Disruptions of hybrid doctoral seminars: A nexus analysis
Keywords:
doctoral studies, hybrid seminar, interaction order, nexus analysisAbstract
In this study we explored what kind of disruptions there were involved in hybrid doctoral seminars. Furthermore, we examined what kind of consequences such disruptions had. As our theoretical-methodological framework we used nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004). The data comprised ethnographic field notes which were generated during “writing clinics” organised for doctoral students, the AdobeConnect chat discussions that took place during the clinics, Yammer discussions concerning the clinics, as well as the results of an online survey, which was sent to doctoral students and supervisors. Based on our analysis, we recognised three categories, which the disruptions were related to: technology, actors, and language. The disruptions took time away from the actual content, made participation in the writing clinic meetings more difficult or impossible, had a negative effect on the satisfaction towards participation, made the clinics feel less useful for participants, and were a source of other negative feelings among participants. The study and its results shift the attention towards what happens when a desired or expected mediated social action is disrupted for one reason or another, and thus helps to plan how hybrid seminars could be developed in the context of doctoral education, specifically, and in university teaching more generally.
