More than an academic jaunt : reflections on a qualitative research workshop

Abstract

This article entails reflections of four young scholars on attending an international workshop on qualitative research. It reports on their experiences of the workshop – from the instant when they had to decide which sessions to attend to the very last day when they started the journey home – reporting on 'lessons' for the qualitative researcher. The article reports on some of the sessions attended by the young researchers, highlighting the main ideas shared by the presenters, and elaborating on the value of the sessions to young qualitative researchers. Sessions on themes such as coding, knowledge organisation, the process of data management, essential and common features of standards in qualitative research and writing your dissertation provided new insights and extended these PhD students' horizons. They gained far more from the workshop than expected – not merely increasing their understanding of qualitative research, but also by making friends worldwide and learning from colleagues around the world.