“PhD – is an immense responsibility”

Assel Kambatyrova is a postdoctoral student at NU Graduate School of Education. She graduated from the GSE Doctoral Program in Education in 2020. Today Assel works on ‘Building Capacity for Teaching and Research in STEM Teacher Education in Kazakhstan: A Research-Practice Partnership’ project. 

1. Please tell us about your thesis topic. Why did you decide to study it? 

The topic of my doctoral dissertation was “Parents’ language ideologies in the context of trilingual education policy in Kazakhstan”. By the time I entered the doctoral program in 2016, I had been working as a junior researcher in the science department at the Graduate School of Education at NU for several years. I was involved in research projects in the field of secondary education, which were carried out in cooperation with our partner university – the University of Cambridge. The master’s thesis, which I wrote at the University of Sheffield in 2014, also focused on the topic of trilingual education. So, when the time came to think about the topic of my doctoral dissertation, I thought about changing the focus of my research. However, since I spent a lot of time researching this area, I decided to continue working in this direction. Then, one day, I saw a video on Facebook featuring a parent talking about new textbooks for primary school students. It got me thinking that this segment of the population, I mean parents, are not always involved in the discussion of educational reforms, although their opinion is of great importance.

Thus, I decided that I would research the opinion of parents regarding trilingual education in secondary schools. The results of the study showed that, in general, parents support the policy of trilingual education, but believe that teaching in English, Kazakh and Russian should be introduced gradually in order to avoid negative results. Parents highly appreciate the knowledge of three languages their children have, among which the Kazakh language is associated with ethnicity and is recognized as important for work, communication and travelling around the country. The Russian language is considered important for international communication. The English language is associated with the wide range of opportunities it provides for employment, education, communication and travelling. However, according to parents, studying subjects in English can be problematic, since not all children have a sufficient level of English to successfully study the subject. Parents’ language ideologies varied according to the type of school, geographic location, age, ethnicity, language, income level, and education.

I really hope that my research findings will be useful to policy makers, trilingual curriculum developers, school principals, teachers, parents, and students. For example, parents’ scepticism about studying subjects in English and the importance of having, in their opinion, ‘giftedness and abilities for successful learning in English’, suggest that representatives of government agencies responsible for implementing reforms and programme developers should pay attention to this factor. Trilingual schools today are schools that select students based on their academic achievement and ability, which means that these students are more likely to cope with learning in English without facing significant challenges. Whereas students in regular, general education schools may require a special curriculum and certain approaches to learning in English, – approaches that are different from those used in specialized schools.

2. What, in your opinion, influences the success of the dissertation research?

I believe that the success of dissertation process largely depends on the doctoral student, in particular, on their interests, dedication, discipline and ability to set priorities in the learning process. In addition, supervisors and family also contribute to the successful dissertation process. I was lucky in this regard. Throughout the entire process, from the beginning of my doctoral programme to my dissertation defense, my supervisors (Bridget Goodman and Daniel Torrano), as well as my family members were very supportive. The favourable conditions created at NU for doctoral students were also of great importance for the successful completion of the work: the library with international databases access; the opportunity to participate in international and local conferences and present preliminary research results to receive feedback from other participants; and an internship at the partner university, which allowed me to use their library resources and work closely with external academic advisors.

3. Tell us about your plans for the future?

Now I work as a postdoctoral student on a new project under the guidance of Bridget Goodman, Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Education at NU. I also plan to continue scientific research in the field of trilingual education, since in the process of working on my dissertation a lot of questions arose that require further study. Thus, the results of the study showed the need for additional research of the opinions of parents from rural areas, since their beliefs can be strikingly different from urban parents’ answers due to a number of factors. I believe that studying this question is very important for a comprehensive coverage of this topic.

4. What would you advise to future doctoral students?

 First of all, I would recommend that future doctoral students choose the topic for research that is really interesting to them, since they will have to work on it for the next 4-5 years. And this is a rather long period that requires a lot of dedication, during which they may experience breakdowns, apathy and unwillingness to continue to work on their dissertation. If you are working on a topic that is interesting to you, then I think it is much easier to overcome such mood swings. You always need to set deadlines, even if they are not set by your supervisors, since the timely completion of the programme is important. There shouldn’t be any exceptions, you should try to write every day, no matter what the circumstances are, because sometimes we just want to justify our procrastination. In my case, discipline was the key to success. If you decide to enroll in the programme, you must think carefully about everything, as you will have to work very hard, read and write constantly, which can affect your social life. But all these difficulties can be managed.