Making Sense of Theory: A Doctoral Student’s Narrative of Conceptualizing a Theoretical Framework

Making sense of theory plays an essential role in the life of a doctoral student. This

autoethnographic study explores how I made sense of educational theory while conceptualizing

the theoretical framework for my PhD proposal. A diary that I kept while designing the proposal

serves as the data source to examine how my thinking about theory evolved. Findings

demonstrate that the development of my thinking was a complex and circular process that

progressed through nine phases. A particular challenge of conceptualizing a theoretical

framework was the tight timeframe in which the proposal needed to be completed in order to

start collecting data for my doctoral research. The paper concludes with a discussion about

implications for language teacher educators and PhD supervisors.