Quality Assurance in Education

The production-based PhD: an action research model for supervisors:

Gail Phillips
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Gail Phillips , (2014),"The production-based PhD: an action research model for supervisors", Quality
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370
Received 30 October 2013
Revised 18 December 2013
13 February 2014
Accepted 18 February 2014
Quality Assurance in Education
Vol. 22 No. 4, 2014
pp. 370-383
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/QAE-10-2013-0043
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0968-4883.htm
The production-based PhD: an
action research model for
supervisors
Gail Phillips
School of Arts, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate how action research methodologies can help to define
and clarify the pedagogical role of the supervisor in production-based research (PBR). A major
challenge in supervising practice-related research is trying to disentangle and articulate the theory
embedded within practical projects. In journalism, which is still a relatively new discipline in
academe, supervisors and students are often operating in under-theorised areas with no
pre-existing theoretical roadmap. Action research has shown itself to be a useful methodology for
structuring and explaining practice-related research, which in journalism would encompass PBR
in the field. This paper shows how the action research paradigm is equally useful in describing and
clarifying the supervisor’s role in these sorts of projects.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper looks first at practice-related research and the main
challenges for candidates and supervisors in trying to align PBR with academic paradigms. Using
examples from the author’s experience in supervising journalism research, it then illustrates how the
main supervision tasks of project management, research mentoring and the writing-up process fit into
the action research model.
Findings – In reflecting on the dynamics between candidates and supervisors in PBR, this paper
shows how supervision of production-based PhDs is a dynamic research process in itself, presenting
opportunities for pedagogical reflection.
Originality/value – The paper helps to clarify the role of the supervisor in this specialist research area
which is still trying to establish itself within academe. It provides one way for supervisors to conceptualise
their experiences and so contribute to a corpus of knowledge on which others can draw and build. By
showing how the action research methodology applies to the supervision process in production-based
research (PBR), this paper articulates a way for supervisors to understand and manage their role in this
still-evolving research area. Building on previous scholarship and applying this knowledge to journalism
production, the paper shows how action research may provide a way of addressing many of the issues and
dilemmas others have encountered and identified in their pedagogical practice.
Keywords Quality, Creativity, Action research, Practice-based research, Theses, Postgraduates,
Doctoral supervision
Paper type Conceptual paper
For production-based PhD researchers, the action research paradigm has proved useful
in helping them to capture and define theory in the field. In the discipline of journalism,
The author would like to thank Professor Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt and Dr Margaret Fletcher for their
kind permission to reproduce their action research diagram in this paper. Special thanks as well to
the author’s research students, the collaborators who made these reflections possible: Michelle
Johnston, Mia Lindgren, Alex Soares and Helene Thomas.
 for example, student researchers are doing research in the field that is allowing them Production-based
both to develop new insights into their practice and to use their journalism skills as a
research method. Action research has proved itself to be a useful enabling methodology
PhD
to provide structure and discipline to a notoriously “messy” research area. This paper
demonstrates how action research methodologies are no less useful for the supervisors
in defining and clarifying their pedagogical role in PBR. Based on the author’s
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experience as a supervisor of journalism PhDs, it demonstrates how action research 371

helps to shine a light on the way supervision techniques are adapted to the challenges of
PBR. This is particularly useful because supervision is, in many ways, a hidden
pedagogy – it is enacted in a private space occupied by the academic specialist and the
candidate. It is subject to myriad variables, not the least of which is the interpersonal
relationship between the two parties. There are quality standards, but the degree to
which these are monitored and assessed varies between institutions. Supervisors learn
how to supervise by doing it, and by drawing lessons from other more experienced
supervisors. Any reflection on the supervision process is, therefore, a way of passing on
the hard lessons learned. In relatively new areas of research, such as practice-related
research, where theory is evolving, the action research paradigm can help supervisors to
articulate the academic and institutional “rules of the game” (Weber, 2013, p. 116), in this
case, as they apply to journalism practice, that will enable the discipline to take its
proper place in academe as a legitimate area of research.

What is practice-based research?

Journalism is a practice-based discipline, and journalism researchers who use their
practice as a context for research are textbook examples of reflexive practitioners
(Kolb, 1984; McNiff, 2002; McNiff and Whitehead, 2006; Schön, 1983). Research
based on practice has been the subject of much thoughtful academic analysis,
especially over the past two decades as universities have sought to capture the value
of academic output through research assessment exercises (Arnold, 2008; Biggs and
Buchler, 2007; Brien and Williamson, 2009; Candy, 2006; Rocco et al., 2009; Smith
and Dean, 2009; Weber, 2013; Winter et al., 2000). The burgeoning of journalism in
universities since the 1990s has given stimulus to a new academic discipline in
which theory is still in the process of developing (Bacon, 1999; Hanusch et al., 2011;
Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009; Zelizer, 2004). It is at the important stage when
it is trying to demonstrate the legitimacy of journalism theory and practice in
academic terms, and to change the academic culture to accommodate it (Biggs and
Buchler, 2009; Weber, 2013).
For journalism scholars, the capacity to build on the work others have done in
related areas of the creative arts has facilitated their transition from practitioner to
researcher. In journalism, as elsewhere, defining the terms to be used has been
challenging, as it has required disentangling just what practice-related research is.
This is because it encompasses two different types of research: research on practice
and research through practice (Lindgren and Phillips, 2011, p. 76). The former seeks
to illuminate the research embedded in practice, while the latter uses practice itself
as a research tool. The very act of identifying these two quite different modes of
doing research through practice has been illuminating in itself, as it helps
candidates to get a clearer idea of the ways in which their practice might inform their
research. The definition is useful because it transcends the discipline silos – the
 QAE insights gleaned from creative arts practice are no less relevant to journalism. This
paper will use the umbrella term “production-based research” to refer, in this case, to
22,4 journalism research involving production components.

The supervisor’s role in PBR

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As has already been noted, journalism is an evolving pedagogical area in academe.

372 The undergraduate cohort has spawned a growing cohort of postgraduate
researchers, further inflated by industry practitioners making the transition into
university teaching and research. As a result, journalism PBR methodologies have
only recently begun to receive the sort of critical attention that other
production-based disciplines such as creative arts have benefited from in the past.
The insights of academics from these other disciplines have been a useful
jumping-off point for the journalism researchers, providing them with a language
for explicating their own practice. However, the role of the supervisor has received
less attention, and specifically, the extent to which the role is adapted to
accommodate the demands of this type of research.
Sinclair (2004, p. 4), in his study of doctoral research training in Australia,
describes the PhD candidature as “a rite of passage into distinctive research
cultures”. He distinguishes between the more hands-off approach of the Arts and
Humanities disciplines with the hands-on approach of the natural sciences that
yields a higher rate of completion success. This is because, where the Arts and
Humanities researcher tends to work on their own, the natural science researcher
often is part of a wider research team (Sinclair, 2004, pp. 13-14). The fact that “there
is no trans-disciplinary consensus among supervisors on definitions of substance,
originality or their combination” (Sinclair, 2004, p.13) coupled with the fact that the
researcher in Arts and Humanities is often a “solo virtuoso” means that there are
none of the “uniform professional qualities” that a natural science thesis has and
there is consequently more of a focus on “individuality and uniqueness” (Sinclair,
2004, p. 14). This is especially true of the production-based researcher, and this has
implications for the supervision style that is adopted.
The supervisor/candidate relationship has received considerable academic
scrutiny over the years (for useful overviews, see Deuchar, 2008; Gatfield and
Alpert, 2002; Holbrook and Johnston, 1999; Pearson and Brew, 2002; Taylor and
Beasley, 2005, and for the creative arts Barrett and Bolt, 2007; Brabazon and Dagli,
2010; Smith and Dean, 2009). Criteria have been suggested (Biggs and Buchler, 2008)
and paradigms identified (Gatfield and Alpert, 2002). There is no scope to deal with
all these complexities here, so for the purposes of this paper, we consider three main
areas where the supervisor engages with the candidate: project management,
research mentoring and the writing-up process. These take a particular form in PBR.
Project management relates to all the processes involved in steering a research
program from an initial idea through to a fully worked-out thesis. While scientific
research can get away with presenting itself as a logical progression from research
question to answer, PBR which derives theory from the researcher’s own lived
experiences in the field rarely fits within the safe confines of the scientific research
process. Fisher and Phelps (2006, p. 155) talk in terms of research as a “journey”
rather than an “argument” in the traditional sense. Many scholars make reference to
its “messiness” (Atkinson, 1994; Cook, 1998; Mellor, 2001) or its “fuzzy methods to
 answer fuzzy questions” (Dick, 2000). Mellor (2001, p. 465) describes the reality of Production-based
PBR when he states that “For much of my practitioner-based PhD, there was no
research question and no clear method”. In this context:
PhD
[…] data are stepping stones, not facts, unchanging in themselves, on which and from which to
erect an edifice, but shifting and unsure, elements to rest briefly and lightly upon, clues to mark
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the path (Dick, 2000, p. 472).

He is not the only one to note that the idea of a neatly constructed argument based on a
373
neatly constructed literature review is not the way this sort of research works. Winter
et al. (2000, p. 30) talk about “[…] the search for better questions and, once found, these
form part of the outcome of research rather than its starting point”.
In the late 1990s, Hockey interviewed a range of supervisors in the creative arts areas
to find out how they approached the supervision process. (While Hockey is focusing on
art and design, his comments hold just as well for media producers and journalists). He
identifies the “craft skills” of this sort of supervision which include supervisors keeping
their eye on the research component from beginning to end:
[…] not just the outcome is conceptualised, in terms of the eventual combination of practical
and textual work, but also the building blocks that give that combination its eventual structure
(Hockey, 2003, p. 178).
They are continually having to:
[…] ask themselves if the project is feasible, not just in terms of its aesthetic potential but also
in meeting the specific criteria of a research degree, such as autonomy and originality (Winter
et al., 2000).
While supervisors of any PhD project use their own experience to help the novice
researcher orientate themselves in a particular academic area, in PBR, the supervisor
further engages in a constant process of translation as they assist the researcher to
reinterpret practice in terms of theory.
Research mentoring is a key element of the supervisor’s role as project manager, and
again this takes a slightly different form in PBR. Unlike research students in other
disciplines who are made familiar with research methods at an earlier stage in their
academic studies, PBR supervisors:
[devote] much energy to facilitating amongst their students a research vision, at the core of
which is an imaginative grasp of “research” as an intellectual entity and a logical grasp of it as
a social process with numerous dimensions (Hockey, 2003, p. 180).
The supervisor is helping the practitioner to reprogram their brain “to perceive their
work analytically in addition to aesthetically” (Hockey, 2003, p. 181), although as both
supervisor and researcher are working often at the cutting edge of theory, they are
having to find their way through potentially uncharted territory. As Weber (2013, p. 124)
notes, “The objective of field reflexivity […] is to design processes of articulation for the
not yet explicable”.
The writing process brings its own challenges for journalism researchers. As with
other new disciplines trying to establish space for themselves in existing paradigms,
they often find themselves having “to seek its justification within someone else’s
language game” (Winter et al., 2000, p. 30). Further, in making the case for merit, they
also find themselves needing to resort to “someone else’s definition of suitable criteria”
 QAE (Winter et al., 2000, p. 30). With no uniform template for PBR doctorates, there can be
confusion over the relationship between the practical and exegetical components and an
22,4 ongoing concern that the exegesis may lack rigour and be a simple description of
practice rather than a theoretical disquisition (Fletcher and Mann, 2004; Milech and
Schilo, 2004). It is the supervisor who bears the burden of conceptualising the research
for the purposes of the thesis in terms that will convey its merit. It is the supervisor who
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374 constantly has to keep in mind the need for the thesis to meet acceptable levels of rigour
in terms of methodology, argument and outcomes. In this way, supervisor and candidate
collaborate on the identification of new theory or of new applications of existing theory.
Through intense discussion, the candidate is encouraged to maintain a constant and
consistent focus on the theoretical implications of what they experience in the field.
Even when they successfully acquire this theoretical lens, a further complication
arises from the fact that the articulation of practice as theory often takes journalism
researchers out of their production safety zone and requires that they acquire quite a
different skill set as academic writers. What Hockey (2003, p. 176) says about creative
arts students applies to journalism students as well:
The majority of students in art and design are socialised primarily via a practice of making […]
As a result, producing academic writing of a standard necessary to fulfil the conditions of a
research degree was a largely unfamiliar and arduous task.
It is clear, then, that the supervision of reflexive practice is different from supervision in
more conventional research areas. In journalism, as in the creative arts, research
training in the case of practitioner researchers encompasses both practice and the
academic skills-building. There can be no one-size-fits-all template for PBR projects – a
bespoke template needs to evolve from the candidate–supervisor collaboration to suit
the needs of each particular project. The aim is to identify the research questions as they
emerge during the course of the entire research process – this is what brings practice into
the realm of academic enquiry and assists in making the case for both process and
outcome to be considered a legitimate research methodology. This requires that
supervisors be more actively involved, more engaged with their students as they
navigate what may well be uncharted zones and more open-minded and flexible to
recognise and incorporate new theories as they emerge.

Action research and PBR: the cycle of think/act/reflect

Having isolated the particular qualities of PBR and the challenges it poses for candidate
and supervisor alike, the next question is: can action research provide a language for
clarifying the supervisor/candidate relationship in PBR?
Action research, according to Reason and Bradbury (2006, p. 2), is “a verb rather than
a noun” and is a collaborative and participative method whereby “knowledge is a living,
evolving process of coming to know rooted in everyday experience” (⬍). It tends to be
cyclical in nature, involving successive stages of thinking, acting and reflecting (Dick,
2000; Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005). The action research paradigm is particularly well
suited to practice-based research (McNiff, 2002; Zuber-Skerrit and Fletcher, 2007).
Embodying as it does, the capacity to evolve theory out of doing, and involving as it does
models of collaboration between researcher and research subject, it has proven itself
infinitely adaptable to production-based fieldwork. It identifies the sequence of think/
act/reflect which presents research as a collaborative process of identifying and testing
 ideas in the field and using the results as the start of a new round of experimentation. It Production-based
satisfactorily accommodates the cycle where reflexive practice can yield insights that
can be integrated into future practice. In this way, it provides an acceptable and accepted
PhD
methodological explanation for the translation of practice into research terms.
Zuber-Skerrit and Fletcher (2007) describe the elements of a quality action research
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thesis, and in doing so, they identify a characteristic of PBR theses that is most
problematic for researchers and supervisors alike. According to the authors, a PBR 375
thesis is actually two projects: the “core action research – that is, the candidate”s
fieldwork – and the thesis action research and writing – which constitutes the
candidate“s individual work” (p. 421). They provide a diagram (reproduced here) which
shows how the two areas both operate independently and feed into each other. It
illustrates graphically the iterative nature of both thesis and fieldwork, each being
refined as the candidate goes through the repetitive cycles of thinking, acting and
reflecting (Figure 1).

Figure 1.
The iterative nature of
thesis and fieldwork
 QAE In the fieldwork, the candidate works with external collaborators to plan, act, observe
and evaluate and reflect on the results with all participants. In journalism terms, this is
22,4 exemplified by one of the projects I supervised which involved a collaboration between
the candidate and the local indigenous community in the creation of a community
television series. The candidate, as a producer in the field, worked in partnership with
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the community, observing the ethical and cultural protocols and building a relationship
376 built on reciprocity from which the community itself would derive benefits. Working
subsequently as a “solo virtuoso” on the thesis, the candidate integrated the fieldwork
results into an overarching theoretical framework putting under scrutiny the role of
media in empowerment and the professional, cultural and personal challenges of
working with non-mainstream groups to bring their voices into the public sphere.
This illustrates how the identification of PBR as two projects in one, each with their
own methodological approach, is an important insight that is very helpful in
conceptualising the task at hand. However the model can also be useful in clarifying the
contribution of the supervisor in this process.
Stringer (2008, p. 15) notes, in relation to classroom teaching, that:
Teachers […] must engage in systematic processes of inquiry […] to enable their students to
attain effective learning outcomes. Action research […] provides them with a framework of
activities that enables them to systematically accomplish these tasks.
If the supervisor role is incorporated into the Zuber-Skerritt and Fletcher (2007) model,
it is possible to see how the entire project – fieldwork and thesis – is embedded in a third,
all-encompassing pedagogical action/reflection cycle involving a collaboration between
the researcher and their supervisor. Just as the two-project model can help the candidate
understand the connection between fieldwork and theory, viewing supervision in terms
of an action research project may help supervisors to understand the particular
pedagogy involved.
If we view supervision as a research activity engaged in by the supervisor, we can
appreciate that it is itself a learning process where:
[…] the challenges of a long-term project are complicated by new understandings of research,
necessitating a multifarious response by supervisors, who have to teach themselves as well as
students what they need to know (Kroll, 2004, p. 6).
In this sense, supervisors themselves operate as reflexive practitioners, refining their
skills as the project progresses:
The supervisor’s ability effectively to manage the students’ projects and to impart research
knowledge increases as he/she implements and develops a repertoire of practices – which are
learned, applied, and refined as practical activities during the process of supervision (Hockey,
2003, p. 183).
They, no less than their students, are engaged in research into their own practice:
The dialectical process of supervisors interrogating their performance replicates, to some
extent, how candidates undertake practice-led research, which involves posing questions and
modifying strategies as a thesis progresses (Kroll, 2004, p. 1).
In action research terms, the supervisor/candidate relationship can be described as one
of collaborative enquiry from which both parties derive benefits. The candidate is
assisted by the supervisor in:
 • defining and refining the research questions; Production-based
• determining the approach to the fieldwork project; PhD
• developing the capacity to extend beyond description to true analytical thinking;
and
• in structuring an academically compelling thesis from the results.
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The supervisor benefits from what can be described as a participative problem-solving 377
process by extending and expanding their academic knowledge into new areas opened
up by the research, by engaging with existing theory in new ways and by facilitating the
identification and articulation of new theories that add to the compendium of
knowledge. At the same time, the supervisor is also provided with the opportunity to
interrogate and analyse the pedagogical challenges of PBR supervision. PBR projects
often can leave both supervisor and candidate feeling that they are at the mercy of
uncontrollable circumstances, with theory being cobbled together on the run. However,
when the supervision process is conceptualised in action research terms, it tames the
beast a bit, revealing both the generic qualities of supervision and their adaptation to the
PBR context. Supervisors can anticipate and prepare the candidate for the iterative
experience that lies ahead and initiate the two tracks of practice and theorising that they
will follow throughout.
We can now look at the three key supervision tasks of project management, research
mentoring and writing in action research terms.

Project management
In PBR, candidates tend to start out not with a theory but with an idea to be tested
in the field. They find themselves at the beginning of a journey with no known end.
As Cook (1998, p. 93) notes, on the basis of her own experience as an action
researcher, “{t}he bulk of the research therefore became highlighting the problem,
not finding solutions to it”. Traditional action research projects “all begin with
“PLAN””, Cook (1998, p. 97) says, “but I wanted to know how I could plan before I
knew what I was looking at”. One example from my own experience involved a
student who wanted to gather first-person narratives from surviving Fretilin
guerrillas in East Timor. This deceptively straightforward journalistic exercise of
telling as yet untold stories yielded a dissertation which delved into the ethical
implications for journalistic practice in reporting fairly without exposing interview
subjects to unintentional harm. The process of getting university ethics approval
raised the student’s awareness of the dangers in making public contentious stories
which could expose the narrators to potential political retribution. This gave a new
focus to his self-reflexive practice in the field and provided a fruitful area for
theorising after the exercise was completed.
In the context of project management, the supervisor as action researcher
acknowledges a process of inquiry that is emergent, that involves starting from an
arbitrary starting point, encountering research questions along the way, and filling in
knowledge gaps as you go to continue on down the path. The supervisor in this situation
has to be hands on, a companion on the journey, a “‘critical friend’ guiding the ‘student’
through the scholarly maze to the doctoral examination and graduation” (Evans and
Pearson, 1999, p. 196), as well as a guide whose experience can provide some
reassurance that the “messiness” is all part of the process and will resolve itself in time.
 QAE By being familiar with the challenges and acknowledging them in advance, the
supervisor is in a position to induct the student in such a way as to make the
22,4 unpredictable predictable. The open-endedness of PBR can be an issue given the
resource and time constraints of PhD. It is all the more important for the supervisor to
keep an eye on:
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• the allocation of time (so fieldwork does not go on too long);

378 • the scope of project (so that its goals remain achievable in the allocated study
period);
• the identification of specific research outcomes (so that the student’s focus remains
ever fixed on the research questions deriving from their practice); and
• the requirements of the examination process (so that the required formats and
protocols demanded by university regulations are complied with).

In this way, the supervisor provides both “some scaffolding to help build a research
project and the sense of security that can come from conforming to systems” (Cook, 1998,
p. 98). However like the candidate, the supervisor too has to incorporate flexibility into
the process. There will be ongoing revision and adjustments of the project goals and
outcomes as ideas are tested and proved, or rejected through the experience in the field.
As Fisher and Phelps (2006, p. 153 note, “there is no more appropriate approach to
understanding action research than to see it as an unfolding narrative”. The journey the
supervisors take with the candidates has a narrative arc of its own with the supervisors
“planning, acting, observing and reflecting” (Cook, 1998) as they moderate the
performance of the candidate and customise their own pedagogical approach to the
demands of the project as they arise.

Research mentoring
In PBR, research questions tend to evolve out of experience, and the supervisor’s role is
to help the candidate to see their budding ideas in terms of “research questions”. This is
often a process of doing the research and trying and finding literature to back it up
(Cook, 1998, p. 99). Cook notes that a problem with this type of “post hoc rationalisation”
is that it appears to lack rigour, but this ignores the ongoing reading by the candidate
that is part of the process of scoping their research territory. As Fisher and Phelps (2006,
p. 156) point out, “quality action research will show how the writer has engaged with the
literature and how this has challenged their views”. A journalism example is provided
by another of my own PhD researchers whose fieldwork was based on a series of
documentaries she was making in Rwanda. The aim was to gather stories that presented
a more authentic picture of the country and its people and challenged the predominant
narratives of Africa in the Western media. This led her to interrogate not only the
presumptions and assumptions of the Western journalism canon but also her own
practice in the field. Her reading took her way beyond the confines of traditional
journalism and into the realms of African history, language and culture in an attempt to
theorise about how to do responsible journalism when telling the stories of “others”.
Hockey (2003, p. 178) notes the supervisor’s role in this process:
[…] supervisors attempt to realign their students’ energies and concerns to the point where
their practice works in conjunction with bodies of conceptual and theoretical knowledge,
rather than being driven by them.
 The candidate may have to follow many false leads before finding one that encapsulates Production-based
their thoughts, but the ongoing reading trails help them on this journey. Cook (1998,
p. 100) calls this the process of “sorting and streamlining ideas to find the important
PhD
areas for investigation”, and the supervisor has a crucial role to play in what is a process
of “guided trial and error” (Cook, 1998, p. 102). The supervisor does not have the
answers, and in this type of project, their role is to use their breadth of knowledge and
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academic expertise to help reorientate the researcher as both of them absorb and reflect 379
on the new knowledge encountered in the field.
As Collins et al. (2001) remind us, PhD is not an end in itself, but a training exercise
preparing the candidate for an academic career. The supervisor’s focus is the candidate,
and in the role of teacher, their pedagogical approach is constantly under adjustment as
they identify the research student’s strengths and weaknesses. There will be no one
pre-ordained pedagogical style: this too will evolve during the course of the
collaboration as the supervisor adjusts their approach to accommodate the learning
styles of each individual student, as well as the demands of their project.

Writing up
Atkinson (1994, p. 399) describes writing as:
[…] a way of thinking that has the power to externalise something, to take it out of just thought
into a form where it can be considered in more depth and related to other aspects of the
research.
The importance of this process is underscored by Lenzo (1995, p. 19) who sees writing as
a method of inquiry of its own which “becomes the site where poststructural validity
practices are performed in text”. However, this part of the doctoral research process
represents perhaps the steepest learning curve for production-based researchers, as it
takes them out of their practice-based comfort zone into the area where new skills are
demanded to translate their research into academic terms and formats. Lenzo (1995,
p. 20) reminds us of the overarching challenge to be met to conform to the traditional
PhD thesis format:
Strict format and content guidelines are usually followed. The candidate must be able to
situate herself within the field – within a specific research area in terms of methodology,
theory, and perhaps philosophy […] Deviations from the generally accepted norms
usually must be explained. If they are ignored, credibility and authority may be fatally
compromised. (⬍)
Research reports in more conventional projects usually have a tidy beginning, middle
and end. In PBR, this may mean representing, in linear form, something that was not
linear at all, thereby actually misrepresenting the real research process (Fisher and
Phelps, 2006, p. 144). Lenzo (1995, p. 19) asks: “What kind of textual authority can admit
to uncertainty, deal in contradiction, and question attachments?” If messiness is
honestly described, does this detract from its academic credibility?
The situation is further complicated when there is a production component which
needs to be integrated appropriately into the research narrative. An example from my
own experience involves a researcher who was using self-reflexive practice to capture
and articulate the theory behind long-form radio documentary-making. Zuber-Skeritt
and Fletcher’s concept of the one thesis/two projects was invaluable in helping us to
identify the role of her fieldwork within the overarching PhD project. By deconstructing
 QAE her journalistic activity, she was able to demonstrate how it conformed with classic
social science research methodologies, and in this way, argue for it to be considered a
22,4 research activity in its own right.
The supervisor’s role here is, therefore, twofold. First, they need to help the candidate to
articulate their ideas – not just to find a language, but to go beyond the descriptive to
demonstrate their validity in academically acceptable ways. Second, they need to assist the
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380 candidate to mould the raw material as it comes in so that it can be presented coherently to
make sense to the examiner. This process does not take place at predictable times in the
doctoral cycle, but it is an ongoing organic part of the supervision process from beginning to
end. Through collaboration and through trial and error, supervisor and candidate slowly
reveal the research truths embedded within the practice.

Conclusion
This paper has been prompted by my own experiences as a supervisor of production-based
PhDs in journalism. The process has been intensely creative, testing my own pedagogical
skills as I have helped my student researchers to grapple with the many and often
unexpected theoretical conundrums thrown up by their various projects. Over time, I have
come to realise that there is method in the madness, and recognising this has helped me
prepare both my students and myself for the wild ride ahead. To encapsulate the main
lessons we have learned together they are:
• Use theory as a starting point, not a finishing point. By this I mean that the literature
review can provide context and can assist with constructing a methodology, but it will
not always contain the solution. This will emerge through the practical experience in
the field.
• Prepare for an iterative process. The insights gained from practice are what feed the
theorising process. They are refined over and over again as fieldwork is reflected on in
a repetitive cycle where any conclusions are once again tested in the field.
• The research questions are always there, even if not always obvious. This is perhaps
where the supervisor performs the most valuable role. Practice often seems to speak
for itself – the artefact is self-contained, its artifice is quite deliberately concealed and
the production challenges rarely discussed or exposed in the public arena. This is one
reason why practice-based research has faced challenges in establishing itself in
academe, and this is the area where the research training has greatest value for the
student researchers. The supervisor’s key task is to develop the students’ “research
eye” – to assist them in seeing practice in terms of research questions to be answered.
It is a key process of induction into academic ways of seeing that will set them up for
their future careers as researchers.

Production-based doctoral research inevitably represents what can often appear as an

uncomfortable compromise between practice and the needs of academe. However, according
to Winter et al. (2000, p. 28), it actually performs an important bridge-building exercise:
[…] practice-based doctorates are more than a way of bringing about cooperation between higher
education and other sectors, and they are more than a manifestation of a bridge between economic
activities and academic learning. They are a bridge which is being constructed from both ends
simultaneously, in response to the needs and standards of both communities. The attempt to make
the bridge meet draws into focus what ‘being a doctor’ might mean in the context of the need for
cooperation and the felt crisis in the relationships between universities and other workplaces.
 To take this metaphor a bit further, the supervisor is the site manager, and while they may Production-based
have knowledge about the two sides about to be linked, there are no architectural drawings
to assist with the construction process. The production projects they have to deal with will be
PhD
unique, with individual production challenges, as well as research questions. Solutions
which work for a radio documentary may not work for a television program or a multimedia
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web-based project. There will be different aims, different target audiences, different
technical environments and different ethical challenges. Thus, not only is the candidate 381
creating new knowledge but the supervisor is also helping to create new forms of doctorates
with every supervision of this kind that they undertake. The process is as pedagogically
creative as the research itself, growing out of an ongoing process of thinking, acting and
reflecting throughout the course of the doctoral program.
Taking this holistic view of the PhD supervision process as an action research project in
itself reveals the different sort of pedagogy it demands from the supervisor. The flexibility of
the approach means that it can provide a template for any discipline. This is important
because knowledge-sharing across disciplines is essential if individual experiences are to be
consolidated into a coherent body of pedagogical theory. At a time when PBR is still trying
to establish itself in creative areas that range from the performing and creative arts to media
production and journalism, supervisors cannot afford to stay within their discipline silos.
They need to share the ideas borne out of their pedagogical practice in such a way as to
establish clear methods and protocols that may be useful to others. Through this sort of
cross-disciplinary pedagogical collaboration, PBR supervisors will be able to help PBR
acquire the status it deserves within academe. Conceptualising their role in action research
terms may help clarify the process and the practice in this challenging pedagogical area.

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About the author

Gail Phillips is Emerita Associate Professor of journalism at Murdoch University. She is co-author
of Australian Broadcast Journalism, published by Oxford University Press (2002, 2006, 2013) and
is also the co-author of Journalism Ethics at Work (Pearson Longman, 2005). Gail Phillips can be
contacted at: g.phillips@murdoch.edu.au

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