Do you believe that the stars can align to ensure you are in the right place at the right time? In spring 2023, I read a paper by Professor Pat Tissington on using autoethnography (Ellis et al., 2011) to explore personal experiences of entering the workforce. Around the same time, I discussed career transitions with Ruth Winden, my institution’s Careers with Research Consultant, during her interview with me for the Research Culture Uncovered Podcast. We also talked about the upcoming REDS Conference, themed ‘Career Transitions for Researchers’. I have more than 30 years of experience in educational assessment but found the transition to postgraduate research (PGR) challenging. With Ruth’s 30 years of expertise in coaching researchers through career transitions, our conversation sparked a clear idea.

This blog post shares my joint work with Ruth on a presentation at the 2023 REDS Conference (see Talbot, & Winden, 2023). Using autoethnographic techniques, we explored my transition from an experienced practitioner to a developing researcher, guided by Ruth’s career development expertise. Our focus was on the cultural shift, new protocols and evolving professional identity.

Why autoethnography?

‘Autoethnography provides rich insights into private worlds, but can also evoke challenging emotions in ourselves and the reader.’

The autoethnographic method allows an exploratory, storytelling approach, from an individual standpoint, told in the first person. It embodies a structured, systematic, analytical approach, but is flexible enough to permit deep personalisation throughout the process. We interleaved ‘chapters’ of storytelling with ‘chapters’ of reflection and analysis (Tissington, 2023), leading to a rich tapestry of meaningful vignettes. This worked well, facilitating sharp focus on specific periods of time in my transition and maintaining the ‘call and response’ nature of the reflections by both of us. We acknowledge that autoethnography provides rich insights into private worlds, but can also evoke challenging emotions in ourselves and the reader (Mendez, 2013). We aim to address Richardson’s (2000, p. 254) criteria for evaluating ethnography as a method: ‘substantive contribution, aesthetic merit, reflexivity, impact, and expression of a reality’, while seeking meaning and to learn about ourselves and the research process.

To create the presentation, we focused on the practical aspects of becoming a PGR, with reference to some emotional parts of the journey. During the presentation, we both felt we had to self-censor some of what we wanted to say, for fear of offending individuals or ‘upsetting the applecart’; this is a necessary if frustrating part of autoethnography – knowing when not to include details as well as knowing what is necessary. The broader paper remains a work in progress; we believe that this is not unusual in autoethnography – the work is never ‘finished’!

Our research confirmed the value of developing a cohesive, coordinated and personalised way to support new PGRs, to nurture the inner growth that a PhD fosters. We recognised the very real need for Researcher Developers and for PGRs themselves to take the time and space to not just to get on with ‘doing’ but to plan thoughtfully, to allow for the adaptation of shifts in identity and practice.

Moving forward

This opportunity to reflect and be reflexive has been invaluable, enabling us to see how far I have come, what has changed and what has remained constant; how I have evolved to feel like a researcher now, by generating a new version of myself and learning from my experiences. Others might characterise this as navel-gazing, but we think it is more akin to stargazing – looking outward as well as inward, to recognise and take advantage of opportunities that arise to develop as a researcher.

References

Ellis, C., Adams, T. E. & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589

Méndez, M. (2013). Autoethnography as a research method: Advantages, limitations and criticisms. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 15(2), 279–287. https://doi.org/10.14483/udistrital.jour.calj.2013.2.a09

Richardson, L. (2000). Evaluating ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 253–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040000600207

Talbot, M., & Winden, R. (2023). Becoming a mature postgraduate researcher: Challenges and rewards. Presentation for Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference, 11 October 2023, Leeds.

Tissington, P. (2023). Uncovering my pentimento: An autoethnographic investigation of psychological distress due to career failure [preprint]. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/w6pq7