Learning in a PhD

[stevelouw]

One would expect that having studied hundreds of hours in various courses, completed a thesis and published some papers, the end of the PhD marks your status as a doctor, that you are 'qualified', and perhaps knowledgable in some interesting way. With all the PhD graduates the university is currently churning out, that premise seems attractive. However, I was sitting in on one of Richard's DA sessions last week, and wondered whether that is really true. I have studied DA three time (or maybe four, I am not sure anymore), and it was only now (in my post-phd-student decrepitude) did I could finally understand the material with any real depth. I tell you, it's a magical moment when you can actually understand one of Richard's sessions.

An analogy springs to mind, and I hope it works for your experience: when you do your test for your driver's license and you pass, it seems that only then do you really start the process of learning to drive. So, is the awarding of a PhD the end of the learning process, or a signal for it to start?

Or is another explanation possible: that you only learn something when you actually need it for something? Perhaps there is a point when you learn something because you are 'ready' to learn it for some reason. I've always considered the concept of 'readiness to learn' relevant only to developing children. However, in his 1948 paper on this, Alvin Schindler's argues readiness applies to all learning at all levels (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=uced20 - although this paper was published in "Childhood Education"). Perhaps even as PhD students, we learn something only when we are ready for it, or if we realize a need for it, and not because it's in the curriculum or a lecture series. If this is the case, then might we only really be learning when we are engaging in active research involving new topics, new methods and new approaches that stretch us?

[Sachiko]

Thank you for sharing your experience and thought-provoking questions, Steve!
Although I haven’t had that miraculous moment in Richard’s class YET, I would like to say that I understand what you wrote. Regardless of the significance or complexity of topics, I have had many moments of ‘ah-huh! Now I understand!’ It is a truly amazing experience, isn’t it? 60 % or more of the time for me though, it is followed by some sort of negative affective states, thinking, ‘Oh god, why hadn’t I realized/understood that?’ …
Based on those, I agree (to some extent) with the concept of ‘readiness to learn’ Together, as you mentioned, there are other variables (almost as a prerequisite?) for learning to take place, such as engagement and motivation. At the same time, something new that we are not yet ready to learn may go through our head at first, but some of it stays in us in a unique way and comes back to us later, often having some effects on learning that new topic. I thought of an example to illustrate this for the whole day today (!), but my brain has been so occupied with my research/teaching stuff that I couldn’t think of anything… oh! This could another state of ‘unreadiness to learn’!

[sgtowns]

I think that learning can be a long process that goes from receptively understanding a idea, to re-producing the idea in your own way, to applying the idea to a new area, to mastering the idea. So as a PhD student who is sitting in a classroom, the steps of academic learning might be something like:

1. Understanding the topics that are being covered in class.
2. Being able to find your own ways to explain the ideas to other people (say on a final exam essay or explaining it to your classmates).
3. Using the knowledge to produce insightful independent research on the topic.
4. Becoming a well-known expert on the topic.

I think your question about always looking for new topics to learn is a good one, but it doesn't mean that you stop learning about the old topics. Maybe Step 3 above is your PhD. You can continue in the same field, learning more and more until Step 4. But maybe at Step 3 you branch out and try something new, which starts you at Step 1 or 2 for that particular topic.

There are always new things to learn. Perhaps the important factor is a "willingness to learn". We don't have to work hard to seek out new topics, new methods, and new approaches. They are all around us all the time, we just have to be open to the opportunities. They can come from a classroom lecture, a research cluster, a special seminar, a chat over lunch, the morning newspaper, a random TV show that you catch as you're mindlessly flipping channels, a discussion forum...

[Richard]

Stuart appears to have created a new theory of long-term learning. Most learning theories (perhaps for practical reasons) focus on short-term learning of specific objectives, not long-term learning of a field. Existing theories that might be relevant include automatisation theory (does knowledge become automatised?), teacher development theories (such as Pennington's 3-stage model), and the 4 stages of researcher development (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/europe/ca ... escriptors), but, off the top of my head, I can't think of anything similar to Stuart's model. So, 3 questions:

1. Does anyone know of any theories of long-term learning similar to Stuart's model?

2. Are there existing research findings that support Stuart's model?

3. What would a research programme (a series of research studies) aiming to validate Stuart's model look like?

[stevelouw]

If Stuart's model is taken a theory of long-term learning, it will apply to fields outside of PhD and research. I look at it and wonder whether teachers learning through a pre-service training program (something like learning how to plan a lesson) go through similar steps. For example, they learn (and struggle with) planning a lesson on the course, then they get to a stage where they can explain the planning process to someone else (a colleague or novice) but still need help with their own plans, and one day go on to planning creative plans independently. In my little scenario, I can't see where level 4 comes in, but as it is here, a longitudinal study may track a teacher's progress. However, I wonder if my thinking is influenced a little too much here by Fuller's concerns theory from the 1960s!

[sgtowns]

Thank you for the additional posts that made me think about "my theory" of learning a little more deeply. I think I was actually trying to combine two ideas which ended up confusing things. The first idea was more or less aligned with a three-step process similar to the learning theories mentioned by Steve (Fuller, 1969) and Richard (Pennington, 1995). Interestingly, even though these publications are 26 years apart, the results are similar. Apparently there are lots of other similar 3-stage learning theories as well. If anyone is interested in reading more, this blog post might be a good place to start: https://www.developingdifferencemakers. ... 2th-201611

The second idea I was thinking about is about the 4th step ("becoming an expert"), which, as you both point out, is more career oriented and could be applied in lots of other fields. But in any case, I thought the "Research profiles descriptors" that Richard shared were very interesting. It gives us all a great list of goals to aim for if we want to become better researchers.

As far as theories that might fit my original 4-step idea, the closest one I can find is Howell's (1982) four stages of communication competence. They are:

* Unconscious incompetence
* Conscious incompetence
* Conscious competence
* Unconscious competence

Judging by a Google Scholar search, this theory has been cited in several intercultural communication studies, especially the first stages where you have to first convince students that they are "interculturally incompetent" by putting them in situations where they misinterpret or ignore cultural communication cues (for example, Morell et al., 2002).

Anyway... apologies for all of the citations, but I thought that this was an interesting topic that might be useful for someone's research. So here are the references that I had never heard of before today:

Fuller, F.F. (1969). Concerns of teachers: A developmental study of teacher concerns across time. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.

Howell, W. S. (1982). The empathic communicator. Wadsworth Pub Co.

Morell, V. W., Sharp, P. C., & Crandall, S. J. (2002). Creating student awareness to improve cultural competence: creating the critical incident. Medical Teacher, 24(5), 532-534. Chicago

Pennington, M. C. (1995). The teacher change cycle. TESOL Quarterly, 29(4), 705-731.

[Richard]

I've always liked that (un)conscious (in)competence model, but I always cited it as Underhill, A. 1992, The role of groups in developing awareness, ELT Journal, 46/1. I'm guessing (I haven't checked) that Underhill didn't cite Howell in his article.