The thing I’ve been told about doing a PhD is that your ideas are often too big for one study; what you end up coming up with is 10 separate PhDs. Ultimately, you whittle it down to something much smaller than initially conceived; a PhD attempts to answer one tiny part of one small question, and you build from there. I thought I’d whittled it down enough, however, it seems I have a bit more to do.

We’ve now gotten to the part in the workshop that I was very much looking forward to: initial presentation and critique of the programs we’re trying to develop. I discussed the initial premise -that graduate level academics from various disciplines are interested in GIS, but don’t know how to properly use the technology. I discussed my idea – to teach them GIS concepts that are important to them to help expedite and support their use of GIS in their work. I showcased the technology – to use ArcGIS.com to allow people to explore layers, add them to a map, and tell a story with the map, and that this story would be individualistic to the groups I will teach, as part of my case studies. I told them about the other dimensions of the analyses – to see if this method of teaching can actually teach what it is I want to teach to graduate level researchers, to see if face-to-face works better than online, and to see if this can facilitate interdisciplinary thinking. The group thought all of this was interesting, but thought there was still too much going on. Their comments can be summed up as follows:

• “Teaching GIS” is too big; take one small aspect of GIS and teach that (e.g. Map Projections)
• What is taught needs to be comparable between the groups; if one case study is Anthropologists and you teach them one thing (e.g. Map Projections), and another case study is Computer Scientists and you teach them another thing (e.g. Raster vs. Vector), its not comparable because not only are the two groups different, but the topic is different as well.
• The amount of time it will take to teach that aspect of GIS will vary depending upon the group’s level of skill with GIS, the task to be tackled, etc.; These will have to be accounted for and handled in order for the amount of time for the teaching exercise not to balloon, so again, keep the task clear, direct, and small.

So my research question needs to be a bit smaller. Taking it as it is (“How does a non-formal learning approach compare to an informal one when adult learners wish to learn GIS in interdisciplinary research?”) and thinking more critically about it:

• “How does a non-formal learning approach compare to an informal one…” = How does a structured delivery compare to an experiential one…; what I want to know here is if the hunting-and-pecking way of going about things, as we often do, is better/worse for gathering information, as and when we need it, instead of sitting down and taking time to properly devote to gathering the information, with some guidance. We may end up with more than we think we need, but it may be useful later, and the person/material guiding us may be aware of this, so they save us the time of having to go back to re-gather the information. Does this give us the ability to solely focus on the learning task, rather than breaking our concentration? Do we end up doing things more efficiently this way?
• “… when adult learners wish to learn…” = “wish to learn” is a leap… Some DON’T wish to learn; some are forced to pick something up – often by their higher ups. They may use it begrudgingly, just to tick the box and say they used it, but it doesn’t need to be that way. That thing may actually be something they may grow to like, and they may find it very useful in the end. So how can we shape the delivery of material such that we get through the “growing pains” phase as quickly as possible?
• “… GIS…” = GIS is a BIG thing, so what part of it? This isn’t to say ArcGIS (a programme to teach people how to use a piece of software) or Geographic Information Science on the whole (a programme that would make someone as proficient in GIS as the specialist), but rather an important part of GIS. I’ve done the leg work for this to find out in the published studies I’ve gathered WHAT they’re doing with GIS, and using GIS&T BoK determined that the Geospatial Data Knowledge Area is the most relevant, so the choice of topic should come from there – Coordinate Systems, Map Projections, Data Quality, GPS, Field Data Collection, Metadata.
• “… in interdisciplinary research?” = I’ve done the leg work to find out about challenges/suggested solutions in interdisciplinary research, so I know what I’m up against and I know what issues I need to be prepared for, to shut them down before they happen. Again, from the lit review and published studies work, I’ve identified that “Collaborating with Other Disciplines” is the biggest issue (e.g. the knowledge gap between the disciplines), and that “Build Relationships” and “Training” are often suggested as solutions. So, to put it all together, I propose to fill that gap between the disciplines with knowledge, created together, through collaborative learning, which helps build the relationship with your fellow researchers and teach you how to use a valuable research tool (in this instance GIS).

So I guess, with a small rejig, it’d be better to say “How does a non-formal learning approach compare to an informal one when adult learners learn to use GIS for Field Data Collection in interdisciplinary research?”

(Note: Further work is necessary to centre on Field Data Collection as THE topic; let’s just consider it a place-holder for now)