Passing my Early Progress Review

I recently passed an early milestone when my PhD project was approved to continue without any conditions after the Early Progress Review. I had previously been assured by my two supervisors that the project had been progressing appropriately, so I was not overly concerned, but it is still always good to get external confirmation that what I've been working on does indeed appear to be worthwhile. I was also pleased to be able to share my ethical approval result in the interview, which I received the week before after a long wait.

A big surprise for me was how difficult it felt to answer seemingly simple questions about key theories in my project. We’ve been getting pretty deep into the details of data collection pros and cons in my supervisions recently, so when asked to describe what transformative learning is or what communities of practice are it threw me a little. I had already written my own definitions of all the key theories in my project, but of course I did not have those immediately at hand, which was an unnecessary oversight on my part. Instead, I defined the theories as I understood them, relying on memory, attempting to remain succinct but feeling like I was meandering dangerously close to waffling at times.

Perhaps there was a hidden advantage to defining and talking about the theories in a more natural way though. Perhaps this method demonstrated my understanding to the interview panel in a way that merely reading off pre-written definitions might not have. I would still rather have had my definitions at hand as a starting point though, and could have elaborated where necessary afterwards. The major lesson here for me, even though it feels a little foolish to admit as it is so obvious now, is to have a list of key definitions and a reference list of key literature at my fingertips so I can easily reference names and years without needing to rely on memory. Memory is a funny thing and clearly can’t be relied on in important situations, as the pressure of the interview had me struggling to recall key author names and publication years that are normally easily accessible. This didn’t appear to be a major issue this time, with the panel judging me as knowledgeable and well prepared, but I know what it felt like and I know I could have done better.

Overall though this was an enjoyable stepping stone to complete, with some insightful advice from the panel and numerous thought-provoking questions that allowed me to clarify my own reasoning behind key project choices.

5 stars, would recommend.