Doctoral Deliberations

Olivier Chabot|April 28, 2024|Advice To Myself, Learning, Psychology, R, Statistics, Studying, Teaching
Reading Time: 4 minutes

There’s an 87% chance that I will pursue a PhD.

How Would My Life Change if I Won 75 Million Dollars?

I attempted to answer the question above in my last article. I concluded that teaching full-time doesn’t leave enough time and energy for meaningful side projects. Hence, teaching part-time would be ideal. I know from experience that an empty calendar is worse than a full one. That’s why having a consistent teaching schedule as my base would strike a balance between stability and plasticity.

Similar doubts plagued me before doing my Masters in statistics. My financial worries turned out to be unfounded. I suspect the same will be true for my PhD; especially if I work throughout the program. In hindsight, doing my Masters seemed inevitable and an obvious net positive decision. The funny thing is that I initially wanted to do my Masters in psychology or neuroscience but they both required an undergraduate degree in the field. Today, I’m again crushed by the psychological entropy of the infinitely branching tree of the multiverse. I’m sure I’ll look back in a few years and wonder why I couldn’t see the obvious sooner.

Motivation

I grew up in northern Ontario. Education isn’t valued up there. It’s often perceived as Peter Pan’s syndrome of never wanting to grow up. The saying “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” definitely applies. It’s no surprise that I felt a strong gravitational pull to start working as soon as possible. I still feel that I need to downplay or omit my education in social circumstances.

I tried to make the yearning for more education go away by teaching and kicking off my “grownup” career. I’m in the tail end of my second year of teaching and the itch is stronger than ever. It feels as if there’s too much untapped potential. I feel the need to prove it to myself that I can do scientific research and publish papers. I’m tired of being a back-door academic. Much of my personal projects could be turned into scientific papers. I want to formally contribute to the human knowledge project and be rewarded for doing so.

Realistically, I won’t feel like doing my PhD when we have kids, or after they leave the nest. This feels like the right time to pursue my PhD.

Goals

I had three goals going into my master’s degree.

  1. Graduate.
    • This would allow me to move up the teacher salary grid.
  2. Learn statistics and experimental design.
    • I want to answer everyday questions based on data.
  3. Learn to code.
    • Programming was another limiting belief of mine.
    • Being able to code opens so many doors.
    • It will make me a better teacher.

I achieved the goals above. I didn’t plan to achieve the additional goals below.

Similarly, here are my goals for the PhD.

  • Learn specific skills
    • Item response theory (IRT)
    • Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis
    • Classical test theory
    • How to build valid math assessments that scale for K-12 and the university level
    • How to build adaptive tests and problem sets
  • Publish scientific papers (prove to myself)
  • Open doors for career options (see below)

Career Options

  • Open doors to teach at universities (math/stat undergrads & teacher’s college).
    • Teach teachers how to teach math and assess learning.
  • Independent consultant:
    • Statistical analysis
    • Assessments
    • Education
    • Technology
  • Conference speaker
  • Workshop facilitator
  • Book writer
  • Researcher and supervise student’s research project (it’s extremely rewarding)

Project Ideas

  • Predictive modelling of student outcomes.
    • Establish a risk profile before the start of the semester to increase equity in the classroom.
  • Validate the EQAO scoring framework.
    • No one fails the test.
    • Guessing students got level 2.
    • Strong negative correlation between course grade and EQAO differential.
  • Building a question bank tool for teachers with little tech experience
    • If not building a tool from scratch, collaborate with a tool like Google Practice Sets or WebWork to study its effectiveness in the classroom.
    • Adaptive tests
    • Integrate AI hints
    • Build something in French.
  • Explore the role of cost-effective polling hardware in phone-free schools.
  • Validate the Growing Success assessment framework:
    • Four categories of knowledge and skills?
    • Level 1 = “much below provincial standard”, Level 4 = “surpasses the provincial standard”. Does the definition of level change as the province gets more competent? Mastery learning all level 4?
    • Percentages versus levels
    • Grading analytically (with points) versus globally
    • Measure reliability in grading math and design interventions to increase it
    • Outcome-based grading versus skill-based grading

Concrete Plan

  • Apply to the University of Ottawa Education PhD program.
  • Start in September 2025 (4 to 7 years to complete)
  • Take courses in the evening while teaching high school during the day for the first year.
  • Options to take time off work to focus on doctoral studies:
    • Reduced workload to 1 or two courses per semester.
    • Take a sabbatical year.
    • Take a year off work for educational studies while they hold my job.
    • Parental leave (if it applies)
  • Options to finance my studies
    • Admission scholarship (pretty much pays for all tuition)
    • Research grants
    • Teaching assistant (TA)
    • research assistant (RA)
    • Teach high school
    • Tutor
    • Teach courses for Teacher’s College
      • Math
      • Evaluation
      • Research Methodology

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