I’ve now been officially enrolled in my PhD program for a month now, and have started framing (with the help of my supervisior), the shape of my research question. But aside from this process of framing questions, I have been thinking about some other questions to ask of my resources which will serve as a “questioning framework”. These being:
- What do I want to know about whom?
- What do I know? And,
- Where is the key?
I think, when I am working on article reviews, which help in synthesising my literature review, that by working under the framework of these three questions it will help me when seeking and teasing out themes and ideas within my readings.
So far I feel I am taking academic “baby-steps” in that my work output has been small, but in balance I have been collecting resources for more than a year in preparation. The work output will obviously be increasing in the future.
In terms of my own research I think that I may be onto something. For finding a gap in the literature on the subject of learning in community brass and concert bands by middle-school aged students (or something to that effect) has not been as hard as I expected however that is not to say that someone has tweaked onto this question. In fact after my last meeting with my supervisior, there are probably about three PhD topics buried within my questioning. But I think one PhD with my original question will be enough.
The process of answering my question will be very interesting, and putting the research together with my (anticipated) data results will hopefully answer the questions even further – and probably lead to new questions. Which might be answered later in further work. I’m looking forward to this process and applying the above questions to my work.
