Professional Doctorate Student Conference – January 2019

16^th, 17^th,and 18th of January 2019

The anticipation of my second professional doctorate student conference was very different from my first. 2018 had presented some extraordinary physical and psychological challenges, and on reflection, I had thought I would have been further forward in my thesis writing than I actually was.

I had, created 10,000 words in a draft format of a literature review; an abstract and drafted an introduction chapter. I had read extensively on psychological contract breach with leading authors such as Rousseau and Robinson, Morrison and Pate. I had identified a gap in empirical evidence with regarding repetitive psychological contract breach (RPCB) and the impact on psychological wellbeing. Further reading created a need to adopt some scaffolding around the aims and objectives. In November 2018 and with the support of my supervisory a decision was made to change my methodological approach to Grounded theory. I made the shift to a qualitative constructivist grounded theory approach in line with Charmaz (2006). This shift change allowed me to move away from the literature review and concentrate on data gathering. I will return to the literature review at a later date as outlined in the PowerPoint slide below, I have created this slide to help me focus on dates and times of delivery and it’s been a helpful visual tool

On reflection and whilst producing this blog post, I allowed myself to acknowledge my deliverables and accept my progress as a positive rather than getting a big stick and beating myself over the back. It served no purpose to regret not having done more; I have a habit of beating myself up for my own crazy and unrealistic timelines.

Lesson learned from the 2019 conference was simply this; I had missed or omitted to simply enjoy the learning experiences, the adaptations required me to thoroughly explore and inform my doctoral subject. The guest speakers who were present throughout the conference also underpinned this and set the learning experiences of the students as a key exploration skill which informs the strategy of the university as well as research development for the future. The key learning from the guest speakers was where my doctoral thesis would fit into the strategic deliverables of the university and the importance of knowing how and where this information fits into the doctoral thesis and ultimately viva. I felt very proud on the completion of my research into the strategy of GCU, which my thesis will inform is No8, Decent Work and Economic Growth.