“A structure that other people are directing”: Doctoral Students’ Writing of Qualitative Theses in Education

Authors

Tom Dobson, Leeds Beckett UniversityFollow

Abstract

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.

Keywords

writing, doctoral thesis, creativity theory, post-structuralism, education

Author Bio(s)

Tom is a Reader in Education at Leeds Beckett University. He supervises a number of doctoral students and has a specific research interest in creative writing. Please direct correspondence to t.w.dobson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the doctoral students who took part in this project.

Publication Date

4-5-2022

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5151

Recommended APA Citation

Dobson, T. (2022). “A structure that other people are directing”: Doctoral Students’ Writing of Qualitative Theses in Education. The Qualitative Report, 27(4), 997-1010. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5151

ORCID ID

0000-0001-5354-9150