Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Event to celebrate Carnegie Doctoral studies
A total of 25 students, all completing Doctorates, gathered at the event, which was opened by Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic, Professor Phil Cardew, to celebrate the successful development of the research programmes within the School this academic year.
In addition to students who are studying on the traditional PhD programme, the Carnegie School of Education delivers the interdisciplinary Professional Doctoral Programme (EdD). It currently has 55 part-time students studying on it – a mixture of internal and external students. Most of the students on the programme are based regionally but some travel considerable distances to access the taught component.
Dr Caroline Bligh, Head of Subject in the Carnegie School of Education (pictured above, centre, with Professor Phil Cardew), said: “I am very proud to be leading the Professional Doctorate in Education programme. We have welcomed EdD and PhD students to the event which celebrated the success to date of our Doctoral students who are part way to completing the highest academic accolade that a University can confer – an achievement indeed!
“People study the programme for a variety of reasons – many for career advancement, but some solely to test how far they can pursue academic study. We attract applicants from careers in education, health, social services, playwork and law to name a few. In fact, the manager of the University Research Office is currently studying on the programme.”
The celebration event was hosted by a team of five second year BSc (Hons) Hospitality, Leadership and Management students. Student Yabin Krubally explained: “One of our modules this year, Leading Hospitality Operations, requires us to host an event which is run as a real hospitality business. There were five in our group: myself, Katie, Maria, Maura (Muchenje, pictured top) and Yuko. We all have to lead as manager and run the event from cooking the meal and setting tables to serving the meal to our clients. This year we had a total guest of 30 customers including 25 students and five staff.
“Caroline mentioned that the food and service they received was exemplary We wanted to provide a five-star service atmosphere where our customers felt relaxed and enjoyed the atmosphere. We all worked as a team and communicated well between the front and back of house team members. We did a customer survey at the end of the event to evaluate how the event went and the feedback we received showed that we exceeded expectations.”
Caroline commented: “The networking dinner was a fantastic event with everybody getting into the spirit of the event. The Hospitality students were so professional in their approach that we congratulated them on their high quality contributions. It is so important to have occasions where our emergent researching community of students can meet together and share their successes. After all the Doctoral journey is transformational and opens up endless possibilities for them.”
One student in attendance was Anna Liddle, a PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) in the Carnegie School of Education (pictured above), who began her research project in 2014 following her peace education work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). She explained: “My work with CND motivated me to look into the subject more deeply on an academic level. I am researching how peace and war are taught in schools. This has involved interviewing teachers and young people in a case study school about their experiences of teaching and learning this topic. I have also been looking at how war is remembered in the school and the messages this may be promoting to the school community”.
PhD student, Marc Turu Porcel, is an educational psychologist, a primary school teacher, and also a part-time lecturer in the Carnegie School of Education and School of Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett (pictured below). He said: “Nowadays, most student teachers are trained at schools by other teachers, for this reason I am interested in exploring experienced teachers’ perceptions of expertise, particularly on how they perceive newly-qualified teachers’ preparedness for practice. With this I aim to find out how well prepared new teachers are according to other teachers, what experienced teachers consider important for practice, but also explore the beliefs behind teachers’ views.”
EdD student Liz Beastall is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. She is studying teacher stress and examining what it is like to be a teacher working in today’s schools. Speaking about her experience of studying in the Carnegie School of Education, she said: “I have nothing but praise for the support and guidance I have received since I started my EdD. Both of my supervisors (Dr Stephen Newman and Dr Caroline Bligh) have been so supportive and they have helped me so much already. I would highly recommend doing an EdD to anyone who is thinking about it.”
Speaking about his experience of studying, Marc said: “My experience so far has been great! My supervisory team is very helpful, they are always there to support me in my research. But doing a doctorate is more than writing a thesis, it is also joining an academic community and our school offers plenty of opportunities for early stage researchers. For example, research students are invited to collaborate with the School’s events (like another staff member) such as the research conference, where we can present, or the bimonthly research seminars which are a great opportunity to keep up-to-date with cutting-edge research.”
Giving her advice to future research students, Anna added: “My advice would be to not be afraid of writing! It is easy to put it off, but you need to remember that it is likely what you begin to write will not be in the final thesis, so it does not have to be perfect!”