Taming the ‘beast’: the dance of sustaining reflective practice on the dissertation process

Abstract

Reflective practice is an integral part of preparing for doctoral candidacy and the successful completion of one’s dissertation. In this article, reflective practice was utilized as a useful tool in documenting the dissertation process of ‘taming the beast’. Reflecting‐on and reflection‐in‐action were vital to designing and defending the dissertation successfully. The purpose of this article is to present a personal narrative of a rigorous, coherent and credible qualitative dissertation research through the eyes of a doctoral candidate. The author found that reflective practice required deliberate, consistent and purposeful action by the reflective practitioner. To sustain reflective practice contextual anchors were used to build and scaffold meanings. Meanings researchers and participants attach to the collection, analysis, interpretation and the data presentations are important to qualitative research. The author concludes that successful dissertations are original, accurately researched, well‐documented, thought provoking and show depth of reflective practice.

Keywords:

• reflective practice
• realistic phenomenology
• interpretive epistemology
• qualitative research

Notes

1. ‘Churn’ is defined as teacher attrition. ‘High churn’ implies high teacher turnover.