There is (of course) an online planner for reflecting on how you can round out your skills to become a better researcher overall.  It is Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework, which is something that I, interestingly, once reflected on a great deal but then had a go at when I had lost all interest in it, for the simple reason that it was 2021, Covid arrived, my PhD course was suspended and my imminent medical retirement began to be openly discussed. I was basically, to all intents and purposes, past it.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do when studying, is walk away from it. 

The temptation to a new researcher (well apparently to me anyway) is to always believe that the research questions are not encompassing enough.  This makes it very, very difficult to actually write a question. 

How the first version of my gallery was actually created.

My first association with audiobooks, which was actually for research purposes.

Replay value is a choice for most players; the idea is that after their first play through, a player will want to come back, at some time in the future, and play the game again.

I'm feeling the frustrations related particularly to trying to test certain aspects of gameplay, namely bear taming.

A reflection on past research, the process of producing that research, and eventually using and then reusing the completed pieces.

The difficulties of collating research information as a mature student in a newly technological age.

The second academic year dawned and I was back to positivity!  I was back at work, I had submitted everything required of me, and there was just a dissertation preparation document to submit, how hard could it be?

By the latter part of the 2019 academic year, I was too ill to climb the stairs in my house, was on extended sick leave from work, had reached the realisation that I could not handle the course, and probably needed to begin the steps necessary to quit.  Secretly, I was still convincing myself that I was probably okay.

Finding something you really want to study.

This post opens early in 2009, halfway through a new teaching course and the start of a new job role working with family and in education.

One area of PGCert study within the PhD is based around the examination of assumptions, and really how almost everything in terms of your research question is arguably an assumption.

Was there a problem in Education, or was I just an anger monkey?

For the first time ever, the simple fact that I was a bit clever did not magically do the trick, and I did not saunter through with the grades required for my UCAS-submitted chosen degree course at the University of Sheffield.

The thoughts of someone with a bone to pick in Education, following some of my major experiences of research after a life in the sector from 1996 to 2021.