, audiences, actions, artifacts, and affordances combine to produce creative outputs, illuminates how students’ decisions are shaped by their apprehension of an academic audience as well as their own low positional identities as actors. A focus on contextualised teaching of writing of doctoral theses and further research into writing theses for different audiences are recommended.