[Air-L] Supervising the Doctorate Experience - Invitation to Participate in a Study

[Jeffrey Keefer]

I am writing to invite you to
participate in a research study entitled, Faculty Support: Doctoral
Student Threshold Concepts.

Gale Parchoma and I, from Lancaster University's Educational
Research Department, Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology
(CSALT), are undertaking this project to better understand the
experiences of faculty members who work with doctoral students -- at least
in part via information and communications technology (including email
and/or Skype communications) or technology-enhanced learning or
e-learning (including use of learning management systems) -- and who have
identified threshold concepts (i.e., ah-ha moments, trouble spots,
breakthrough areas, or defining moments of epistemological or ontological
shift that may be pivotal in one’s identity development) for their
students and helped their learners through this troublesome
knowledge.

Participation in this study will
involve: 1) an approximately one-hour interview via telephone or Skype,
and 2) approximately one hour of your time to review and potentially
revise your interview transcript. We will be organizing our interview
schedule as soon as we receive confirmation of participants. We anticipate
interviews taking place between December, 2010 and January, 2011. We hope
to be able to return transcripts to participants before the end of
February, 2011. 

A complete
description of the study, along with the participant consent form, can be
found on our research web
page. 

Thank you for your consideration.


Jeffrey
Keefer

Doctoral Student in e-Research &
Technology Enhanced Learning 
Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technologies 
Department of Educational
Research 
Lancaster
University 

Dr Gale Parchoma
Lecturer in e-Research & Technology Enhanced
Learning 
Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning
Technologies 
Department of Educational

Research
 

Lancaster
University