During Peitao Zhu’s time as a doctoral student at Syracuse University, the future member of the NIU College of Education faculty found himself in need of clarity.
“Even just prior to when I was writing my dissertation, I felt like I was still learning a lot very separate – very kind of siloed – language and knowledge from different research methods courses,” says Zhu, assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education. “I was really lacking some kind of mechanism to bring it all together.”
Fortunately, Zhu discovered exactly that.
The credit goes to Nick Smith, now professor emeritus at the Syracuse University School of Education: “He started this thing called Dissertation Writing Group,” Zhu says.
“Basically, any student within the college would be able to participate in informal discussions. There was usually no set agenda; you really got to talk about what you want to study and why you want to study it,” he adds. “Then, you get a whole group of people who are on sort of a different trajectory, at different stages of their doctoral study, and people get together to just talk and to give you ideas to bounce off or reflect on.”
Zhu found it a “refreshing” environment, partly because it gathered students and professors passionate about research, partly because it wasn’t a graded class and partly for the safe space of nurturing and encouragement without evaluation.
“Nobody was saying, ‘You should be much farther along,’ or, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ There was really no judgment,” he says.
“It was just a very idealistic and scholarly discussion that I personally found really helpful and enriching, and I think that it was exactly the ingredient that was needed for me to pursue my studies,” he adds. “When you’re in a class, there’s always the pressure of doing the assignment and completing the project. To me, that’s usually not be best kind of motivation to do research.”
He is now bringing the same opportunity to NIU College of Education students and faculty in the Counseling program.
Methods Café, launched this fall, is a voluntary and informal discussion group for the exchange of research ideas and for consultation on research projects. Upcoming meetings via Zoom are scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 1, and Tuesday, Nov. 29.
Counseling students and faculty are welcome to present “raw research ideas, draft proposals, mock dissertation defenses” and more as they receive constructive and supportive feedback and inspiration that might fuel their writing productivity.
Participants are encouraged to “BYOM (Bring Your Own Methods)” and, if they want to present to their work, to email pzhu@niu.edu for a place on the agenda.
Zhu’s initial invitation to his colleagues offered possible topics for discussion.
How do I determine what I’m passionate about studying? How do I define the phenomenon that I want to investigate? How do I turn a research idea into a research question? What qualitative or quantitative methods of inquiry are most likely to answer my research question? What kind of data to I need to gather?
It also clearly spelled out what the Methods Café is not:
- A class. No readings, assignments, credits or attendance expectations.
- A research symposium. No need for formal or fully polished presentations.
- A writing seminar. No intensive writing projects or deadlines.
- A debate club. No putting down others or flexing research muscles.
“Our students have so much on their plates. They’re stressed, and the one thing I don’t want to add is something task-oriented. I really want to foster the sense of, ‘This is not a competitive environment. We’re not here to put you down. We’re not here to judge you for not knowing certain things,’ ” Zhu says.
“The culture of academia sometimes gets to be so competitive. It’s all about how many studies have you done, and how mow many grants you’ve done, and this is not about that,” he adds. “I’m hoping that the culture of this is very sort of egalitarian and supportive but, at the same time, also challenging each other in a way where you stimulate more thinking and insights.”
Despite the guidelines, each meeting is designed to offer what the participants make of it.
“I’ve created this space, and I’m happy to continue to facilitate and hold this space for folks, but once the discussion starts, I think everybody should be able to take ownership of what they want and what kind of feedback they think would be most helpful,” Zhu says.
“At the first meeting, we had three people present different research topics. One is more in data analysis – pretty late-stage – and two who were in the brainstorming stage, so we really would like to hear whatever you’re working on,” he says.
“Maybe it’s just something you thought of initially while you were taking a shower, and then you’re like, ‘That’s cool. I want to talk about it.’ Sure; we can help you to brainstorm. And if you have more technical questions regarding one particular method, or if you’re feeling stuck in a stage of analysis, we can be a sounding board as well,” he adds. “My goal is to be responsive to whatever the people bring.”
