Article Critique Video Response:

Article Critique Video Response: The Why, the What, and the Where

1. Choose 1 of the questions and answer it
2. Combine 2+ questions into a multi-part question and answer it
3. Be inspired by these questions to come up with your own related question, and answer that question

For this blog post, I've chosen to combine questions from Ming Kong, Juan Djuwadi, and Jennifer Cunning. I will be posting my response to the following question that combines the three questions that my classmates submitted. 

Why did you select this article and after reading it, what do you think is the most needed skill/ability of ICT on the doctoral level and how will doctoral research continue to be shaped by the evolution of ICT? 

The Why

Even when I'm not moonlighting as a student, my day job still finds me spending most of my time consumed by education. Currently I work in higher education as an administrator, specifically focused on communications and event management. However, before I started this role, I worked in various schools around the city as a career counselor. 

Working with undergraduate and graduate students to help them professionally explore, consider next steps in their careers, and strategize how to get there has been an amazing experience. Each cohort and student brings their own personal obstacles and challenges with them into the room for consideration. However, during my time as a career counselor, I found myself specifically interested in the experience of doctoral students. 

This may be due to the fact that I have never been a doctoral student, so the experience was one that I could hold entirely outside of myself. Or it may be that these are consistently students who enter our sessions with some of the most complex back stories and paths and yet also tend towards somewhat foreclosed professional trajectories. It's very different to discuss career exploration with a first-year undergraduate just beginning their academic tenure than it is with a PhD student who has always wanted to be a professor and is just now realizing they may need to consider alternative options. 

This class has made me increasingly aware of not only how ubiquitous technology is becoming but also how is it shaping our experience as students. For doctoral students, who may or may not be digital natives, I was interested in how ICT has played a role in supporting and changing their academic experience. What I found from the article is that there has been a focus in the literature on students' self-reported experiences with ICT, mostly confined to the research part of the doctoral process. There have not yet been many studies that ascertain how PhDs are using ICT in their day to day work and the researchers in my article specifically call out the need for studies that utilize practice data. 

The What

After reading the article, I think the most necessary skills at the doctoral level are technological trouble-shooting and flexibility, skills that could be essential for any population engaging with ICT. Doctoral students bring so many incredible skills to the table, whether its expert subject knowledge, the ability to converse with peers and laypeople across specialties, the ability to utilize and represent data in ways that can be consumed and understood, the ability to synthesize and analyze complex texts to find themes and meaning, but in my experience, they are not always provided with the skills to utilize all of the technological tools that are currently at their disposable. 

Sim and Stein (2016) observe that ICT is now an integral part of most doctoral programs and PhDs are expected to be able to function within a technological space. They suppose that some of this may be due to an assumption that their prior academic experiences as undergraduates or Masters students have provided them with the technological literacies necessary to navigate the space. However, there have not currently been many studies on PhD technological literacy.

Therefore, some of the most important skills doctoral students need to excel in their programs and advance their research are knowing how to find the information they need, whether that is access to academic journals, locating tutorials to learn knew software, or tapping into online communities to connect with their peers. Additionally, PhDs need the flexibility to adapt to a constantly changing technological landscape. Their programs very well may span 5+ years, during which time there are massive changes and evolutions in the technological space. PhDs must be able to adapt to changing conditions and have the skills to quickly learn new technological platforms and tools.

The Where

I think there are opportunities for ICTs to infiltrate doctoral research beyond the way PhDs currently access and engage with information. As more online programs become options for study and more diverse students are attracted to pursuing PhDs, I think ICTs provide a great way for PhDs to engage as research scholars and actively participate in their research in real-time. I also believe ICT creates chances for PhDs to connect across the world and develop learning communities that exchange knowledge and allow for greater collaboration between peers. Finally, I believe ICTs will enable PhDs to showcase their work and brand themselves to their cohort within academia and to the larger world of work in ways that cut down the boundaries between the researcher and the audience. Technologies like interactive data visualization platforms, targeted newsletters, VR, and personal websites can be utilized by PhDs to allow other researchers or non-academic audiences to understand and engage with their work and directly ask them questions. 

Source: www.phdcomics.com Retrieved on June 29, 2019 from http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1790