Self-assessment as PhD tool: some thoughts on process and pedagogy

Well this log hasn't been updated for some time. A part of me is disappointed while another is content with the reality of these past six months. This being the case, I decided to to collect my thoughts on self-assessment as a learning tool in doctoral studies. The following text is therefore highly subjective and somewhat personal in nature.

I became cognisant of monthly self-assessment as a meaningful tool during our doctoral program's start your studies seminar (Väitöskirja käyntiin) in 2014. This monthly review of progress was recommended by my good friend and longtime model for being a historian, Jaakko Tahkokallio. In his seminar presentation Jaakko talked about his process, the good and difficult and the bad. Ever so passingly he mentioned that at some point he undertook monthly evaluations to see, whether thing were progressing as planned. This was a revelation!

I'm a strong believer in developing process agilely. I prefer to understand the meta in any job I do and through that reflect where I need help, development, and tools for better command of my work. As far as I understand this relates to my highly rhythmic temperament. I do routine well and having understood this, can influence my life by intentionally and systematically targeting my routines. I didn't learn this during my studies but with help from significant others, when I decided upon a 30 something health overhaul. Still the same personal, psychological tools apply.

First, understanding emotions related to work, professional identity and professional community has been really hard. Finns (especially CIS men) tend to have built their identity around work and professionalism. This applies extremely well to me. Yet we don't always do emotions that well. Success, failure, interaction and status issues all apply on an emotional level. I found the linked column "Want to lose weight? Train the brain, not the body" by Laurel Mellin extremely helpful in this. As the title shows, this didn't happen in my academic training. Still that's what I've largely used it for. I also participated in a pilot program started by my pension fund (MELA) with TJS Opintokeskus (the info is only in Finnish). This put me in touch with professional work consultants used to operating with academically trained professionals and possibly more importantly with my peers, with whom I've been able to process practically everything.

Peer support is the second essential component I wish to stress herein. Various informal and formal networks have sprung up among PhD students in Helsinki and statewide during my studies. Still, these take time to develop and many can become unintentionally closed groups for friends. The support structures for unfunded doctoral students are still most fragile and many students can and do stay alone with their insecurities, unrealistically high expectations, fears and such. Participating in support structures takes active effort and so far projects like the one linked above, demand having a grant in the first place.

This leads me back to self-assessment. Why did I decide to take part? As I've noted before in an earlier post, it became a perceived need during a monthly review of progress. Mine follows this pattern:

• How did the last month go? Emotions, successes, failures, whatever comes to mind.
• PhD work progress in detail. What got done, what didn't, why?
• Other studies, projects, events and networks: what's happening, what's taking time?
• Content analysis: ideas, problems and possibilities related directly to my thesis.
• Funding issues: I feel this needs to be addressed regularly in order to cope with the monumental feelings of deficiency and frustration involved.
• To do: what's coming up during the next six months or so?

A colleague of mine has developed this further and uses a purpose built IT tool to manage todo-workload. Long to mid term stuff moves into short term lists during self-assessment and so forth. I just use a text file, so whatever works, works.

During my short stint in London, I was supervised in this process: monthly meetings with the professor and rundown on everything I had done and was planning to do. It felt a little heavy handed but this might be related to my own progress and process. Such close guidance will work for some, especially early on. It doesn't do away with personal development as that is a real development goal in learning to become a researcher. Still we could do more in recognising it as such and defending the necessary pedagogical resources involved. As it stands, I feel this issue is insufficiently addressed currently but as always YMMV.

Having said that, things are progressing and they must. The crunch in funding and temporal resources of doctoral education is putting a lot of pressure on university teaching staff and recent cutbacks have seemingly done nothing to help them manage their own responsibilities as support personnel and structures have been slashed and administration restructured. Academia is running up the hill, but is there cliff at end? I hope not.

Personal development in research education is necessary but it should not mean solitary development. Some academic survivors of yore may have learnt inopportune or even downright problematic survival mechanisms but that doesn't mean anyone, anywhere should. I hope recent programs, systemic pedagogical processes and peer help mechanisms survive and flourish. Should they do so, is entirely up to us and that is why at this late hour (in my PhD studies that is) I continue to participate.

Running to stand still – this is not a sprint, it's a marathon

I haven't written anything here in a while and I feel a bit embarrassed. I know I really shouldn't as this really isn't mandatory educational activity, yet I do. But why?

Doing a PhD can take years, four being the mythical norm. There's definitely a point in doing the right size of a dissertation to fill just that, it is just a thesis after all. Doing something for four years and ending up with 250 pages (monograph) or four articles and a lengthy introduction (not a monograph) isn't obvious though. It needs to be learnt and we tend to learning while running. Lots can happen in during those years. Funding issues, change of supervisor, change of school, ill health, kids – life, you know.

Initially I started with a too small topic. Threw that one in the bin and ended up with, what almost always feels like, a too large one. Don't get me wrong, it's doable. At least I think it is. But then I've been doing too big projects all the while, so I might be blinded or conversely on to something. Now that my schedule is set, the funding is in and I'm well on my way, stopping has become unfathomable. This may sound harsh but that is where I draw strength from. I tend to paint my self into a corner to learn how to climb up the walls.

Occasionally the climbing gets tough. My dissertation project so far can be split into the following stages:

1. Initial fumbling in search of something significant (topic, money, guidance)
2. Smooth sailing with funding and a theme with lots of materials
3. Early crisis due to outside factors leading me to course correction (exchange in the UK)
4. Deepening understanding of the magnitude of the project
5. Crisis, the valley of death too deep to see from but too far to turn back
6. Climbing out and learning what all of this really might be about
7. The grind (this is where I'm now)
...
n. Graduation

Now, this is going to be different for everyone. As far as I can say only the valley of death seems to be a constant. A doctoral dissertation is too big to do on one go. Whatever the topic may be, ideally the project is pedagogically exactly about this. Learning to handle too big projects. Everything else is more or less incidental.

I knew this, but little did I understand. People I respect had told me of the valley, but only when I trampled over my misguided hubris in that Sisyphean darkness, did I truly learn what it meant. It really was dark, because I had just returned to Finland, alone in October. Well, I had to believe that the only way would be up. I say believe with conviction because there's always a deeper hole. The belief allowed me to focus on the essential though. Cut out all the noise and focus on what was important. Don't mind the red flashing lights.

It didn't take long to finally understand what this was. I had been here before, when "my" ship almost sank (literally) and my gran almost died – the same week mind you. I was running on pure stress hormones, and that's not good.

Stage six wasn't about getting the thesis done. It was about learning to live with myself and the work. It was about re-learning to look at my mental dashboard for danger signs, operationalising self-assessment and progressive reflectivity. Only through such fundamental changes in my relationship with my self could I ever manage the increased work load, if even then. We'll see soon enough.

Following an exasperated moan of being overworked, I friend and mentor berated me recently. "It's never getting easier, don't fool yourself!" And it won't if I stay this course. The further along I get, the more I'm loaded with this and that, a project here, a lecture there. And I love it. The thesis is slowly setting into the grind. I know what I'm supposed to do and I do it everyday. It's work.

Meanwhile other stuff happens with increasing regularity. This forces me to sprint while running a marathon, to juggle three different things at the same time. Sound familiar? Just like work, right? The thesis lives a life of its own. There's definitely much to learn still, but at the same time learning time management, resourcing and saying no still goes own.

I still have to drop stuff and focus and this is where I'm with the blog. I want to do this. It's just that I don't always have the time for it.

I will take this up in the next project meeting though. Just clearing my thoughts with this incoherent ramble has helped me onwards and upwards. Yet another inch towards redemption...