Description:Graduate students are often encouraged to present their research findings at national and international scientific conferences. Attending and presenting at a peer-reviewed conference offers a myriad of opportunities to graduate students to enhance their abilities and skills such as learning how to talk about the data and advocating for their science (i.e., position in their study considering the related field).
Reflection: As in the previous reflection, the activity experience was explained under the 4 titles (Description of goals, competencies developed, challenges and lessons learned, and advice to themselves for next time).
Description Of Goals for The Experience: The primary goal of a paper presentation in a scientific peer-reviewed conference is to contribute to and learn about the most recent improvements in our field. This will allow us to present most up-to-date findings (e.g., recently collected data, preliminary findings, etc.) and receive feedback from other scholars, which will help us when ultimately writing up our study. In addition, we have an opportunity to listen and observe other scholar’s studies in order to learn how to talk about the data and findings, which is the most difficult and significant part of a presentation in a conference. Besides, the other goal of the activity is to meet other researchers in our field. Because the presentations that we give and attend are likely to be giving us the opportunity to discuss our research and learn valuable information from other researchers using similar methodology, sample, or statistic technique in their study. Another benefit of meeting with others in our field is to foster friendship that we may be able to create contacts for future employment or post-doctoral placements. Considering all mentioned above, it offers a great experience for us as graduate students.
Competencies Developed: This presenting experience in a peer-reviewed conference was important for a number of reasons that contribute to my competencies. Firstly, the most important benefit of presenting a study in a conference is the ability to advocate for our science (i.e., our position in the research study and the academic field). Representing our field of interest allow other researchers, stakeholders in education system, and the public to become aware of innovative research that we generated. It is clear that we, as scholars, should share our research findings and the data with others who are not only in our field but also in other disciplines to rise the visibility of our research. That's why, attending and presenting in conferences provides me the chance to increase the visibility of my research. Therefore, the competency of advocating our science (position in the research study and the academic field) can be enhanced by attending and presenting at a conference and I feel now more comfortable with presenting my study and advocating my position in my research thanks to this experience. Besides, the conference experience helped me to improve how to talk about my study, including talking about my data that I collected. The reason for that is that graduate students can practice their presentation skills and develop the expertise required to discuss their research in meaningful way by presenting in a conference. This is highly beneficial for us, including doctoral dissertation defense as well. In conclusion, I firmly believe that attending and presenting in the conference (CSSE) offered a great number of experiences, skills, and abilities to me such as advocating my science and how to talk about my study (especially findings and data).
Challenges and Lessons Learned: I had a couple of challenges that I faced throughout the process, especially presenting my study in the CSSE conference. Firstly, I served in the conference as one of the reviewers, which was a fantastic experience for me. They provided graduate students an opportunity to be able to serve as reviewer. However, I faced some difficulties once I was serving as reviewer. For instance, I had never heard of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach in qualitative study, and I was supposed to research what it is and give a feedback about the study that I got. Secondly, I realized that talking about a quantitative data was harder than talking about a qualitative data. I tried to make my data as understandable and clear for participants in the conference; but, I was not expecting that it will be difficult to talk about the quantitative data. The last challenge was at the moment of presenting time. The first presenters extended their 20 minutes to 25-28 minutes, which affected later presenters' time including mine negatively. Because we needed to figure out the time problem and we must have had finished in less than 20 minutes. This was the most challenge for me to handle as soon as possible. On the other hand, there are some lessons that I have learned through the conference. The first and best lesson was for me to be ready for every circumstance. I should have several plans like plan B, plan C, etc. For instance, I could prepare 20 minutes, 15 minutes, and 10 minutes presentations as my first, second, and third plan respectively, once preparing my slides for the conference. It does not mean to prepare different slides; yet, it means to decide which slides I am going to use for 20 minutes presentation or 10 minutes presentation. In addition, I should more focus on findings and discussion rather than presenting literature review. I observed some presentations of qualified researchers and they talked about the literature for just 5 minutes, no more than that. They were preferring to present their result, process, and findings instead of focusing on literature. This was another lesson to me. Lastly, I got $100 as an award due to attending most of the sessions of the conference. Later, I noticed that I could have win an iPad pro or attending next year conference free if I had kept going to attend other sessions. This lesson had also motivated me even it is related to performance rather than academia 😊 I know it was just a little award but it had also other benefit, which was that I learned and could have learned many from presenters' studies and experiences.
Advice to Myself for Next Time: Considering whole experience above in the conference, I can advise to myself by focusing on three parts; contributing to my personal academic profile, presentation skills and being academically social. First of all, I need to contribute to my overall research profile (e.g., my CV) to be able to compete against other students for ideal jobs or post-doctoral positions. Besides, keeping doing presentations in scientific conferences will show that I regularly disseminate findings of my research studies to other scholars as well as follow up to date on the cutting-edge research of my field, which may be the deciding factor between other potential candidates and me. In terms of presentation part, I should more focus on how to talk about my data, including findings, methodology, and result of analysis. In addition, I should be ready for every unexpected situation; for instance, presenting my study in 15 minutes instead of 20 minutes. The last advice in this part would be to talk about the findings more than literature review during the presentation time. Lastly, regarding the part of being academically social, I would say that I should be willing to meet other researchers to increase my academic network so that I could benefit from other's experiences. In addition, we maybe could do research and publish a valuable work with the researchers that I have met together. Consequently, three advices to myself (contributing to my personal academic profile, presentation skills and being academically social) are vitally important for me to enhance my competencies for next time.