Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Andy Coverdale
media and related online research environments in their studies, and what use there is tends to be
experimental, localised and inconsistent (British Library and JISC, 2009). PhD students represent an
extremely heterogeneous group; with a wide range of disciplines, ages, experiences and skills and a
diverse set of research foci. This heterogeneity generally precludes generational or cultural
distinctions in how they adopt and use the social web for their academic practice (British Library and
JISC, 2009). Generational factors characterised by ‘digital natives and immigrants’ (Prensky, 2001)
have become increasingly challenged in recent years (for example, Bennett et al., 2008). Rather, key
differences in how researchers carry out and communicate their work within different disciplines or
institutional settings may be more influential on how they adopt – or don’t adopt – social media
(Procter et al., 2010).
Learning institutions inherit the role as custodians of a PhD student’s learning process by formally
inducting and integrating students within a supportive research environment through supervision,
research training, and institutional support services (Chiang, 2003). Feuer et al. (2002; 8) suggest ‘a
[research] culture typically grows naturally within a fairly homogeneous group with shared values,
goals, and customs,’ and Deem and Brehony (2000) argue PhD students are far more likely to be
influenced by academic cultures specific to their discipline rather than any so called ‘research
cultures’ that may be cultivated by themselves or through institutional training programmes. A
community of practice is frequently adopted as a metaphor for students’ socialisation into an
institutional and disciplinary community of scholars (for example, Janson and Howard, 2004). Such
communities provide a social regulation of the learning process. Wenger (1998) describes practice as
a dialectic relationship between the increasing participation in the community and the interpretation of
signs and familiarity with discourse that reify that participation.
However, increasingly holistic perspectives of doctoral education recognise the multiple activities that
PhD students are engaged in. Cumming (2010) describes a doctoral enterprise of mutually inclusive,
interrelated practices describing curricular, pedagogical, research and work-based activities.
Cumming’s model indicates doctoral practices are in a state of flux, embedded within a diverse range
of relationships, networks, resources and artefacts between participants, the academy, and the wider
research community. McAlpine et al. (2009) make the distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’
research foci in which a range of formal and informal activities are seen as ‘doctoral-specific’ or
‘academic-general’. Recent neo-liberal and knowledge economy agendas have been seen as
instrumental in transforming doctoral education from a scholarship model to a training model, in which
the acquisition of a set of research skills and methods is given precedence over traditional values
defining the PhD as intellectual, theoretical and critical enquiry (Thomson and Walker, 2010).
Scholarly discourse is culturally embedded within traditional forms of research dissemination
dominated by peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, posters and presentations (British
Library and JISC, 2009). Their pre-eminence means they remain the core currency with which
academic status is recognised. Yet postgraduate study traditionally combines formally structured and
informal community-based learning (Brooks and Fyffe, 2004). Increased independence and
responsibility of postgraduate study requires students negotiating shifts in academic authority. Chang
et al. (2008) identify the concerns over academic integrity in Web 2.0 activities, highlighting the
tensions that can arise between students’ desire to engage in ‘student-based pedagogies’ and their
dependability on authoritative sources.
In response to these key issues, the following research questions were identified:
How do PhD students use social media in their doctoral studies?
How does the use of social media enable and define academic identities?
2. Methodology
Research Design
Activity theory provides a systematic approach to examining and understanding complex, real-world
learning (Nardi, 1996). It provides a manageable framework with which to organise and examine
comprehensive data sets representing authentic participant experiences by formulating and
describing how activities and their settings evolve over time (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
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