Why I'm still thesising ...

I spoke to one of my colleagues about my thesis corrections yesterday, and how difficult I'm finding it to re-engage with the material. What I realised during that conversation was that not only was my viva really disappointing, it's part of the reason that I'm finding the corrections so hard, psychologically. Immediately after my viva, I was disappointed because neither of the examiners seemed to have engaged with the real issues in my thesis. Whilst the questions that they asked concerning methodology were valuable and important, they were the only questions that they asked. I wasn't asked about the detail of the thesis, the results I obtained or the theory concerning working memory, or implicit and explicit learning. I suspect these were the strong points in my thesis so not part of what the examiners were concerned about. As such, they did not need to hear me defend them to determine whether I would pass or not. However, their lack of questioning on these aspects was disappointing because I felt that they had failed to engage with the main content of my thesis, either to agree or disagree. This left me with the impression that the examiners had been unable to distinguish the literature review from my new theoretical perspectives, which may have been the case or may simply have reflected their lack of engagement. Even over lunch in Stravaigin afterwards, the examiner failed to ask about my work, and was more inclined to discuss mutual friends with Norman while I sat by in silence. However, more destructively in terms of my corrections, this apparent (or real?) lack of engagement carried with it the impression that the ideas themselves - central as they had been to the last three years of my life - were of little value: if even the examiners weren't interested, who else would or could be? And now I'm not either. I'm gradually realising that I'm going to need support to regain any sense of confidence in this aspect of my work and to re-engage with it effectively.

I'm also realising how subtle the influence of the examiner can be, and how careful I'm going to have to be to avoid misunderstandings when I play that role, or when I select examiners ...