Tell Me Again Why I want a Ph.D.?
I had two meetings with my mentor and one with a member of my dissertation committee this week. After the first meeting with my mentor my dissertation topic was pretty set and I had started writing my introduction and was also working on my literature review. YAYY
I met briefly with the outside member of my committee and she and I had a great conversation about tailoring my searches and ways to hone in on the 'good' articles since there is so much fluff out there. Again , YAYYY.
Then I met with my mentor again on Wednesday and was telling him how overwhelmed I was with how much there was out there on one part of my topic (my first research question) but how little there was on the other portion (my second research question). My dissertation will explore research topics as opposed to trying to prove or disprove a hypothesis. After roughly a 15 minute discussion he, my mentor, looked at me and said "So why not just do a study of studies?" WHAT?? After the two hemispheres of my brain reformed their connections I realized that what he was suggesting would be a great way to approach my topic. However, whereas it will cut down on how much I would need to do in terms of surveys and interviews, it will certainly increase the amount of work I will have to do in terms of my Literature Review. I honestly think I may have quadrupled my Literature Review. With the previous approach to my topic I was looking at roughly a 35-40 page literature review. With this new approach my literature will probably be 60 pages or more broken into 4 sections.
This new approach also means that I will need to completely redo my methodology section. OY.
So I spent many hours last night asking myself why the heck I want to do this and I kept coming back to the fact that I want to do this for me. To prove to myself that I can do it. Though I sometimes get overwhelmed with working fulltime and being in school fulltime I am totally loving it :-)
I met briefly with the outside member of my committee and she and I had a great conversation about tailoring my searches and ways to hone in on the 'good' articles since there is so much fluff out there. Again , YAYYY.
Then I met with my mentor again on Wednesday and was telling him how overwhelmed I was with how much there was out there on one part of my topic (my first research question) but how little there was on the other portion (my second research question). My dissertation will explore research topics as opposed to trying to prove or disprove a hypothesis. After roughly a 15 minute discussion he, my mentor, looked at me and said "So why not just do a study of studies?" WHAT?? After the two hemispheres of my brain reformed their connections I realized that what he was suggesting would be a great way to approach my topic. However, whereas it will cut down on how much I would need to do in terms of surveys and interviews, it will certainly increase the amount of work I will have to do in terms of my Literature Review. I honestly think I may have quadrupled my Literature Review. With the previous approach to my topic I was looking at roughly a 35-40 page literature review. With this new approach my literature will probably be 60 pages or more broken into 4 sections.
This new approach also means that I will need to completely redo my methodology section. OY.
So I spent many hours last night asking myself why the heck I want to do this and I kept coming back to the fact that I want to do this for me. To prove to myself that I can do it. Though I sometimes get overwhelmed with working fulltime and being in school fulltime I am totally loving it :-)