Pre-Application Doctoral Communications (PADC 1)

Methods 

• Literature review of existing scholarship and grey literature on doctoral admissions to synthesise existing findings and best practice. 
• Webpage analysis of public-facing admissions material on Warwick Doctoral College and departmental webpages. 
• Data collection across Warwick faculties: 

• • ‘Critical conversations’ in the form of semi-structured interviews about departmental pre-application practices with: PGR Programme Directors and Programme Officers. 
  • Implementation of a reflective practice process for supervisors: simple structured solicited diaries with doctoral supervisors about their actions pre-application, followed by interactive group reflection sessions with selected participants. 

Timeline (2022)

• Feb-March: Project development; RA recruitment; apply for Ethical Approval; webpage and literature review commence; first Advisory Board meeting
• April-May: Data collection and analysis
• June-July: Data analysis; Second advisory Board meeting; report writing; training workshops; conference presentations
• Beyond July: Academic outputs; conferences 

Data Collection

Searching for a Supervisor (PADC2)

Methods 

• Data collection with minoritised Warwick doctoral students: 

• • 15 interviews with current Warwick doctoral students from minoritised backgrounds who had to seek out a supervisor 
  • Recruitment through relevant student networks  
  • Narrative approach to centre the applicant journey  

• YouTube video analysis of advice videos about finding a doctoral supervisor 

• • Compile corpus of advice videos  
  • Consider aesthetic, affective and narrative qualities of the videos
  • What advice is actually given? To what extent is disadvantage addressed?  

• • Defining the doctoral advice video genre 

Timeline (2023)

• Jan-Feb: Establish project; orient placement student intern; apply for Ethical Approval; background reading; video analysis; begin interview recruitment; first Advisory Board meeting
• Mar-Apr: Conducting interviews; Data analysis; Video analysis
• May-June: Preparing outputs; Advice video production  
• July: Second Advisory Board meeting; Staff training workshops; Publish final report; end project  
• Beyond July: Academic outputs; conferences 

Data Collection