What a nice story Mog. Thanks for sharing it :)

Have to agree with both of you on two counts esp.

1 It is certainly true that a part-time PhD is a completely different animal to a full-time one-very different animal indeed but no less worthwhile.

2 For the part-time phder with a full time job social life and bags under one's eyes seem to form a balancing partnership or see saw relationship-as the one rises so the other falls and vice versa!

I don't think you will be the first phd student to have done this, so I wouldn't get too anxious but instead, maybe divert some of that anxious energy into getting back into work mode pronto and making up some time. :)

Very sorry to hear of your problems. My advice would be to seek professional legal advice if you can at all afford it. Even if you could afford a couple of sessions. I am not talking about the student union, or the university support person here but a soliciter or lawyer who may be able to represent you, and also to argue your case.

I am not suggesting taking them to court (expensive and difficult) but
1 -making sure they have done everything by the book, and
2 then if they appear to have done so, mediating on your behalf to get a better deal. (Even if finally this is a reduction in fees owed or similar).

As well as this being incredibly hard on you, it must also be very hard to still be separated from your wife. I hope things improve-but if this were me, and I had truly the same issues-as you have outlined above-, I would seek a professional legal opinion.

Congratulations Satchi-wonderful news and well done! :) Best of luck with Viva-(I'm sure you will be great).

HI S_David, I still believe that finding an alternative 'brainstormer' or person to help you decide on which 'extension' you will follow might be really helpful. Is there no one in your department or area who you can 'tease' things out with (apart from your supervisor) or who will listen to you as you explore these ideas. You do have to finally decide for yourself what it is you will do-but that doesn't mean people can't assist you to work this out by actually exploring all of the avenues with you. It would be great if that person was your supervisor-but obviously your supervisor is not much help to you in this way, so maybe there is someone else out there who can be? If not in the university where you work perhaps in a more specific forum-or something similar? (Or you could try placing a new thread on this forum that highlights your query with your field outlined, so that you get more specific responses from people in similar fields in this one)

If, (and this might be a big if) you are not a 'big picture thinker' naturally, that doesn't mean you can or never do think this way-it only means it is a bit harder to do so-not impossible at all. And you may tend to be a 'detailed', meticulous thinker who puts things together 'step by step', but very quickly in an 'adhd' sort of way, so you get lots of little ideas but nothing connected. Having that sort of thinking does not mean that you should not believe in the worth of your own ideas or that they would lead to nothing, if you explored them further.

Is there a possibility that you could offer a comparitive review of some of the processes and extensions you mention-where your PhD is an informative sort of overview of a number of similar processes or issues occurring in your field-or is that sort of thing not appropriate in your area?

I hope I am not demotivating you or adding to your woes with this reply. Good luck and don't give up.

Hi S_David, just making a clarification with regard to your concern. PhD topics don't tend to make any major contribution to anything by way of research. And, I've found, that many supervisors only help with a bit of reading, some minor advice or guidance and editing-certainly mine were/are like that (both for masters and phd).

With regard to a phd it is usually a very minor contribution that you end up making A different angle or slant on a topic or a different perspective -well it often is in social or applied sciences anyway. You haven't mentioned experiments (as in hard science) but you have said that you are reading quite a bit of literature and that you have presented a seminar.

(So I'm guessing you might be in humanities, professional studies or applied science, or social science disciplines???But I could be wrong...)

(When he says "what is your contribution, compared to what has been done in the literature")It seems as if your supervisor is trying to help you work out the little slant or gap that has not really been explored in all of the literature that you have read.

Do you have a research question/s or statement or hypothesis to begin with? When you read your literature, what does it all say compared to your original proposal, questions or hypotheses? Or if you are working on a technical problem or question-what has the literature said about that-what sort of data have you collected and what is the 'story of that data'?

Can you compare your questions to all of the data/information gathered from your reading and when you do-are there any aspects of your question or topic that have not really been addressed in the literature you are reading? These unanswered or unexplored little areas may then become your topic.

If I were you though, I would see whether there was anyone else in the department I could talk to-not to complain about my supervisor-but to see whether they could help me clarify what my key purpose was, and create a plan to move forward with my dissertation. Many universities appoint two supervisors or a committee-and it is perfectly okay to approach the second supervisor or committee member for advice and support if you need to.

Congratulations Zipidee!! Wonderful news for you and a really interesting and useful guide to the viva. Thanks and well done! :)

Oh, it is one of those language things...difference between UK and Australia perhaps. Or maybe just my own university. You must be so happy to be almost through...well done for all of your hardwork, talent, persistence and drive. Bet you can't wait for the final moment of submission :)

Hi Petalouda-I need to clarify-this seminar just presented, plus poster presentation, interview and major piece of writing submission is not my viva.

It is for the one year confirmation of candidature process (due 11 months after full time phd and 22 months for a part-time). I am a part-time student who has a very full-time and demanding job, so my phd will take around 6 years rather than 3-4.

I would be over the moon if it was my viva. Presently though I am in data collection mode and will be for the next 18 months before going into formal write-up, so my real viva will not be until around 2016.

Thanks very much for your support though. I posted the information just because I know how worrying the whole qualitative methods thing can be and thought the process might be helpful. I was very pleased with the response to my confirmation of candidature seminar from the audience of academics and some RA's but it wasn't my viva.

Thanks though for your very generous and positive reply. Good luck with your own process and viva, which I believe is much closer than mine?

Hi Petalouda, thanks for your kind wishes. My seminar presentation went really well and gave me the momentum to get through the last two hell weeks at work, so that I can spend an uninterrupted 9 days on my study during the break.

I have two weeks off-gave myself a complete weekend break-am just clocking the last of three days of work for my paid employment-catch up from admin I could not complete during term time and tomorrow will go onto the study and some final confirmation tasks before all of that is finalised. Got to polish a major piece of writing (my lit review), prepare a poster for a graduate research semimar and prepare for the formal interview. 9 days -can I do it? I think so...but they might be very long days.

The feedback I received from academics who attended the seminar was that they liked my rigorous approaach to the methodology-and to really examining the theory behind my selection and matching it to the sort of questions I was researching. The quantitative academic who really finds qualitative stuff 'fuzzy'-was happy with my methods to some extent but wanted me to extend my survey so that the study really was a mixed methods study-and I think I am going to take his advice. Getting people to do the survey is like pulling teeth! So I might just have to put it out there to a much broader group-just have to amend my ethics submission.

They were less interested in specific stuff regarding phenomenological methods-more interested in number of participants (but happy with my justifications) and types of questions-why was I doing observations -but happy that I was-and also that I should go back for second interviews-something I thought of myself as well. Finally they liked that my understanding of definitions was that they were really 'grey' and believed that I needed to make sure that I was absolutely clear about what shades of 'grey' I was going to look at.

But it was a good experience and what I took from it was not to be afraid about not following a specific outlined methodology to the letter but following the data and the story of the data and being very true to that-adapting my methods along the way, but understanding and knowing why I had to adapt them, so that I could defend this approach.

Hope all has gone well with you since the last post as well.

Sorry to hear about your family not wishing to be at graduation Pineapple. Best wishes for a wonderful graduation and research life to follow...P

Not doing a MBA and this comment does have to do with time-management but rather indirectly-more to do with how others might perceive your 'release time'. I'm posting this because it is one of the things that impacts on my own use of time during 'blocks'.

Block release and block study work very well for part-time research degrees. Just make sure though that when you get your blocks-you put your other work aside completely.

You can get a huge amount done in a concentrated chunk of time as long as you do not allow your other 'work' responsibilities and commitments to infringe on your blocks.

It makes sense to do this but sometimes it can be harder than you initially think. In my own workplace people took a bit of getting used to the 'I actually really have to focus completely on 'this study' during this period-I'm not available for 'that work or that social activity just at this moment' kind of discussion sometimes.

Given that you are 'released' from work this may not be a problem for you...most of my block time occurs during holidays and long weekends and a scattering of 'leave days' over the year and people don't understand how much research and writing you might have to do at these times.

I don't mean be a hermit either-just respect your study as much as your work (and the socialisation that can occur around work or friends). Eg: if you are home all week writing something up, you need uninterrupted periods of time to focus-you are not available for coffee, etc at any given minute at the drop of a hat. These sorts of things can be scheduled into breaks and time off, just as you would if you were at work.

I don't like saying 'no' so when I have sometimes turned something down or asked someone if I could get back to them after my work was complete-it has felt awkward at times-I've learned to just sit with the feeling and continue on working. It has something to do with learning to take your study and postgraduate research seriously-and because it is a choice-not a necessity-sometimes if feels hard to justify.

Good luck though-it sounds as if you have some excellent support from your workplace :)
Should be an exciting time for you...congratulations also on receiving your offer-well done!

Hi Politics, I think you are describing a phenomenon that is quite common. I tend to hate my writing after any major writing task for PhD (and this was also true for Masters thesis). It all seemed to be boring, mundane, clunky, confused, repetitive- you name it-as I wrote and revised, these sorts of thoughts were slipping through my mind constantly.

But finally, i told (or tell myself) to 'just do it!' So what...in the end it needs to be functional, legible, logical prose which outlines a hypothesis, or tells a research story or explains some data within a given context from a new perspective...that's it.

Later on when reading things after a long break, some of the writing doesn't seem that bad. My Master's supervisor told me she hated her PhD and left it in a cupboard for more than a year before she could bear to look at it. I'm sure others feel the same at times...remember you are not writing the next Pulitzer Prize winning novel or submitting for the Nobel Prize for a ground breaking idea (even if we all secretly hoped for this once upon a time in our niaive youth).

There are many academics in the world and many writers and finally most of us would just hope that we have made sense, that our ideas are clear and valid and that some (or many) people read what we have to say and it wasn't a waste of time for them to do so.
Don't be to harsh on yourself...just do it!

Petalouda, just looking at your comment about the small number of participants-it isn't only pedagogical phenomenology that uses a small number of participants. Other qualitative methods do as well. If you are looking at very rich data and really analysing this in an intensive way then it is justified keeping your number of participants to a manageable sum, as a greater number of participants may interfere with the depth and richness of the data.

For example, I plan to use between 9-12 participants only in my study. I am hoping to set up three separate research sites, all three have cultural and structural similarities but will also have some uniqueness as all three are somewhat isolated institutions in small regional centres. These sites will represent different cases to some extent. I hope to have between three to four participants from each site and given the rigorous nature of data analysis, couldn't imagine going completing all of the processes or methods of analysis if I had many more participants (well not in a doctoral study anyway). Thus far I have only one 'set up site' with participants. The other two are not terribly interested but I know I will be able to work with them if I really put in the hours. However, my plan is to work with the current site and participants (the institution and participants are relatively cooperative and welcoming) and then when I have finished collecting the data from this one, move on to the next one-and so on.

I'm planning on using phenomenology (after Moustakas) as a model for analysis and to provide me with a method but the set up is sort of like a multiple case study and I'm hoping to blend bits of both together. Not sure how but I just have the instinct that this is the way to go.

If you don't worry too much about having other back up journal articles to support the pedagogical focus, but go back to the philosophy (Heigegger) and to Van Manen himself, to Creswell as well, you should have ample evidence to justify your approach. Also type in 'phenomenology of practice' as that seems to bring up another line of Van Manen as well.
(Although you may already have found this).

I have my confirmation of candidature seminar next Friday and have to justify my own research design, etc at that, so I'll let you know how it goes down. I'm hoping it is alright. I prepared a presentation a couple of weekends ago but have not had a chance to do more as work has been so intense-so finger's crossed I survive unscathed!

Happy to form a group but my phenomenology approach will be more of an adapted model based on Moustakas (and a form of case study approach). Sorry that I can't be of assistance with regard to research on Van Manen's approach.

My personal observations are that it uses pedagogy as a term of reference in a way that is a little different to how many educators understand it. It also seems to present a highly sensitive, respectful and creative way of working with participants or respondents but in doing so, it appears to be very difficult to report on results in any way other than a very individualistic perspective (which might be why the take up and research articles are not common). This doesn't mean it is a poor method-but perhaps one that is not always as productive for researchers who want their findings to appeal to a broader audience.

Just my opinion though...there will be other perspectives and who is to say that the findings that stem from using this approach are not highly valuable and interesting.
Best regards P.