A reflection on choosing a thesis topic

Even before starting the doctorate, I was excited by the prospect of getting to do my own research for my thesis.

There are many topics I feel passionate about, why wouldn’t I be excited to immerse myself into one of these topics and to produce something that may even inspire others?

However, the reality of my journey in choosing a thesis topic has at times felt overwhelming, stressful, and disheartening. I have experienced a stress response where I have just wanted to flee the thesis and hide in a dark room until it all disappears. This just can’t happen, so I wanted to write an honest and open reflection on this difficulty and share what has helped me to manage these feelings, as I’m not sure I felt prepared enough for this uncertainty and I don’t think it is talked about enough.

Thinking about making decisions…but not making them

From talking with others, there seem to a wide range of experiences of choosing a thesis topic. Too many interests and not knowing where to begin, having a clear idea but unsure of how to create a research project that meets ethics and the expected structure, no clear idea at all, a fully formed idea… the list goes on!

It seems to be a personal experience, but despite this, everyone I have spoken to whether a trainee, newly qualified or practitioner psychologist, experienced wobbly moments, confusion, and difficulties in deciding on a topic and creating an idea.

I found myself in my head with all the ‘what ifs?’. What if people are not interested in my idea? What if my idea is not relevant enough to the role of an educational psychologist (EP)? What if my idea is too ‘new’ and different? What if I lose excitement and interest in my idea? What if the two years I spend on this research amount to nothing, and it is not worth publishing or sharing with others?

I had so many concerns about choosing a topic, that I became indecisive and non-committal. The what ifs, fears and endless possibilities left me experiencing what might be described as decision fatigue (Pignatiello et al, 2020). This concept is linked to Muraven et al’s (1998) theory of a strength model of self-regulation which views self-regulation as a limited resource. This means when we are making big decisions, we deplete our capacity to make further decisions, therefore making our response to consequent decisions less effective unless we give ourselves a period of rest to recuperate those resources (Muraven et al, 1998). I had spent so much time thinking about making the decision, that my ability to actually make the decision was limited.

Prioritising thoughts and worries

My thoughts and worries included: my interest and excitement in the topic and whether that will last two years, choosing a psychological theory that I could apply to the topic, other people’s excitement and interest in my topic, making the study ethical, considering how I will recruit participants, debating the relevance and importance of my topic in the current climate and to the role of the EP, wondering if this topic would provide a unique contribution and if I could publish further research on it in the future, worrying that this might pigeonhole my career as an EP (don’t worry – I have been assured this will not be the case and is an unnecessary worry), concerns that future employers might not hire me as an EP based on my thesis topic choice if they didn’t think it was relevant, important or exciting (also an unnecessary worry).

All these thoughts are relevant, and many of them need to be thought about at some point, however, they didn’t ALL need to be thought about when choosing my topic and doing so resulted in me feeling overwhelmed and struggling to decide.

To overcome this I took a period of rest and stepped away from the whole process for a few days. I gave myself some time off and tried to think about thesis as little as possible. I also used some other strategies to help me to decide when I felt ready to do so, which is my reason for writing this, as I hope that sharing the worries I experienced and the strategies I used might help others if feeling the same as I did.

Strategies that helped me to decide on my thesis topic:

Talking it through with several people

Talking with my husband, EPs, university tutors, research supervisors, my friends, family, other TEPs – this helped me to see things from different perspectives and to see the importance and relevance (or lack) of my questions and concerns.

Caveat… I did hit a point where I had too many opinions and this fuelled the worries further. I sought out people who knew me well enough to know what I needed and to help me reflect on what I wanted e.g., an EP I spoke to reminded me that I have all the resources I need to be able to make these decisions, and essentially it will be me who does the research, so it ultimately needs to be my decision.

Creating a pros and cons list for different topics

Seeing these written down on paper and giving myself time to reflect on the pros and cons helped me to gain perspective of my thoughts. Although the pros and cons list itself wasn’t particularly helpful, it was the process of writing it down and reflecting on it that I found most helpful).

Using strengths based reflective tools

I have a set of ‘Resilio’ cards that have images on one set of cards of different scenarios that can depict stressful life situations and possible ways to relax. The second set are animal cards that symbolise qualities or strategies we might use to cope and build resilience. I found these to be extremely helpful in processing my thoughts and feelings about thesis and considering resources I already had to help me cope. I selected 5 picture cards at random and wrote my reflections on post it notes for each of the cards, then chose 3 animal cards and wrote ways this could resemble my coping and resilience.

Reading research around the topics

Here I took a number of actions; looking at recommended research from theses, exploring similar research focus areas in journals to familiarise myself with what had been done already, how and what gaps there were in the research. This helped to ground my worries about ethics, feasibility, relevance, and publication.

Getting reflections down on paper

I wrote whatever came to mind and this happened to be in the form of lists, gratitude journalling, a rose, thorn and bud reflection and my pros and cons list. I wrote A LOT, but this felt helpful as it allowed me to revisit the topic in different formats and see what was coming up regularly for me, which essentially showed which topic I was leaning more towards.

Stepping away

Finally, I did step away from it. I gave myself time, space, and distance. This made a big difference and when I came back to discussing thesis with an EP once I had taken a few days away from properly thinking about it, it was clear to me which topic I had more enthusiasm for.

Moving towards acceptance

I have spent some time reflecting on why I chose the topic I did in the end but honestly, I’m not sure  as I still have lots of worries and doubts about it. I think that’s OK though. I don’t know if I would ever feel fully committed to one idea when I have so many interests, and with all the thinking (ruminating?) I have done about thesis ideas, but I had to decide and I trusted my intuition over analytical processing (Hogarth, 2010).

I have accepted that there may be times I regret my choice and I will potentially fall in and out of love with the topic and idea, others may not be that excited or interested in my topic (but it will be my job to ignite enthusiasm for the topic), and there might not be scope to publish or share it more widely at the end of my thesis, although I think it will be more up to me how I choose to disseminate my research once I have finished it and pushing to make this a reality.

The main learning point for me here, is the importance of finding a psychological theory that I was interested in or excited by, and an area of practice in the EP role that is relevant. I am currently excited by the psychology, am passionate about the topic, and am enjoying reading and learning about related research. This is generating excitement about the prospect of two years hard work and difficulty, because I know that the basis of my thesis – the psychology – is something I am passionate about and aligns with my values and psychological principles.

There are still lots of decisions to make about my thesis but, for now, I have chosen my topic and am beginning to try it on as part of my trainee EP journey and identity (Martin, 2021). I accept that there will be changes along the way and challenging thoughts and emotions about the topic and the process, but I am holding onto the advice I was given that I have all the resources I need for this thesis journey.

I am reminded again of a quote by Lao Tzu – “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”.

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References

Hogarth, R. M. (2010). Intuition: A challenge for psychological research on decision making. Psychological Inquiry, 21(4), 338-353. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2010.520260

Martin, C. (2021). Reflecting on the Journey Towards Identity and Belonging During Professional Doctoral Study. Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice, 6(4), 36-39. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2021.197

Muraven, M., Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 774–789. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.774

Pignatiello, G. A., Martin, R. J., & Hickman Jr, R. L. (2020). Decision fatigue: A conceptual analysis. Journal of health psychology, 25(1), 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318763510

University of Cambridge. (n.d.). Study skills: Reflective practice toolkit. https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit/models

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