Developing ways of thinking | Developing your identity

I think I can be capable of doing this. When I first started it I was not sure that I could and I am pretty clear that the structure of the way that the OU does this actually moves you almost inevitably towards being successful at it, and that has been quite a surprise so, yes, I feel as though I can do it and I didn’t feel as though I could do it when I started.

[Since I got my doctorate] I think I am much more secure … professionally I can stand there in my stride and stay stronger in my shoes.

I think the combination of the research skills and the approach to any kind of literature or situation … has given me a great deal of confidence in myself, not arrogance though, but confidence. If I don’t understand something I am perfectly happy to say, ‘I don’t understand that’, whereas before perhaps I thought ‘I can’t ask that because they might think I am stupid.’

It is amazing how such an achievement can also give you so much humility and how you can reflect about yourself and about others in a much more balanced way.

I would say start with a blank sheet. … Everything I did was part of [my existing] thinking and it has taken me a while to just stand back from my experience and my own interpretations of experience to look at the academic conception and take a more detached view … I have to admit that I found it difficult to accept that things might not be as I imagined them to be.

I went through the phase of thinking that everything I read from anybody who was good enough to get published must be correct, so how could I possibly question whether or not that was the case in my setting or whether or not it was appropriate for my setting. I then went through a phase of having acknowledged that, yes, I could question some of the things based on what I found … but I was then a little bit too subjective, so then I had to go back a step. I think I went from black to white to possibly now in the grey area. Hopefully now more in the grey area.

Probably I hold people to higher standards as a result of it. I think I am less willing to accept ... I hear a lot, ‘Of course research shows this’ and I think it is fair to say that in the past I would have gone, ‘Oh right, that is interesting to know there is research to show that and now probably I am more likely to say, ‘I am happy to kind of suspend belief on that until I have seen the research and I feel that, [if] it does support it, is it one piece of research or are there multiple sources which confirm or has it just been one person’s bias?’ I think that is a significant change for me.

What I have discovered is that I [now] don’t think of school policy as being right or wrong, I just see it as, 'it is what it is' and this tends to reflect on how I see things outside school as well now. It is what it is and my view is that I resolve an issue using all the information I have rather than assume one single approach is right or wrong.

My supervisor said that I used to describe rather than criticise and it took time for me to understand the difference. Rather than read text books, which described, I read articles and OU sources which helped me to extend my knowledge. Part of this was a realisation that a number of researchers have different points of view, and that studies which appeared identical might have different outcomes for different reasons. It was only through extensive reading that I began to develop the skills for myself.

I have always been a critical thinker but the EdD helped me to leapfrog, to jump to a whole different level because now I can be a critical thinker on the basis of theory, research etc. I feel I have the skills now to navigate literature, criticise it, comment on it, use it, apply it in a way that I had never been able to do before.

I hope I am less likely to react quickly and instinctively, and instead step back and try to think things through more objectively. I try to think of both positive and negative reasons for things rather than immediately judge one way or the other.

I suppose I don’t take anything on face value and if somebody says something I want to know the evidence.

I suppose it has changed me because if I think about the other projects I am involved in I probably wouldn’t really have had the confidence to say, ‘Yes I will do those’ without it … there is a bit where I think I can talk to someone from [a leading Research School] on the same level and I don’t feel overawed.

[Now I have my doctorate] I think I am much more independent in how I go about things. I feel much more confident about being able to make suggestions like going to a meeting and saying ‘I think this would be a good idea.’

[The qualification] gave me a bridge to go to where I wanted to go … It was really getting that piece of paper so I could get to where I wanted to be.