Reflexivity of the lived research experiences of a doctoral student through communities of practice

Abstract

Doctoral students and apprentices are much alike. Doctoral students are treated as junior academic scholars. They must follow and learn different knowledge and research skills from their senior academic scholars, mainly supervisors and other congenial faculty members within the department. During the process, reflectivity is one of their vital self-fulfilment tools to elucidate, contemplate, ruminate, and then internalize all the given prescriptions. By adopting communities of practice as a theoretical framework, this article has employed an auto-ethnographical approach aimed at reflecting the author’s lived research experiences as a doctoral student in Hong Kong. By revealing the journeys of accommodating reflexivity, this article argues that, apart from senior members within the communities of practice, cultivations of reflexivity are also feasible from beyond the communities. This article will contribute to levels like doctoral supervision and the fulfilment of doctoral students.

Introduction

Truly acquiring knowledge is a challenging task. Take doctoral studies for instance. Doctoral students have to be supervised by their supervisors, who will, at least, provide them with different challenges and inspirations to construct and deconstruct the knowledge that students acquire. Besides, as junior academic scholars, doctoral students need to learn many research skills and practices, either through taking courses or interacting with other faculty members on different occasions. Nonetheless, the theories students learnt from the courses and the suggestions and guidance from the senior academic scholars do not mean that doctoral students have already acquired the necessary knowledge. Doctoral students have to apply what they learned into practice, say, conducting research. Reflexivity may be generated at different stages of research so that doctoral students can further digest, consolidate, and even challenge the knowledge they have already acquired. As suggested by Lave and Wenger (1991), the overall experiences of doctoral studies are similar to communities of practice. Nonetheless, this article argues that reflexivity can be cultivated through communities of practice, including senior members within communities such as faculty, and members beyond communities like research participants and laypersons. Besides, even though many researchers such as Acker et al. (1994), Delamont et al. (2000), Li and Seale (2007a), Li and Seale (2007b), Wisker (2012), and Wisker et al. (2003) already carried out studies to examine the relationship between doctoral supervisors and their students, but attention concentrated on how doctoral students reflect upon the teachings of their supervisors and other faculty members is inadequate. This article, therefore, aims to bridge the academic gap by looking into the lived research experiences of the author, as a doctoral student, on how to cultivate reflexivity through communities of practice.

In the following, the theoretical background on reflexivity, communities of practice, researchers’ field experiences, and lived research experiences will be generally reviewed first. The research aims and methods of this article, and the author’s research experiences in a case study will then be stated. After that, the whole case study will be examined through communities of practice reflexivity. Lastly, before concluding, the contributions of this article will be proposed.

The theoretical background on reflexivity

Especially relating to qualitative research, one piece of advice among many from supervisors and other faculty members to doctoral students is on reflexivity. Even though no conclusive remarks on a definition of the term reflexivity can be made, Kuehner et al. (2016) denote it as ‘a strategy of using subjectivity to examine social and psychosocial phenomena, assuming that social discourses are inscribed in and social practices are embodied by the researcher’ (699-700). Enosh and Ben-Ari (2016) interpret reflexivity as ‘deliberate awareness involving both a contemplative stance (state of mind) and intentional activity aimed at recognizing differentness and generating knowledge’ (578). Reflexivity is a way to achieve the objectivity of researchers by requesting them to examine their influences on the participants and the research (Dean, 2017: 6; Ormston et al., 2014: 22-23). In other words, reflexivity is one of the measures of pursuing research quality. Nevertheless, reflexivity concentrates more than on the research. Dowling (2006) explicates that researchers should read reflexivity as ‘continuous self-critique and self-appraisal and explain how his or her own experience has or has not influenced the stages of the research process’ (8). Russell and Kelly (2002) pinpoint it as ‘a process of honouring oneself’ (3). That means reflexivity also focuses on researchers and helps their improvement (Attia and Edge, 2017: 35-37). In this article, reflexivity is understood as an ongoing process of the researcher’s re-consideration and re-interpretation of the research study and self-reassessment to achieve better sociological imagination.

There are at least three types of reflexivity: epistemological reflexivity, introspective reflexivity, and methodology reflexivity (Anderson, 2008: 184). In general, epistemological reflexivity is re-considering and re-interpreting the theories that a researcher deployed and how it affects and narrows the vision of the research and how it affects and narrows the scope of the study. Introspective reflexivity is re-considering and re-interpreting the impact of personal issues of the researcher, such as role, age, gender, and nationality, on the research. Methodology reflexivity is re-considering and re-interpreting the method that a study deploys and how it affects the study. Owing to the limitations of the scope of this article, the following focus will be on methodology and introspective reflexivity only.

The Theoretical Background on Communities of Practice

Wisker et al. (2007) indicate that communities of practice can describe the relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors. Lave and Wenger (1991) propose a theory of communities of practice. The nature of acquiring knowledge is a kind of cooperative construction between senior and junior members of the group or community (Denscombe, 2008: 276). While pointing out that communities of practice conventionally demand learners to immerse themselves in the field and behave accordingly to gain approval and establish status among senior members, Contu and Willmott (2003) argue that such requirements may not facilitate reflexivity among learners as their perceptions are too often in line with the thought of the communities, and it may be difficult for them to critically review or even challenge what they are told (285, 287). However, other scholars have different views. For instance, Christensen et al. (2020) claim that reflexivity can be generated in communities of practice (21). Whitfield et al. (2022) assert that cooperation among learners in communities of practice can promote reflectivity (5). Hill and Vaughan (2018) also evince that dialogue promotes reflexivity in communities of practice (153-154). After considering the above assertions, this article believes that junior members do not necessarily absorb all teachings from senior members in communities of practice without any judgements and circumspections. This article further contends that by practising the teachings of the senior members, a single junior member in communities of practice can also cultivate reflexivity (Rumbold, 2014: 268; Drake and Heath, 2011: 20). In addition, people beyond the communities may be able to spark learners’ reflexivity as well.

The above discussion can also be applied in the context of doctoral studies. On the one hand, teachings from doctoral supervisors and other faculty members in the communities of practice offer an inspirational and invaluable foundation for the journey of doctoral students. Attributed to inexperience and limited knowledge, doctoral students often find teachings useful and constructive in fixing their inappropriate thoughts and deeds and also preventing them from making mistakes. For instance, doctoral students can effectively and efficiently improve their research by considering the adoption of particular theories as the theoretical framework for their research based on their supervisors’ recommendations. On the other hand, practice is a vital and indispensable component of communities of practice. Doctoral students cannot sustain their academic development without examining and verifying their teachings. By practising their teachings, doctoral students can experience and review the practicality and validity of their learning (Park and Schaller, 2020, pp. 13-14). During the practice, doctoral students are likely to encounter people beyond the communities such as research participants who in turn can also shape their academic growth. In short, doctoral students can truly appreciate and internalize all the teachings from their supervisors, other faculty members, and others beyond communities of practice through persistently practising and attentive verification, not unreserved obedience and mechanical memorization. By doing so, reflexivity can also be cultivated through communities of practice not only by practising the teachings from their supervisors or other faculty members but also from members beyond communities like research participants. In other words, acquiring knowledge is not just a cooperative and interactive practice among members within the communities but also extends beyond the communities’ boundaries (Kriner et al., 2015, pp. 78-79; Lea, 2005, pp. 190-191; Pratt et al., 2015, p. 56; Roberts, 2021, pp. 87-88). Underestimating or ignoring the inspiration from beyond communities, as suggested above, may hinder the cultivation of reflexivity.

As doctoral students can develop reflexivity through practising the teachings from their supervisors or other faculty members and even from others beyond their communities of practice, their field experiences as researchers cannot be neglected.

Researchers’ field experiences

Like other members of society, researchers are just ordinary people with different identities because of cultural backgrounds and demographic characteristics, including sex and age which can direct their positions when conducting research. Researchers’ identities can also shape how informants perceive them, which in turn affects the way researchers experience their fields. In this regard, researchers and researchers’ field experiences are connected. Damsa and Ugelvik (2017) advocate that researchers’ field experiences are vital as they partially determine the quality of collected data and the reliability of the study (2-3). On the one hand, researchers’ positionalities constitute distinctive features of research. For instance, the way doctoral students understand research ethics from their supervisors can influence their research procedures, particularly on how to approach and get along with informants (Bilgen et al., 2021: 529-530). In other words, the way researchers perceive their external environment sculpts their field experiences. On the other hand, Ballamingie and Johnson (2011) declare that researchers cannot control at least part of their field experiences (712). For example, researchers are unlikely to dominate the way informants perceive their gender. However, this article avers that researchers can consider informants’ reactions and try to formulate appropriate measures in advance. Under either circumstance, reflexivity helps researchers to better revisit and recognize themselves when their identities are blurred (Milligan, 2016: 241). It also enhances the way researchers undergo anticipated and unanticipated experiences in their fields.

The theoretical background on the lived research experiences

As suggested, through lived research experiences, reflexivity can be cultivated among doctoral students. Van Manen (2014) defines lived experiences as ‘life as we live it’ (39). In other words, experiences are almost everything close to us. Experiences are validated through the continued living of what experiences teach. In the context of doctoral studies, the lived research experiences of doctoral students can shape how they perceive the knowledge they have learned from their senior scholars, which in turn can also affect their academic growth.

Research aims and methods

The study aims to reveal, through the lived research experiences of the author as a doctoral student, that reflexivity can be cultivated not only through the members within communities of practice but also beyond the communities.

The qualitative research approach was used as a tool of data collection method as it is more suitable for the needs of this research topic. Data collected from the quantitative method can only offer superficial data and may not be able to let the researcher have a further understanding of the reason behind the informants’ feedback. On the contrary, the qualitative method can enrich the researcher to take more steps and perceive more sociological imaginations by equipping him or her with a better, comprehensive, and in-depth understanding of informants’ responses in their wordings (Byrne, 2012: 209 and 215). Given the nature of this research context, in particular, the method of auto-ethnography was adopted. Complying with instructions from thesis supervisors and other faculty members has generally been practised without much hesitation. As a doctoral student, these prescriptions have shaped my learning journey and academic development. Thus, my unique research experiences deserve further introspection. White (2001) also argues that reflectivity is ‘to denote a form of destabilization, or problematization of taken-for-granted knowledge and day to day reasoning’ (102). Auto-ethnography thus offered a useful tool to focus, challenge, and introspect my personal lived research experiences (Robertson et al., 2020: 484; Lynch and Kuntz, 2019: 158; Landi, 2018: 6). Compared with other research methods, adopting auto-ethnography in this article was thus much more suitable and appropriate. Other methods, such as participant observation, may neither be possible nor suitable as they may also arouse ethical considerations and the Hawthorne Effect, which distorted the natural behaviour of informants due to the presence of the researcher. Since this article was based on the reflexivity of my lived research experiences, ethical approval was unnecessary.

As a junior academic scholar, the author wished to conscientiously and systemically pursue his doctoral studies. In particular, the author carefully documented almost everything related to his studies, such as his meetings with his supervisor and other faculty members, his research projects, his attended seminars and conferences, his coursework, his duties as a teaching assistant, and so on. The related files were usually updated within 24 hours when the corresponding items were performed and kept confidential. Apart from narrative and factual descriptions of the background information, these files also recorded the author’s feelings and viewpoints towards different entries. The files constituted a solid foundation for this research.

The author’s research experiences – the case study

The author conducted a case study to better understand how university students in Hong Kong perceive blended learning. Owing to networking, an elective course offered by one of the universities in Hong Kong was selected for the case study. In the course, students were required to attend a three-hour lesson per week, and attendance was checked. Lecturing with PowerPoint and video and audio clips was part of the pedagogy. After the lesson, the professor would assign a ‘journal’ activity to students through the course management system called Blackboard. A question related to the previous or next lesson was posted on Blackboard. Based on the last lesson, assigned readings, and Internet searching, students needed to upload their responses to Blackboard within a given period, usually around four to five days. A semi-structured interview was adopted as the data collection method to accommodate different attitudes and gain an in-depth understanding of informants’ responses. After the random invitation, three students, two of whom were boys, from the class indicated their willingness to participate in semi-structured interviews by signing consent forms. The interviews were conducted in their mother tongues, either Cantonese or English, to facilitate the informants to express themselves. Before transcribing into English, the three interview scripts were coded first. I was solely responsible for coding, transcribing, and analyzing the research data. When interview scripts were analyzed and research findings were presented, ethical issues were considered so that the informants’ confidentiality and privacy could be respected (Ali and Kelly, 2012: 64-73). No one except me had access to the research data and information on the participants.

Analyses and reflexive discussions

The author’s lived research experiences will then be perceived from methodology reflexivity, introspective reflexivity, and my reflection on the whole case study.

Methodology reflexivity

My experiences/reflection in planning and designing the interviews

One of the suggestions from the supervisors and other faculty members concerning the research topic was that it should be an interesting research area for doctoral students. Nonetheless, I considered several issues when considering the topic of the case study. First, one of my research interests has been interacting with science, technology, and society. My doctoral topic was also in this area. In the case study, I wished to conduct a study in a similar area. Second, I was occupied with many coursework, some of which required me to submit individual papers. Given the above needs, I formed an idea to conduct semi-structured interviews on blended learning. Part of the data would be used for different assignments. Since I was already a teaching assistant for a course, I sought permission from the professor, explained my intention, and requested him. I got the privilege from the professor granting the permission to me. Nonetheless, I realized that personal research interest was not the sole and determining reason for formulating the case study.

Conducting the case study provided me with mixed experiences. On the one hand, I got the privilege to have hands-on experiences in practising qualitative research, ranging from research design, planning, conducting, data analysis, and finding presentations to research reflexivity. These precious and priceless experiences allowed me to taste and appreciate the essence of qualitative research. On the other hand, by conducting the case study, I also experienced a struggle over the knowledge of researching personal research interests, which was co-constructed among different members of communities. The struggle stemmed from a possible conflict between pragmatic considerations and personal desire. As stated, my doctoral topic, which was also one of my research interests, lay on science, technology, and society. Since the period of my doctoral studies was limited, one of the concerns shared by my doctoral supervisor, other faculty members in the communities, and I was whether I could perform up to the requirements and complete my study within the designated period. Attributed to the pragmatic concern, my doctoral studies needed to focus closely on my doctoral topic. In a sense, conducting a case study related to my doctoral topic was good for my study. Nonetheless, I also regarded my doctoral studies as a unique opportunity to expand my knowledge horizons. Driven by my desire to challenge myself and enrich my knowledge within my studies, I wish to conduct research on different topics, even beyond my research interests. In this regard, I should make use of the case study and expose myself to another area that is not so related to my doctoral topic.

To address my struggle, I tried to seek insight from the gaze of communities of practice. As aforementioned, doctoral studies and apprenticeship are much alike. Doctoral students have to be led under various guidance and teaching mainly by their supervisors, and they cannot graduate without their supervisors’ approval. The predominant position of doctoral supervisors is partially designed to cope with the inexperience and immaturity of their supervisees. Even though doctoral students develop different research concepts, their ideas are likely unrefined and even infeasible because of their inadequate knowledge and experience. For the sake of having better training and academic development, doctoral students as inexperienced researchers are thus encouraged and recommended to submit to the teachings of experienced researchers and their supervisors. In this regard, as a junior member of the community of practice, I submitted to the teachings of senior members, including my supervisor and other faculty members. Since they always highlighted the importance of research interest, I eventually chose to conduct a case study related to my doctoral topic and research interest.

Meanwhile, I noted that most publications by other faculty members were politically insensitive, though that may not truly reflect their real research interests. I discovered another side to conducting the research successfully. As social scientists, we are just a normal person in a society. Our behaviour and beliefs can be shaped by our interaction with others. While we want to uphold our code of practice, for various reasons, we learn or are coerced to make compromises by depreciating, depowering, or even deliberately forgetting our rights and beliefs. We are even willing to conduct self-censorship and convince ourselves that we are powerless and should behave this way properly for survival. Rather than actively defend our positions, social research is gradually being colonialized, manipulated, and becoming a part of tools for the dominance of powerful groups. To secure funding, maximize all kinds of benefits, and minimize any risks of getting into trouble, a certain number of social scientists are unwilling to conduct or support research in certain sensitive but important areas or topics. On top of avoiding and accusing plagiarism, are we willing to cherish the adherences that we have treasured, such as academic freedom? A clear remark cannot be concluded easily, and social scientists are recommended to conduct more research on the issue.

My experiences/reflection in inviting the interviewees

After planning and designing the case study, I had invited interviewees to participate in the interviews. Before formally approaching potential interviewees, different faculty members reminded me of the importance of ethical concerns. I had to prepare a duplicate typed-written form for the research to fulfil the informed consent requirement. The form showed the research purpose and confidentiality issue. Besides me, the interviewees needed to sign the form to indicate their understanding, willingness, and acceptance of participating in the interviews. Before conducting the research, I wondered if the form was too formal and scared some potential interviewees to reject the invitation. Nonetheless, out of my expectations, my experience approaching potential interviewees was not discouraging. At least no interviewee was scared by the consent form, and no one rejected my invitation because of the form. When I looked back, I had another consideration. As a researcher, it was I who approached the interviewees and disturbed their normal lives by inviting their participation in interviews that most likely had nothing to do with them. I should have the obligations and duties to explain all the necessary information to them. I should also safeguard their rights as well since if it were not for me, they would not have been involved in the research. From this perspective, the consent form was neither formal nor scary. Just like a computer manufacturer selling a new notebook to customers, it has the obligation and duty to provide necessary documents, such as a user manual, to the customers so that they have a basic idea of what is going on and how to use the newly purchased notebook.

Overall speaking, my experience of inviting students to participate in the interviews was smooth. Technically, no one rejected the invitation. There was a case that deserved comment. A local student showed her surprise at why I invited her to the interview and wondered if she could help with the case study. She also worried about my difficulties in inviting people to participate in the interview. While I was thinking about how to respond to her worries, she already showed her acceptance of my invitation. I was not sure if her acceptance was a representation of a kind of mercy on me. Nonetheless, I supposed she was expressing her heart feelings to me. In this sense, I believed that I came across as a ‘good’ informant as she was much more likely to share her true feelings with me and less likely to hide her opinions or even mislead me.

Nonetheless, I experienced some frustrations due to a contradiction between my values and reality. I usually respond to emails within 24 hours. I take it as a kind of responsible behaviour and attitude for me and the sender. While demanding myself to perform this way, I unconsciously expect others to perform similarly. When conducting this research, it became a source of my frustration. In the consent form, interviewees were told to leave their email contacts. I relied on email to contact the interviewees about scheduling the interviews. Even though I could meet the interviewees in lessons every week, I tried to minimize contact with them in my role as a researcher. First, this was to respect the professor. The class was for learning, not for research. The professor already showed his kindness by allowing me to contact his students for the study, and I should not do something out of gear. Second, it was inappropriate and against my wish to confuse students about my role as teaching assistant and researcher in class. I wished to keep a sharp image as a teaching assistant, and not to be involved in my research in class. Third, as promised, it was a measure to keep my informants’ identities secret.

Owing to various reasons, not all the interviewees could respond to my emails within a few days or even a week. I resent emails to them twice, but there were at least two cases in which I still failed to manage to have replies from them. Failure to secure interview schedules itself could not frustrate me. On the one hand, my frustrations were associated with the urgency of meeting all sorts of requirements and deadlines. On the other hand, my frustrations were also rooted in a struggle between my beliefs, expectations, and reality. As illustrated before, I expected informants to reply to my email in a reasonable time as I deemed such behaviour as mutual respect and even fundamental personal conduct. I considered my actions to always honour my beliefs, and that explains why I was disappointed after receiving no message from informants. I got into a dilemma. While I wished to approach informants again, I worried that my further actions would constitute a disturbance for them. After much consideration, I recognized that researchers had to seek informants’ consent through their willingness, not by pushing them. I then chose not to disturb the informants, which also ended my struggle simultaneously. Despite experiencing the disparity between my beliefs, expectations, and reality, based on my knowledge, I never revealed my frustrations to my informants. As a researcher, it is unethical, impractical, and even impossible to demand that my informants behave in the desired manner. Nonetheless, being a researcher does not mean I should sacrifice everything. After all, keeping certain personal elements is one of the greatest characteristics attributed to the researcher as the most important tool in research. Unless there is a dramatic change in my personality, there is no way out.

My experiences/reflection in conducting the interviews

One of the difficulties in conducting the interviews was finding a venue. As suggested, I needed to reserve a classroom to conduct interviews. However, I encountered some difficulties with that. As a student, I had no right to reserve a classroom. Also, my department had no policy to help students reserve a classroom, and I understood, respected, and was willing to follow the policy. Besides, I did not have access to figure out the vacancy in the classroom. On the one hand, I understood these arrangements. On the other hand, I was worried about finding a venue for conducting interviews. The venue had to be carefully considered. The venue should be suitable for interviews because it should be quiet and free from disturbance. In addition, to protect both the interviewer and the interviewees, the venue could not be too private. The interviewer had to walk around the whole campus and locate a suitable venue. Eventually, two interviews were conducted in an open area where noise was unavoidable. The experience reminded me to carefully consider the venue of interviews for my doctoral studies. My target group would be post-secondary school students in Hong Kong. I was not sure if I could conduct interviews with them in desirable environments. If not, finding a suitable venue would be one of my biggest concerns.

After having the aforesaid methodology reflexivity, I realized my two incapabilities when deploying semi-structured interviews as the data collection tool of my study. First, my incapability to secure responses from the interviewees. Some interviewees failed to reply to my messages for unknown reasons. Particularly, as mentioned, I chose not to further approach the interviewees for fear of disturbing them. In a sense, there was nearly nothing that I could do to ensure their responses or even confirmation of attending the interview. To alleviate this incapability, I decided to still show up on the date of the interview, hoping that they would attend the interview. Second, my incapability to access valuable resources for the interview. As a doctoral student, I did not have the authority to reserve a room for conducting an interview. I recognized the constraints and powerlessness of a researcher when the external environment was beyond control. Relying on a researcher’s effort and persistence may not be able to overcome all the difficulties in research. On the contrary, securing support and cooperation from others provides a simple, feasible, and quick alternative. To tackle the incapability, therefore, I sought help from administrative staff who were willing to reserve a room for me unofficially.

Meanwhile, the kindness of the administrative staff further challenged my perception of academic life as a researcher. Before pursuing my doctoral studies, I assumed that researchers lived in a solitary way. Since disclosure of any research ideas could jeopardize the whole research project, researchers had to take measures to protect their research project, for instance, by minimizing interactions with others. Attributed to this mindset, I suppose researchers were inclined to depend on their efforts to counter all difficulties instead of seeking assistance from others. As mentioned above, I confronted a stage of loneliness and helplessness after failing to locate a room for my interview. However, my feelings just realized and reinforced my previous assumption about researchers’ lives, since I chose to rely on my effort only. In other words, I actualized my thoughts and allowed my journey as a doctoral student to live under the shadow of the assumption, that I should be subjected to further inspections. Nevertheless, the unofficial help from the administrative staff challenged my perception. The staff chose to help me even though she received no reward. Her kindness reminded me that interactions in society did not necessarily build on covetousness or individualism. In a sense, while staying alert, as a junior researcher, I should not self-constraint with a narrow mindset. Instead, I should develop more trust and seek help from others when necessary, regardless of whether they are members of the communities of practice. By doing so, I hope to establish a more healthy and constructive relationship not only between me as a researcher and my informants but also between me and others within and beyond the communities of practice.

Introspective reflexivity

Besides my role as a researcher, I had another role in the class. I was a teaching assistant in the course. Some students could associate my role as a teaching assistant with power and authority. Byrne (2012) indicates that research is an interactive process and dialogue where issues of power and difference, for example, between the researcher and the research participants, can change or even upset the balance in the research. The research may be greatly affected (Byrne, 2012: 212-215). For the experiences of the case study, after all, I was introduced to the class by the professor. Students knew that I was a doctoral student at university. I attended every lesson and actively helped with the class activities. I also handled the attendance sheet and distributed course materials to students. I was unsure if my role as a teaching assistant affected students’ decisions or even their interview responses. Students might perceive me differently from them in terms of power and status. It was likely that, to prevent unnecessary consequences, some informants might intentionally establish and post certain positive images for the researcher. In other words, the researcher’s presence changed the informants’ original and natural behaviours.

Rutterford (2012) points out that the above circumstance is the Hawthorne Effect, which can distort the research findings. Although I had no idea how students perceived me, I employed a measure to minimize the possibility of the Hawthorne Effect in this research. I tried to ensure all students that their participation in my case study was at their willingness and had nothing to do with the course or my role. All interviewees were told, in both spoken and written formats, that they were free to participate in the interviews and that their decisions would not affect their assessments in the course in any way.

On top of the captioned worry about the Hawthorne Effect, I had another concern over the possibility of impacting the research attributed to my sex as a male researcher. As suggested, because of the need to conduct semi-structured interviews, I had to locate a suitable venue. Even though I managed to seek help from administrative staff to reserve a room for conducting one interview, I discovered the room was installed with an energy-saving system that would automatically turn off all the lighting and air-conditioning when detecting no human activity. However, the system failed to make an accurate detection and incorrectly disconnected all the electricity when the rooms were actually occupied by people, especially when they engaged in conversations almost without any gestures such as during the interview. While the system could not be disabled by the user, the wrong detection could disturb the interview.

If the above wrong detection happened at the time of conducting my semi-structured interview, I assumed that I had to gesticulate and even stand up to resume all the lighting and air-conditioning in the room. Nonetheless, I needed to consider the possible interpretations and responses to my actions and movements from my informant, who was a female. As Klencakova (2017) announces, we must be concerned about the opposite sex’s feelings (152). Being a male researcher, I worried that my actions and movements could possibly lead the female informant to conjecture about me and even generate her safety concerns. In a worse scenario, she may even escape from the room out of fear. The female informant was already kind enough to attend my interview. As a researcher and even a responsible person, I should ensure that she does not endure any negative experiences because of my study. To consolidate her trust in me and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, I thus clearly explained the situation and sought understanding from the female informant before conducting the interview. Particularly, I communicated with the female informant that I would gesticulate during the interview in an attempt to prevent the system from an inaccurate activation, and told her she needed not be afraid. After managing the female informant’s expectations and feelings, the interview was conducted smoothly. Besides, I did not notice the female informant having any atypical reactions during the interview.

My reflection on the whole case study

After conducting the case study, I, as a researcher and student, had two ethical struggles concerning confidentiality.

First, on different occasions, doctoral students were told that researchers should keep informants’ identities secret. Many scholars, such as Ali and Kelly (2012), also stress the importance of upholding research ethics. Before experiencing this research, I took it for granted. I even publicly questioned my classmate when he disclosed my identity. However, when I conducted the case study, I experienced some challenges for me in upholding this principle. When asking permission to contact his students, the professor asked me twice about their identities. It was unclear whether it was due to curiosity or offered me an ethical challenge in keeping the identities. For the first time, I struggled for a few seconds. I knew I should not disclose their identities. However, I submitted the request. First, the professor was a gatekeeper. I was afraid that he would turn my request down if I did not satisfy him, ruining my assignments in different courses. Second, the professor was a representation of power and authority. As a local student living in a political struggle society, offending power and authority means committing suicide. To prevent unforeseeable negative consequences, I finally convinced myself that the professor was my TA supervisor, course instructor, and the marker for my assignment. Thus, he had the right to know. I also considered that even if I refused to disclose the information, the professor would discover the identities when I approached the students in class. I eventually disclosed the students’ identities believing that there would not be many consequences.

When the professor asked me about another student’s identity on the second occasion, the above considerations still occupied my mind. Nonetheless, at that time, suddenly, there was a thought in my mind that I could be skilful by providing an abstract rather than a concrete reply. After balancing different elements, I just revealed the general ethical background of the student without disclosing his or her real identity.

I examined my position on keeping research ethics. Ali and Kelly (2012) point out the importance of research ethics and list the aspects we should pay attention to. I was told by a faculty member within the community that we were doomed if our research papers did not follow ethical guidelines.

While I agree that we should follow ethical considerations when doing social research, I attempted to examine the idea reflexively. As apprentices learning craftsmanship, we are always told the importance of ethical issues. We should, for example, seek informed consent from the informants, strictly follow the principles of protecting data, confidentiality and privacy, and so on. Nonetheless, as Hammersley (2014) proposes, sometimes it does not matter if ethical considerations cannot be met when doing discourse analysis. Ali and Kelly (2012) also suggest that breaching ethical guidance may be acceptable if researchers can justify the benefit of conducting the research. Some faculty members within communities also mentioned that, for the sake of theoretical benefit and the happiness of most people, certain principles of ethical concern could be mediated. What standard of ethical levels are we using when conducting research? How are the ethical considerations set? Even when we follow ethical concerns set by professional bodies, does it mean, that being researchers, we are empowered to place certain value judgements over the powerless and make decisions for them? Who allows us to infringe on others, regardless of physical or mental? By deliberately not following ethical considerations, do we have the right to infringe on others just because we need to conduct social research? Even if only one person suffers, can it justify us to infringe on that person, especially when the infringe is actual, but the benefit of doing research is just theoretical and intangible? Because we need to conduct research, are we, as researchers, using ethical guidance to crown ourselves with different halos over our heads and shadow our selfishness? Does it justify ignoring, sacrificing, and even infringing on the interests and rights of certain ‘small’ powerless groups of people when the size of selfish and empowered groups is ‘large’ enough?

While admitting its importance, doctoral students should not be the only group that follows ethical considerations when doing research. Everyone, including scholars, should also follow the principle. Universities and supervisors take up the job of monitoring students to see whether they follow ethical requirements. How about scholars? Theoretically, there is a ‘research committee’ to look after that. But, in reality, does it work effectively? Franco et al. (2014), Grimes et al. (2018), Higginson and Munafò (2016), Nosek et al. (2012), and Smaldino and McElreath (2016) suggest that certain groups of scholars deploy certain not serious enough and even inappropriate manners in their researches to increase the number of their publications as a means to secure their employability. Are they ethical enough? Those who chair the ‘research committee’ must have plenty of experience in doing research. Why do they fail to point out the research? Is there any chance that it is their intention not to point them out? Where are the checking mechanisms? Do the mechanisms apply to students only? Or, just a particular group of students only, say doctoral students?

Apart from the above discussion, plagiarism is also considered to be an unethical practice. However, how many lecturers are concerned about plagiarism and take serious actions, especially at undergraduate and even lower levels? For those students who plagiarize, some lecturers even allow them to resubmit their assignments again. To the students, the decision is a reward and encouragement rather than punishment. On the one hand, when weighing the different consequences of being caught, such decisions deliver a message to encourage some students to plagiarize in other assignments as they know academic integrity is just lip service, and the lecturers will not penalize them for plagiarism. On the other hand, some students never plagiarized but did a poor job. They never have a chance to resubmit their assignments again. Why do those plagiarized students have another chance? Are lecturers delivering a message to students that they are unwise or even stupid if they do not plagiarize when attempting their assignments? Is it fair and ethical? Is it possible that the lecturers did that just for their own sake? Officially, the lecturers should fail the plagiarized students, and disciplinary actions will be followed as well. However, modules with low passing rates can affect the contract renewal of lecturers. Besides, lecturers may want to avoid the burden of incommodious bureaucratic procedures of taking disciplinary actions on the plagiarized students after considering these additional workloads as insignificant, irritating, time-consuming, and even unnecessary. In this regard, the lecturers’ decisions were probably driven by their self-interest rather than professional judgement. If so, is that ethical as well? No matter what, if a scholar fails to comply with ethical guidance in his or her research and daily academic practices, is he or she still in an ethical position to request others, including doctoral students, to consider ethical needs when conducting their research?

Beyond my communities, in other fields, such as business, ethical concerns are also always being highlighted. But in reality, ethical considerations may not be the top priority for some of us. Donald Trump is said to objectify women and has a negative image of Islam (Braunstein, 2018; Fahrenthold, 2016). Not everyone may regard his sayings and behaviours as ethical. Nonetheless, many Americans supported him (Silva, 2019: 9; Grossmann and Thaler, 2018: 777; Ratliff et al., 2019: 580). He even won the presidential election in 2016 and became president of the United States. He also achieved remarkable popularity during the nomination campaigns for the presidential election in 2024 (Arnsdorf et al., 2024; Coster, 2024; Reid et al., 2024; Sullivan and Lange, 2024). Meanwhile, for considerations and ethical behaviours, we are always educated to be environment friendly, return things to their original position or setting, return the item after borrowing from others, keep the public environment clean, and so on. Some people just ignore them in their daily life. All these represent a certain group of people in a society who do not care and even do not put ethics into practice.

Having said that, whether other people believe in and/or practice ethically has nothing to do with my value judgement and practice in conducting social research. What is more, I dare not criticize anyone and am also not in a position to do so. There must be some reason for people to behave in certain manners. I still believe in the importance of ethical considerations, and everyone should uphold that. Whilst part of doctoral training stresses ethical considerations, what happens around me represents an opposite image and a different pattern of social behaviour. When doctorate students, their supervisors and other academic practitioners chant ethics, are we self-hypnotizing ourselves to immerse ourselves in utopia or obsessing about fairy tales where reality and even our daily academic practices are not the same? Or are doctoral students trained to be hypocrites with inconsistent and even contradictory deeds and thoughts? There are no clear answers to that.

Contributions of study

This article is significant as it can contribute to doctoral supervision and the development of doctoral students. The following is a brief account of these areas.

Conventionally, doctoral supervision stresses the relationship between supervisor and student. In some cases, doctoral students may even surrender their previous knowledge and ways of dealing with their surroundings and learn new practices from their supervisors. Those faculty members within the communities of practice may share similar values and attitudes with the supervisor. In that case, the reflexivity of the doctoral students cultivated by different members of communities of practice may be limited. The students may not be able to recognize a need to challenge the knowledge already taken-for-granted by the members of the communities. Different knowledge, especially those that contradict the existing one shared by the communities, is unlikely to be constructed under the communities of practice. Nonetheless, this study reveals that reflexivity can be cultivated beyond communities of practice. Through inspiration beyond communities, doctoral students can further consolidate and digest the knowledge they gained from communities. In this regard, this study offers a reflection on the conventional way of supervising doctoral students and suggests one of the possible ways of doing so.

In addition, this article contributes to other researchers by inspiring an unconventional and inventive path to study supervision for doctoral students. Many previous studies mainly drew their attention to the supervisory styles of doctoral supervisors, the ways doctoral students fulfil and satisfy their supervisors and the interactions and relationships between the supervisors and supervisees. Through focussing on reflexivity, this study demonstrated an alternative and nonconformist approach to studying supervision for doctoral students by examining how a doctoral student self-reassesses himself and re-considers and re-interprets the teachings of his doctoral supervisor and other faculty members. Reflexivity not only revisits the positions and powers of doctoral students and their supervisors but also ignites the exhilaration and vitality of studying supervision for doctoral students. Further research related to other aspects of the study is recommended to enrich the sociological imagination.

What is more, this study contributes to the development of doctoral students. One of this study’s suggestions is that knowledge construction does not happen only within communities. Someone beyond communities, including laypersons, can also help doctoral students construct knowledge in different manners. For academic and personal development, doctoral students should not only extend their networking but also try to be humble and avoid narcissism.

Conclusion

To sum up, the above shows that the reflexivity of a doctoral student can be cultivated not only through the members within communities of practice but also beyond the communities. Such proclaiming can significantly contribute to doctoral supervision and development of doctoral students and orientation to study supervision for doctoral students. Even though reflexivity is one of the important elements in constructing knowledge, doctoral students and scholars should always be careful not to fall into narcissism.