Second Year in Review
This post is about the second year of my PhD even though it was written a little bit late.

Hi everyone, and welcome to the latest blog post. It has been a while since I last did a post due to being busy and a bit burnt out but it’s time for another year in review with a recap of the second year of my PhD. Second year was very busy and eventful and much more challenging than first year in a lot of ways so I am looking forward to sharing the experience with you, including my new desk as seen in the image for this post (I swapped to the other side of the same room).


So first part of the update should probably be around my research itself. This time last year my topic was on designing technology to support students with ADHD in secondary education, and I was conducting an interview study with teachers. However, there were some changes along the way. As I explained in another post, I had my confirmation panel (or my first attempt at least) and as part of having to redo it, I had to change the topic a lot. My topic now is designing code editors to better support students with ADHD learning to program. This was due to feedback I received at my panel around making the research narrower in focus and being more specific on what I was hoping to find and contribute. There were also feasibility concerns about working with under 18s in the time frame of a PhD given how difficult it can be to work with schools. So, while it has been a big change and shift, it is still about understanding how we can make tech work for people with ADHD which is a topic I am still really passionate about. I am also pleased to say that after the change of topic, I passed my second confirmation panel in July and am now a fully fledged PhD candidate and on my way to further success in the PhD!


Before the topic change I had also been conducting some interviews with educational professionals about how they support students with ADHD. The interviews where very interesting with discussions around things like keeping track of time and making support work for each individual rather than any kind of one size suits all approach. While the interviews where interesting, they unfortunately don’t really fit in the research direction of my PhD now, though it was definitely not a waste. Conducting my first study taught me a lot about research ethics and working with people and also just understanding the way things work in education for supporting disabilities. Little things like learning to use awkward silences to let participants talk a bit more, finding different ways to phrase things and learning valuable skills such as how to analyse qualitative data where all huge benefits of conducting the study. I do hope to try and use the data from the interviews at some point but for now they sit on my computer waiting for the day I can figure out how to squeeze the data in somewhere.


Following the change of topic I have actually conducted my second study (this time I will actually get to use the results!). The second study was a think aloud study which I will write about in more detail later as I am currently writing a paper on it at the moment. Essentially the study involved trying to understand what it is like for a student with ADHD to use a programming editor and what aspects of the design might make them difficult to use. This study has been really interesting and has given me a lot of insight and I can’t wait to talk more about it once it has been published.


The other major part of second year was my first publication (well kinda). I submitted a paper to the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning. My paper was submitted to the Doctoral Consortium and was accepted and involved me going to Austria in September which was a fantastic experience and will also be its own blog post when I get chance. The publication should be going up soon but has apparently been delayed due to a few issues with admin so I am still waiting to be able to say I am a published researcher!


Moving on from the academic side of things, I have also had some changes in terms of some of the other professional work I do. I took a bit of a step back from some of the committees I am involved in with BCS to give myself more time to focus on my research and endeavours that are more central to my research, such as a new position I have taken up with the European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning (the people who ran that conference I went to). I am now the Access and Inclusion chair for the association which involves working with the rest of the board to make the association more accessible and inclusive to people who attend things like the conference. It is an opportunity I am really excited about and looking forward to working on and establishing myself more in the wider academic community.


In other news I also went up a bit in the fencing world. Over the summer I finally did something I have been interested in doing for a while, and completed the various courses required to become a registered fencing coach with British Fencing (look here is proof). The courses where a really great experience and gave me a big confidence boost in helping people at my club develop their skills as athletes and ensure they are progressing in healthy and sensible ways. It has made me realise just how much passion I do have for sport and its ability to make positive communities and bring people together.


The final achievement of the year goes back to academia and involves my teaching. This year I took part in Lancaster’s Associate Teachers programme which involved attending multiple workshops and completing some work for a portfolio around how I teach, my philosophy for learning and understandings around educational theory. It was a really interesting experience which also involved me applying some of the concepts that come up in my own research. By the end of the course I had successfully complete the programme and had achieved the status of associate fellow of advanced HE (AFHEA yay more postnominals!). Having this recognition of my teaching and passion for education feels like a big step in my professional development and being more established in the areas I hope to work in long term.


However, the year hasn’t all been progress and success. It has been a hard year, including the loss of a friend from the fencing club which hit me and the entire community hard. I wanted to mention it in this post as Lilly was a good friend and will be deeply missed. I also had problems with the students union which ended in me taking a step away from them and trying to avoid working with them in the future for my own wellbeing and disagreements over how volunteers should be supported. I have also just had to deal with a lot of burnout and struggling with work and life in general at times. But I do feel like I have come out the other side and while it has definitely been difficult in a lot of ways, it is still a year full of happy and valuable moments, even if it had a few hard ones to go with them. I am looking forward to the 3rd year of my PhD and getting closer to that elusive additional postnominal and the right to call myself a doctor.


So I hope you have enjoyed this post as a bit of a check in and a resumption of me doing the blog posts. As I am getting busier the one a month target is probably going to become a bit more flexible to better allow me to do work and do the posts when I have time but I will still be working on them when I can to continue sharing my thoughts and work with people.