On Monday, our group attended a workshop on research poster design to support our development of our own academic research poster for the Laidlaw Scholars Conference in October.
On Wednesday, we met with our Graduate Impact Advisor to discuss the progress that we had made in developing our methodology and literature review. We also discussed next steps with our stakeholder, the RLT, as we have yet to receive the anonymised student data that we requested from them last week, and thus are unable to move forward with analysis. Our GIA was satisfied with our methodology but urged us to expand more upon our motivations in the literature review.
On Thursday, there was an opportunity to connect with the rest of our cohort at the Oxford SDG Impact Lab’s art club.
This week concluded with a talk by Anjali Sarker from the Oxford Character Project on justice and equity.
Next week, we will attend a talk by Laidlaw Scholar Arav Bhattacharya introducing us to next year’s Leadership in Action Project and letting us know what to expect from the Laidlaw Scholars Conference.
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Amy, this provides a clear account of the team’s Week 5 activity and the remaining challenge around access to the anonymised student data. It is encouraging that your Graduate Impact Advisor was satisfied with the methodology and helped identify where the literature review needs further development.
When expanding the team’s motivations, try to move beyond explaining why the topic is generally important. The literature review should establish what is already known, what remains uncertain or overlooked, and how your particular research question responds to that gap. This will help connect the literature, methodology, and intended contribution of the report.
As the requested student data has still not arrived, the team should now agree a clear contingency plan. Decide when the data would need to arrive for it to be checked and analysed responsibly, what conclusions can be supported without it, and how its absence will be reported as a limitation. Research leadership sometimes means adapting the intended output rather than rushing analysis or overstating what incomplete evidence can show.
I would encourage you to make the final reflection less about listing the week’s activities and more about your response to them. For example, did the poster workshop change how you understand the project’s central message? What did the art session reveal about creativity, rest, or working without fear of judgement? Did the discussion of justice and equity challenge any assumptions or connect with decisions your team has made?
The strongest reflections usually move through three stages: what happened, why it mattered, and what you will do differently as a result. As you enter the final week, I would be particularly interested in what you have learned about working with uncertainty, collaborating with an external stakeholder, and your own contribution to the team.
You have a solid foundation here. The next step is to make more of your own thinking visible within it.