CRADLE PhD students reflect on the HDR Winter School
19 August 2024
In this post CRADLE PhD candidates reflect on their experiences of attending the Faculty of Arts and Education HDR Winter School 2024 and review a workshop on feedback literacy held at the school. The HDR Winter School was held on 8 and 9 August at Waurn Ponds Estate. The purpose of the Winter School is to provide HDR students with skills and knowledge that are useful throughout their candidature. This year the theme was exploring your researcher’s voice and identity.
Nisrina Wibisono
The winter camp was exciting. I had an opportunity to engage in various lectures, workshops, and networking activities. Among those experiences, one specific moment that was interesting to me was the reading workshop on understanding research risk and safety in qualitative research online. The workshop provided an eye-opening perspective on the importance of safeguarding not only research participants but also the researchers themselves, particularly in the context of qualitative research. It makes me understand more about the potential risks and challenges that qualitative researchers can face, especially when conducting sensitive studies or dealing with emotionally charged content. It reminded me that being a good researcher is not only about producing quality work but also about taking care of myself in the process.
Xin Liu
I really enjoyed the Winter School. There were amazing workshops, panels, and a keynote. The key moment for me was a workshop on emerging identities during and post-PhD where I listened to many interesting and touching stories from other PhD students about their personal experiences of being a HDR student. The discussion about the relationships among ‘me, academy and community’ guided me to think about my inner passions, love, and future visions for my research. I really appreciate this opportunity for self-reflection, which helps me intense my own voice in my PhD research.
Pearl Kang
The Winter School has been a timely intervention for me at my pre-confirmation phase because the insights shared by the presenters helped me to take a step back from my study and picture my candidature in a broader sense. One key moment out of the many enlightening instances was Dr Cassi Liardet’s keynote about pursuing a traditional PhD thesis vs by publication. Her presentation offered me a practical way to maximize my research journey and continue to shape my research identity. But most of all, I was privileged to co-facilitate the feedback literacy workshop with CRADLE’s Dr Laura Hughes and other CRADLE PhD candidates because sharing my story and encouraging others to engage in a dynamic discussion on feedback literacy allowed me to witness the central role of feedback in research, especially in developing our identities as researchers and as academics.
Making the Most of Feedback workshop
The workshop was developed by Dr Laura Hughes, Dr Joanna Tai and CRADLE PhD candidates Anastasiya Umarova, Pearl Kang, Xin Liu, and Tegan Little. The aim was to develop students’ knowledge of feedback literacy; clarify students’ understanding of their own current feedback literacy beliefs and behaviours; and develop students’ agency for engaging in feedback behaviours. Laura pointed out that in the HDR context, feedback can come not only from supervisors; can be in different forms (Bearman et al., 2024); and involve various scenarios. By referring to the literature (Dawson et al., 2023), she highlighted that we should consider feedback literacy as behaviour. Meanwhile, Tegan presented the findings from her scoping review on interventions designed to improve students’ feedback literacy (Little et al., 2024).
To add an element of embodiment, student co-facilitators shared their own examples of feedback actions. They also actively engaged in the discussion of the Stracke and Kumar Feedback Expectation Tool (Stracke & Kumar, 2020) and “sticky and juicy” role-play topics that resemble real-world challenges of feedback encounters during candidature which generated lots of excitement in the audience. The peer component the students brought enhanced the value of the workshop.
Dr Laura Hughes presents the workshop
More Information
References
Bearman, M., Tai, J., Henderson, M., Esterhazy, R., Mahoney, P., & Molloy, E. (2024). Enhancing feedback practices within PhD supervision: a qualitative framework synthesis of the literature. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(5), 634-650. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2024.2307332
Dawson, P., Yan, Z., Lipnevich, A., Tai, J., Boud, D., & Mahoney, P. (2024). Measuring what learners do in feedback: the feedback literacy behaviour scale. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(3), 348-362. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2240983
Little, T., Dawson, P., Boud, D., & Tai, J. (2024). Can students’ feedback literacy be improved? A scoping review of interventions. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(1), 39-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2177613
Stracke, E., & Kumar, V. (2020). Encouraging Dialogue in Doctoral Supervision: The Development of the Feedback Expectation Tool. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 15, 265-284. https://doi.org/10.28945/4568
