Those of you who are of a certain age might remember the acronym GIGO originating from the  less sophisticated than they are now early days of ICT.  It stands for “garbage-in-garbage-out”, and it’s message is quite clearly that the quality of any output data is heavily dependent on the quality of the input data.

In order to translate that into something meaningful in EdD terms, we need to focus on what inputs might look like.  Well, there’s reading time, and writing time, interview time,  transcription time (oh, so much transcription time) and analysis time.  If I don’t do any of those, then I won’t have much to write about.  And in thesis terms there does need to be both the appropriate quantity of words at doctoral quality.  A mere twenty thousand words of pure genius just won’t do.  But there’s also the a planning time that I reflected on in my last post.  And then there’s the thinking time.  Remembering to take a step backwards to survey the bigger picture and remind myself where I think I’m going, before I hurtle head long into the week, thinking about setting myself specific tasks.  I’ve written before about learning to sweat the small stuff, and making the most of small tranches of time.  But I’ve been doing that at the expense of the content of the bigger picture.

The revelation came when I was reflecting this week with a colleague about why I have not become  more productive in an EdD context since my dad and MIL died, and my youngest passed his driving test.  Because all the hours that I used to spend cooking and cleaning, visiting and providing a taxi service are now theoretically available.  All of the responsibilities that I had in those areas are gone (not, I hasten to add in the parenting department – just in the provision of a taxi service).  Rolling around in my head were all of the usual excuses about being buffeted off course by the cross winds that are the vicissitudes of work and life, and then my colleague (who may or may not have known what I was thinking) said “Of course, the one thing that you have complete control over is your EdD research”.  Well, to paraphrase a (reasonably) well known idiom, you could have knocked me down with a feather and called me a duck-billed platypus.  As I was replying that actually I didn’t, because my data collection can only take place at particular times of the academic year, and that if the window is missed it doesn’t return for another year; I heard my inner voice telling me to shut up.  Whilst I was correct in my assertion that data collection is dependent on a small window of opportunity; what I was conveniently ignoring was that that dependency exists because of decisions that I have taken.  I’ve justified those research design decisions to myself and my supervisors; but I am still the person who took them, and I (not the vicissitudes of work and life) am responsible and accountable for them.  And if that’s not quite working as I’d envisaged, then I need to do something about it.  Consequently, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last week putting in the groundwork to make sure that the window of opportunity for data collection is as full of potential opportunities as I can make it at this stage.

The sort of quid pro quo is that in EdD terms, both the quality (and the quantity) of my EdD outputs will depend on the quality and quantity of my inputs.  I just need to keep reminding myself about what inputs actually are, and how broad the concept of an input can be.  It’s a bit like reminding my own students about the many faces and facets of feedback, really.  It’s not just about producing agreed deliverables for the next supervision to deflect a telling off, it’s about getting small (but significant) steps closer to Viva Day.     And it’s about the realisation that when things go wrong, to paraphrase Dr. Helen Kara, I need to “Shut-Up-and-Sort It” or just shut up (which would mean giving up).  For those who don’t know Helen and her work, she is an ebullient and vociferous advocate of “Shut Up and Write” time.  Not inclined to shut up, yet (except to write, of course).  Too many PTPG students to think about, a significant section of my methodology chapter to write on reflexivity; and not to mention the interview transcription that I’ve put on hold to write this post………