I'm not sure about prospects of getting Phd in education without a pgce, but i do know getting a job in teaching at the moment can be difficult. My OH qualified 2 years ago and has been unable to get a post to do his nqt year, and he is by no means alone in this. If you were going to go down the pgce route I'd check out the job situation where you're based. Where we are jobs are coming up for sept but are getting 70 to 100 applicants per post!

That's fantstic after all you've been through. :-)

My experience of sending out a broad email invivtation to participate in research, is that they don't seem to work. I also had a clinical population who were recruited through clinics, and were motivated to participate because they wanted more to be known about their condition. It was the control participants who were harder to find, and the tended to end up being people I had some sort of link to.

Incentives are fairly widely used in Psychology. I didn't pay my participants but I work at an MRI centre where financial incentives seem to be the norm. I have read some stuff about paying people to do research actually reducing people's willingness if it is a small token gesture it's seen as "not worth it" as they don't feel adequately compensated, whereas not paying people means they participate to feel they've made a difference. Really sorry I can't give you a reference as I read a number of books about the same time on rationality, irrationality and behavioural economics.

Good luck getting your sample. I think it can be one of the hardest thangs about research.

Thanks for the advice Ady. I can afford to wait IF I do find a post soon, or have a back up plan for post submission where I'll be earning enough to live on.

Good luck with getting short listed. I seem to be good at doing applications but then bad at getting past the interview stage! Took me 8 interviews to get my PhD! But then I did apply for everything and anything that sounded vaguely interesting and I guess that lack of knowledge or enthusiasm comes though at interview......which neatly leads me back to current dilemma! Still if I have time guess it's worth putting in applications rather than wondering about the "what if...." and cross the do I really want this job bridge later!

I'm another one in the job hunting phase.... three applications recently, two interviews, no job :-(

Anyway I was wondering how wide other people spread their net...I've seen a couple of jobs recently, that aren't perfect but are things I could do (both academic jobs). Is it better to hold off for a better suited job, or go for everthing and anything? I'm not submitting til September so can hold off for a while, but am fearful of getting there and the ideal job not turning up.

Yep...I know how you feel.
Four months to go and I often think my PhD is a pile of wank! Not sure I can publish any of it.....can see all the ways I SHOULD have done things...if only I could go back I could have an amazing PhD! Still my supervisors seem to think it's good. I alternate between thinking I should stop worrying, and thinking they don't know what they're talking about!

I woke up in a panic last week that it would be impossible to finish by sept. I'm at the end of my forth year, and I haven't managed to find out what actually happens if I don't finish by then.

I still darent check the deadline this summer thread incase everyone on there is so much further along than me.

I told my sup I'd send him two finished chapters tommorrow. Now sitting here knuckling down to it having spent the weekend doing other stuff :$

Good luck getting it done. I want to finish soon so I can relax a bit before bed.....but somehow I'm on here instead!

i do find that when my brain isn't working doing something else (like surfing the web) does kinda help...... maybe not for two hours! But it is the sort of thing I do! Anyway get a cuppa and get on with it! :p

Well I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one. Seems to be a weird bug in there then.

Anyway thought I'd put another question out there. I use APA 5th referencing style. Does anyone know an easy way of changing the style to -

Catalinbond (2011) found that using endnote did not increase productivity.

Rather than the default. It has been shown that using endnote did not increase productivity (Catalinbond, 2011).

The only way I've been able to do it in the past is to uncouple the dicument from endnote and then make the changes. Which is ok but means you can't do it til the very end and then can't make further changes.

Endnote has suddenly started struggling with any date beyone 2009. Anyone else had this sort of problem and know what to do about it? I import my references from pubmed of web of science, and though the rest of the resference imports fine every time the year published is 2010 or 2011 it leaves it blank.

Isn't too bad as I can type it in by hand but is a bit annoying.

gggr endnote!

I've just come back from a conference and found a large range of clothing. Some people in suits, some more casual. I was the only person I noticed in flip flops though :$ so think maybe they're not the best conference attire! still I don't think anyone else noticed and they certainly didn't comment.

Congratulations! I'm finding viva stories give me goose bumps now.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but I organise my PDFs by topic, starting broad and getting specific. I can pretty mcuh find whatever I want (only problem is when an artical covers more than one topic area....but if I was starting again I think I'd duplicate and put it in both). You could do the same within a spreadsheet too or have a topic area so you could the sort by topic to find things.

I agree with Melsie.

OK no one can argue that it's better to be less sedentary, but I think it's probably a bit more complicated than they make out. Plus what about sleeping? Aren't there a whole lot of studies that show sleeping for longer is better for you? but surely whilst lying down you're using even less energy?!

Congratulations. I hope to join that club in a few months. Good luck with the viva prep.

I don't think you'd need to secure your bedroom door. Any party I've ever had or been to people didn't just wander into other people'd bedrooms uninvited. If you're worried though you could hide your valuables just for your own peace of mind.... unless you're more bothered by people being in your room rather than stealing stuff.

Also if you don't have plans you might actually enjoy being about and staying for some of the party. Not everyone will be really drunk, particularly at the beginning of the night. Then means you can keep an eye on your room, and hide in there if it meets your worst expectations!