Borrowing brainpower – sharing insecurities. Lessons learned from a doctoral peer writing group

Can peer learning support doctoral education? Evidence from an ethnography of a research team

“…This relationship helps students to organise and engage in collaborative activities, give and receive feedback, develop critical thinking and experiment with more ways of communicating concepts and skills. In this paper, peers are defined as colleagues of the same academic rank (PhD students) and from the same group; this is consistent with previous literature (Hopwood 2010b, Boud, Cohen, and Sampson 2001, Boud and Lee 2005, Wegener, Meier, and Ingerslev 2016, Baker and Lattuca 2010. As the PhD is a long journey, even among PhD students there can be a range of expertise, but there is no supervisory relationship.…”

“…Remarkable examples are studies by Wegener, Meier, and Ingerslev (2016), showing how peer interaction supports the development of an identity as a researcher; and Littlefield, Taddei and Radosh's (2015) analysis of the narratives of their own support group, showing how peer collaboration can help the completion of a part-time doctoral programme. Hopwood (2010b, a) underlines the contribution of sociocultural approaches to detecting the practices that enhance doctoral learning.…”

“…Learning is defined following cultural-historical activity theory (AT), that stresses the relational, emergent, processual and contextual nature of learning (Vygotsky 1980). Peer support might be essential in completing a PhD (Gardner 2007, Littlefield, Taddei, and Radosh 2015, Devenish et al 2009, Leonard and Becker 2009, Lovitts 2001, Boyle and Boice 1998, Wegener, Meier, and Ingerslev 2016, Teeuwsen, Ratković, and Tilley 2014, Gardner 2010, Boud and Lee 2005. Nevertheless, it is not clear how peers intervene in the learning process (Flores-Scott and Nerad 2012, Baker andLattuca 2010, Boud 1999).…”

“…This study extends the literature on doctoral practices, and will stimulate debate about peer learning as a strategy for supporting doctoral students. It draws on literature stressing the position of students as agents and the role of peer learning in building core competences (Hopwood 2010b, McAlpine et al 2012, Wegener, Meier, and Ingerslev 2016, Baker and Lattuca 2010. The theoretical objective is to contribute to the recent strand of literature underlining the relevance of sociocultural approaches to the role of emergent experiences for learning (Hopwood 2010a, Raddon 2011, Beauchamp, Jazvac-Martek, and McAlpine 2009, Baker and Lattuca 2010.…”

Improving together: better science writing through peer learning

“…Writing groups offer a flexible approach that can be implemented both in connection with university science courses (Ferguson, 2009) or in a self-organized fashion by students (Maher et al, 2008;Wegener et al, 2014). The successes of writing groups at the doctoral level are well documented (Aitchison, 2009), including in interdisciplinary settings (Colton and Surasinghe, 2014;Kokkala and Gessell, 2002).…”