More than meets the eye: the use of videonarratives to facilitate doctoral students’ reflexivity on their doctoral journeys

Abstract

This article discusses findings from a UK Higher Education Academy project, which used digital video to promote doctoral students’ reflexivity. The project aimed to facilitate doctoral students’ research skills through the making of videonarratives; create spaces for reflexivity on the relations between research, narrative and identity; and consider the opportunities and problems offered by the use of digital video as a research method. In its focus on the relations between reflexivity, doctoral research and the use of digital video the project sought to make a contribution to a currently under‐researched and theoretically under‐elaborated aspect of doctoral education. The article discusses findings from the project, identifies the key role played by narrative in emerging doctoral researcher identities, and argues that these findings provide a stimulus for a more critical interrogation of recent and increasingly performative constructions of doctoral study.