A new book shares the stories of PhD students, early-career researchers, and established academics during the COVID-19 pandemic to shed light on the struggles faced by those in the industry.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted every aspect of our lives, and academia was no exception. A new book titled Research and Teaching in a Pandemic World offers an insight into the personal stories of those within academia who were impacted by the pandemic.
The book provides an archive of firsthand accounts of people’s pandemic experiences, highlighting moments of resilience and personal growth, as well as trauma, grief, and loss.
Edited by a group of researchers from Monash University, Deakin University and the American University of the Middle East, the book focuses on how the pandemic affected individuals’ ability to build their academic identity.
By allowing each author to narrate their own stories, the editors were able to identify how each individual’s pandemic experience affected their own academic identity.
Through the stories of the chapter authors, the book reveals four key themes:
The pandemic exacerbated already existing inequalities in academia, with many authors feeling marginalised and undervalued.
Parenthood complicated matters for those in academia, as they struggled to balance home and work life, which often negatively affected their future career prospects.
The pandemic profoundly impacted the mental health and wellbeing of those in academia, leading many authors to question their academic career aspirations, although there were also stories of resilience and coping strategies.
Solitude was a recurring theme throughout the book. Connecting virtually to their research supervisors, their workplaces, or their students made PhD students, early-career researchers, and more established academics feel disconnected from academia.
“The sudden disruption to or disappearance of everyday activities left academics feeling helpless. We understand now, more than ever, how crucial human contact is in an increasingly interconnected world,”
said Dr Cahusac de Caux, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the American University of the Middle East.
Dr Basil Cahusac de Caux is an Assistant Professor with a specialisation in the sociology of higher education, postgraduate research, and the sociology of language.
“Research and Teaching in a Pandemic World provides space for individuals to explore their own experiences and what they have learnt through the process. It is a collection of stories which presents windows into the worlds of the authors and highlights the idiosyncratic impact of the pandemic on those in academia,”
said Dr Lynette Pretorius, an Academic Language Development Adviser at Monash University.
Dr Lynette Pretorius is an award-winning educator and researcher specialising in doctoral education, academic identity, student wellbeing, AI literacy, autoethnography, and research skills development.
“Throughout the pandemic, its magnitude has, at times, felt overwhelming to comprehend. Reports on daily case numbers, job losses, extended lockdowns, and even worse, deaths, were common everyday information. Yet, it is important to take stock and remember that behind each of these figures is a person with their own unique story. Our goal with this book was to give some of these stories a voice within our own professional network, which is academia,”
said Dr Luke Macaulay, Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Centre for Refugee Employment, Advocacy, Training, and Education (CREATE).
Dr Luke Macaulay
Dr Luke Macaulay is a research fellow, researching the education and employment experiences of people from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds.
Dr Lynette Pretorius is an award-winning educator and researcher specialising in doctoral education, academic identity, student wellbeing, AI literacy, autoethnography, and research skills development.
I find it quite amusing that I would be writing this blog post to advocate for a research methodology as emotional and subjective as autoethnography. For over a decade, I was trained to conduct scientific research where objective answers were sought to solve problems. My research focused on examining a gene activated in athletes’ hearts to see if it could be a potential treatment for patients with heart failure. In this scientific lab-based environment, I had to ensure objectivity in my research so that I could help find a cure for heart failure. After completing my PhD, however, I ventured into humanities and social sciences and found that the research approach I had previously used would not work. In my new research space, I was interested in understanding people’s experiences, which meant embracing subjectivity.
Through my journey into qualitative research, I discovered the value of stories. As I have recently noted, I now believe that stories matter and that individual experiences should be valued. I also now advocate for researchers to allow individuals to tell their own stories, as they are the experts in their own experiences.
Researching personal experiences is becoming increasingly important as individuals’ stories are recognised as important sources of knowledge. Personal experiences can provide unique insights into social, cultural, and historical contexts and highlight the complexities of human experience. By researching personal experiences, we can uncover previously ignored or marginalised perspectives, challenge dominant narratives, and gain a deeper understanding of individual and collective identities. By valuing personal experiences as sources of knowledge, we can build more inclusive and diverse understandings of the world around us.
As I started researching personal experiences, I discovered a qualitative research method called autoethnography and soon realised its power. I now regularly recommend autoethnography to researchers. In particular, I often recommend it to PhD students to help them establish their research motivation and positionality in their thesis and more effectively engage in reflexivity during their research project. A well-written autoethnography can also be published, which helps these early career researchers by giving them the opportunity to build their publication record.
The rest of this blog post will explore autoethnography as a methodology. The information in this blog comes from my recently published book chapter, “A Harmony of Voices”. This book chapter was the methodology for our book Research and Teaching in a Pandemic World, where we used a form of autoethnography to allow PhD students, early career researchers, and more established researchers to tell the stories of their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using this methodology helped us show that the pandemic significantly affected the academic identity development of students and staff in higher education.
There are five main reasons why I think autoethnography is such a powerful qualitative research methodology.
1. Autoethnography requires researchers to purposely explore personal experiences to understand a particular culture or society. For example, I was recently able to use autoethnography to delve into a doctoral student’s journey as she discovered she was mentally unwell and link this with my experiences as a doctoral educator. By valuing the student’s knowledge of her mental illness and my understanding of the doctoral education system as a cultural insider, I was able to show how the culture of academia can contribute to the academic mental health crisis. Consequently, using autoethnography helped me demonstrate how educators can create more welcoming environments that help foster doctoral students’ wellbeing.
2. Autoethnography allows researchers to use personal experiences as data sources, narrating evocative stories and interpreting their significance. Researchers are also participants in their own studies, thereby valuing insider knowledge. The stories which are told often explore transformative experiences for the researcher, frequently taking the form of epiphanies that significantly influenced the author’s worldview. I believe that this allows researchers to provide more meaningful insights into complex phenomena compared with more traditional objective research methods. For example, I recently used Zoom to have a conversation with myself as I reflected on my past experiences (see Figure 1). During this reflexive Zoom conversation, I was able to delve into my personal experiences throughout my PhD, analyse my emotions and thoughts during that period, reflect on them presently, and determine how my previous experiences have impacted my current teaching philosophy and practice.
Figure 1. Screen capture of me having a conversation with myself on Zoom to collect data about my past experiences and how these influenced my current teaching philosophy and practice.
3. Autoethnography allows the researcher to use writing as a form of therapy for themselves and society more broadly. Researchers can give others hope and insight by engaging in this form of therapeutic writing. This can be seen, for example, in our book Wellbeing in Doctoral Education. In this book, several individuals used autoethnography to tell their stories of mental illness during their doctoral journey. Through their explorations of their own journeys, they were able to provide strategies for future students to maintain their wellbeing during their PhD.
4. Autoethnography empowers researchers as it allows them to embrace emotionality and uncertainty and highlight topics that may be considered hidden or taboo. Autoethnography allows researchers to connect with their own emotions and experiences and, in doing so, find their voice. It allows them to challenge the dominant narratives that often dominate research and to tell their own stories in their own words. It also allows them to connect with their research participants more authentically and meaningfully. By sharing their own experiences, they can create a space for others to share theirs, fostering a more equitable and inclusive research process. In this way, autoethnographers can advocate for social change to address perceived societal wrongs.
5. Autoethnography is a more accessible type of research for those outside of academia because it is written from personal experience in easy-to-understand language. The autoethnographer also does not merely narrate an experience for their audience. Instead, they try to engage the audience in the conversation so that the audience can understand experiences which may be different from their own.
Autoethnography, however, is not without its challenges. Some researchers critique it as a methodology because it is not scientific enough, while others say it is not artistic enough. I believe, however, that these critiques fail to see the value of combining both science and art when exploring complex phenomena. Autoethnography has allowed me to combine my scientific understanding of the research process with the ability to tell stories – both my own stories and those of my participants. In this way, I now see research writing as a way of communicating my findings to better understand myself and change the society in which I reside.
In conclusion, autoethnography has become an increasingly popular research methodology, particularly within the humanities and social sciences. Its emphasis on personal experiences, reflexivity, and storytelling allows for a deeper exploration of complex experiences and societies. While it may be a departure from more traditional scientific research methods, autoethnography allows researchers to learn about broader cultural and societal issues by exploring their personal experiences. As a researcher who was initially trained in a scientific environment, I can attest to the value of this approach, particularly when seeking to understand individuals’ experiences. Ultimately, by embracing the methodology of autoethnography, researchers can gain a deeper appreciation for the lived experiences of the individuals they are studying, leading to more nuanced and insightful research findings.
Acknowledgements I want to thank Dr Jennifer Cutri for introducing me to autoethnography as a research methodology.
Questions to ponder
How do you think the inclusion of personal stories and experiences can enhance the validity and depth of research in fields traditionally dominated by objective methodologies? Can you think of any specific areas or topics where this approach would be particularly beneficial?
In your opinion, what are the potential benefits and drawbacks of blurring the lines between scientific research and personal storytelling? How can researchers balance the need for scientific rigour with the richness that personal narratives bring to understanding complex phenomena?
Dr Lynette Pretorius is an award-winning educator and researcher specialising in doctoral education, academic identity, student wellbeing, AI literacy, autoethnography, and research skills development.
The secret lives of doctoral students and how academics can help Every year, thousands of students enrol into doctoral programs across Australia and around the world. New PhD students enter an environment characterised by the persistent pursuit for knowledge – there is always something more to learn. They also hear advice about academia from all and sundry. When we spoke to students in 2021, one final year PhD student noted,
“There are so many different aspects to learn about and it’s difficult to know what you don’t know. This leaves you always wondering whether you are missing something. There are also many different perspectives offered by others – everyone’s experience is so different that it’s hard to work out what advice applies to you and what does not.” Given that each person’s experience in a PhD program is unique, how does a PhD student come to know what their identity as a researcher is?
When someone asks you to describe yourself, on which area of your life do you focus? Perhaps you highlight your job or education, listing your interests and achievements. Maybe you highlight your religion and/or ethnicity, highlighting how these shape your approach to life. You may explore your family and personal life, showcasing the impact these areas have on your life satisfaction. The stories we tell ourselves and others about who we are, who we are not, and who we ‘should’ be in our context, can be defined as our identity.
Identity is multifaceted and continuously shaped through our experiences. It is also significantly influenced by the context in which we find ourselves – the implicit practices within our context tell us what is expected of us. As researchers, we are particularly interested in the concept of academic identity – the stories people tell themselves and others about who they are or are not within the context of academia. A PhD student’s academic identity is, therefore, largely shaped through the narratives and practices they experience within academia as they conduct their research.
An area of special interest for us is the doctoral education environment in higher education institutions. As higher education researchers, we experience the daily influence of academia on our own sense of who we are. We have seen PhD students try to navigate the often implicit knowledges and practices of academia during their studies. These implicit knowledges and practices are rarely taught and can cause an environment of exclusiveness – a space where some are privileged while others are marginalised. We were interested in exploring how PhD students’ experiences influence their perception of their place within the context of academia.
We believe that, to understand the experiences of PhD students as they navigate this complex environment, you have to highlight their voices. By listening to their stories, we believe we can better understand their journeys and, consequently, design improved educational experiences. We have used this approach in the past, which allowed us to explore the personal journeys of several doctoral students as they reflected on their own studies. The autobiographical narratives that the PhD students wrote highlighted that the PhD significantly influenced their wellbeing, sense of identity, and intercultural competence. For example, one student noted:
“I understand the PhD as an office-like job; however, your job has a lack of clarity regarding how you are supposed to achieve your goals. You get to decide what you need to do each day, but your plans change all the time as your research results take your study in a new direction. This of course means that you have a great deal of flexibility, but it also means there is a lot of uncertainty during your PhD journey. Personally, this meant that I found my PhD journey extremely stressful and mentally exhausting.”
To explore PhD students’ academic identity development, we conducted a large-scale research project exploring the experiences and lived realities of 29 PhD students at an Australian university. We used a creative approach that was designed to highlight the voices of the students through narratives and poems, allowing us to explore academic identity development from their points of view. The first findings from this project was recently published in The Journal of Higher Education and has since received significant attention from the academic community. An open access post-print version of this article is available here.
To start our research, we wanted to know why students committed the time and energy to pursue a PhD degree. We found our participants pursued a PhD as a stepping stone for future career success, to learn more about themselves or a particular academic topic, and to solve a problem in their local context. The students believed that the PhD was an all-consuming endeavour, something that should only be attempted by someone if they could fully dedicate themselves to the pursuit.
Further exploration of our participants’ experiences helped us to discover that PhD students experience significant pressure to build their personal brand. They felt that there was considerable tension between developing disciplinary knowledge and building professional skills (also sometimes termed “soft skills” or “transferable skills”). Yet they also felt that both these forms of personal knowledge were essential for later career success. Importantly, our study showed that several of our participants felt marginalised in their ability to develop these different forms of personal knowledge. They felt that their agency to take control of their own learning was hindered by various institutions that influenced the context of academia including the universities themselves, government agencies, and scholarship funding agencies. As a result, several students felt disempowered during their educational journey which adversely affected their academic identity. As noted by one participant,
“This has been taxing intellectually but VERY taxing on my sense of self and my sense of self worth as a scholar.”
The tension students experience highlights that the links between disciplinary knowledge and professional skills are not made clear to students. We believe that professional skills actually increase the applicability of disciplinary knowledge. For example, if PhD students do not have the ability to communicate their research to a wider audience, it is likely that their disciplinary knowledge will linger in relative obscurity. We also believe that the act of doing disciplinary research teaches a range of professional skills as a consequence. For example, conducting literature research to identify a research project for study necessitates the use of a variety of analytical skills. It is, therefore, our responsibility as educators to help PhD students reflect on the knowledge and skills they already possess. This reflective approach can help students develop an understanding of the variety of skills they have already developed during their studies, giving them the agency to seek targeted professional development approaches for future career success. Importantly, our research should act as a clarion call for those in academia. We implore educators to value different forms of knowledge and skills. This approach will help the scholars and problem-solvers of the future develop a strong sense of who they are and where they fit within their respective fields.
Questions to ponder
How do the varying experiences and advice received by PhD students impact their development of an academic identity? Do you think this diversity of perspectives is more beneficial or detrimental to their journey?
Considering the importance of balancing disciplinary knowledge with professional skills, how can PhD programs be structured to better integrate these two aspects?
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