{"id":62712,"date":"2022-05-06T05:31:57","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T09:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=62712"},"modified":"2022-05-06T05:31:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T09:31:57","slug":"the-feedback-loop-of-shit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-feedback-loop-of-shit\/","title":{"rendered":"The feedback loop of shit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often compared the last part of your PhD to\u00a0putting your head in a bucket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the Researcher developer trade we call this last bit of the PhD \u2018The Write Up\u2019. \u2018Writing up\u2019 involves hours and hours of detailed work; to end up with a manuscript ready for examiners. There\u2019s a sameness to Writing Up which is crazy making. You\u2019re in that damn document, day after day, adding words, editing words out, fixing mistakes and chasing up stuff your Past Self left unfinished. Meanwhile, Family and social life starts to suffer and your world gets very narrow.<\/p>\n

The suffocating feeling of a looming deadline, coupled with feelings of isolation, IS like walking around with a plastic bucket over your head.<\/p>\n

If this period of bucket-time is relatively short, say six months or so, it\u2019s bearable, but for many people this bucket period stretches into years. Only about 20% of people hand in \u2018on time\u2019: most have to ask for at least one extension. Many get multiple extensions. Taking five years to do a PhD is not unusual at all.<\/p>\n

People run out of time for all kinds of reasons: poor supervision, difficulties with writing, an out of control project scope or failed experiments. In the end the reason doesn\u2019t matter and assigning shame and blame is pointless. What matters is dealing with the problems that arise as a result.<\/p>\n

One of the problems I\u2019m concerned about is what I call the\u00a0Feedback Loop of Shit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As the scholarship money runs out, or the effects of living on a low income for years start to bite, people have to drop to part time study and take on more paid work. At the same time, people find they can\u2019t keep putting off \u2018life\u2019 things, like having a baby. Some develop chronic health problems, which are made worse with the stress of an unfinished thesis lurking in the background. A complex Feedback Loop of Shit starts forming, which makes finishing even more important, at the same time as making it seem more out of reach than ever.<\/p>\n

At ANU, my team tries to stop this Feedback Loop of Shit, so people can finally take the bucket off their head and get on with their life.<\/p>\n

We start by supporting people to write. Ideally, people don\u2019t \u2018write up\u2019 their research, they \u2018write along the way\u2019 and avoid the problem of producing tons of words near the end. To complete a thesis you need to master the art of continuous,\u00a0productive and useful<\/em>\u00a0writing. But that\u2019s easier said than done. Lots of people write every day during their PhD \u2013 and end up with a Hot Mess of Too Many Words that feels more like a swamp monster than a manuscript.<\/p>\n

Obviously helping people to learn to write productively is a good place to start fighting the Feedback Loop of Shit. A key part of our strategy at ANU has been\u00a0Thesis Bootcamp<\/a>, which we\u00a0adapted from a concept developed by colleagues at Melbourne Uni<\/a>). Thesis Bootcamp is a three day intensive writing retreat where we set people a stretch target: to write 20,000 words. Our version of Thesis Bootcamp includes lots of instruction on how to beat procrastination and write faster. Each time we run it, about four people will hit this 20,000 word target; everyone writes at least 5000 words and many do more than 10,000.<\/p>\n

Thesis Bootcamp makes \u2018writing up\u2019 fun and social \u2013 and it helps a lot of people finish.<\/p>\n

The buzz around the ANU Thesis Bootcamp has made it world famous (we even got a write up in Nature<\/a>). ANU management loved Thesis Bootcamp too \u2013 because it largely fixed the problem of people dropping out near the end. We proved it with numbers by keeping meticulous records on who did bootcamp over five years. We then used statistical methods employed by medical researchers to study the outcomes of people who were \u2018treated\u2019 with bootcamp and compared their outcomes to the \u2018non treatment\u2019 condition (never attending). We proved the attrition rate amongst bootcampers was 15% lower than the rest of candidates at ANU.<\/p>\n

Cutting the attrition rate from 22% to 7% amongst participants was a massive achievement, but to tell you the truth, we always considered Thesis Bootcamp a failure.<\/p>\n

The fact we even\u00a0needed<\/em>\u00a0Thesis Bootcamp meant people weren\u2019t taught how to become productive writers early enough. It\u2019s much better to try and avoid the Feedback Loop Of Shit forming in the first place than to try and stop it when it starts. And our data told us this story too. While Thesis Bootcamp does help some people finish, it doesn\u2019t work for everyone. Around three quarters of the people who came to bootcamp graduated not long after. While most of the rest stayed in program, rather than dropping out, many didn\u2019t finish \u2013 sometimes for years. We had to face the fact that, for some people, Thesis Bootcamp just prolonged the agony.<\/p>\n

So, how do we help the people stuck in the Feedback Loop of Shit?<\/p>\n

The first thing is to stop it happening in the first place by making sure people have the skills they need earlier. Thanks to some serious investment of money by ANU, we embarked on a project to adapt the basic bootcamp model to other writing tasks. We ended up with three writing bootcamps, which can be done in sequence:<\/p>\n