Moving on with your research | Disseminating your research

In school... when I did my data collection … I fed back to staff, the governors and the directors … My research actually went into the director’s newsletter that the Head produces.

I would encourage [EdD students] to present their data as they go along, if it is appropriate, wherever they can, be it in the classroom … or with colleagues … in order to get continual feedback, to be able to reflect on it and also to gain experience of presenting. ... Talking to other EdD students [at the most recent face to face session], the ones of us who had been presenting as we were going along weren’t so anxious about it as others who might not have been discussing [their research] with other people as they went along.

As soon as I could I went to a conference and published a paper in the conference proceedings and then a couple of other conferences. And then I was approached by a lady who was running one conference to contribute to a chapter in a book she was writing, … so I wrote a chapter for that [and] wrote a couple of articles for the education association that I am involved in.

I just need a little bit more data to be analysed first but I am planning to talk to the local authority, and … go along to a secondary heads meeting and … talk about the research and then give them the tools to be able to do something similar in their own schools … I don’t think I have enough to go on at the moment; I would just rather wait a little bit until I have analysed things in more depth.

I think [my research] is very applicable to students, sixth-form students, because nobody seems to have picked up on [my research] idea … so yes, I think it is very applicable but … how I would kind of spread it to other sixth forms I don’t know.

You have got to think about who your audiences are … I think when you start off you don’t necessarily think that … You think about it in your own context. It is so much harder to get the message out beyond that, in a way that is accessible for lots of other people. … Although I have got my doctorate now I haven’t published it and once it has been peer reviewed and maybe published then maybe I would feel I could go and say, ‘This is what I found out. This is what might help.’

The marketing and the promoting of your research is also something that a lot of academics don’t even think about or aren’t really good at. I think, for example, if you look at how LinkedIn or Academia.edu, those sites that you can use to promote your work and get more hits and more references about your work, that is something that was not on my screen during the programme, that I think probably would have helped.

Go and listen to the best of the best in your field. Read what they have done, hear them present, listen to anybody who is doing a doctorate, go to research sessions. There are lots of conferences and seminars … every university has doctoral research students doing presentations and seminars and you have got to find out in your area what is going on. It is no good hoping that somebody will tell you because they won’t, not because they don’t want to but because it is up to you to find out.

The first thing in trying to get some of the ducks in a row is to do the BERA Conference.

I started going to conferences when I was still doing the EdD and my first conference was … a little daunting because there were some big names in the room and they had strong objections to my work.

I think if I prepare a small article for an educational journal that will really help me in terms of academic writing and help me think about what it actually is that I am finding out.

Because it wasn’t sort of typical research even though we used standardised tests … then it was looking at journals that would be open to more experimental types of approaches and reading through the articles that they already had, and also a lot of the journals give you guidance about what kind of articles they would accept.

I would have felt so much better if I had come out of the EdD with at least one publication. I actually sent one paper to one of the biggest journals in our area but it was rejected … We didn’t choose the right journal either because it was such a big journal, they have such a huge rejection rate.