Overview of skyhoo on PostgraduateForum.com

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Signup date: 07 Oct 2014 at 10:05am

Last login: 27 Feb 2017 at 1:08pm

Post count: 33

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Done. Good Luck

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Quote From Eds:
...did you only need three people then...?!

Lol. Perhaps s/he was able to have found participants outside this forum.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

I think it wouldn't be a good option to complain about your supervisor. Even if there is a chance for that in some universities, it would surely reflect badly on this academic relationship with the supervisor, especially that as a supervisor she has a final judgement on your thesis. I think what might be practical is to avoid clashes with her as much as possible and to act wisely. Maybe you can try to focus on developing your thesis and apologize for tasks that you cannot fulfill.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Why not looking at it from a different angle! Since you have different background interests and experiences, this can be viewed positively. Try to identify yourself with the thing which you master the most, with what makes you called upon when needed.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Eds: loool.

rachb0905: I think it would take you much effort to keep adjusting your research to convince those in the department. Generally, it would be better if both (research interests and department) have commonalities.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Can you guys help me in figuring out how to measure validity? I have previously read about those correlations but I got lost. I will highly appreciate it.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Quote From abababa:
Presumably there was a rationale for doing both. I would imagine the interviews were there to provide qualitative insight to support or refute the quantitative data.

Whether this is needed, useless, or can be omitted depends very much on your hypothesis and research design. If your survey metric has been validated though other correlations, is well-designed, and has a sample appropriate for your analysis techniques (i.e. is not a fudged ANOVA of 30 Likert responses), then it may stand alone as a contribution worthy of a PhD. Similarly you can build a PhD purely on qualitative work but will have to defend other questions such as how representative the sample is, and how findings might generalise.

Surely if you have the data, a survey would be quick to analyse (though, admittedly, if you have 1,000 hand-filled papers rather than a SurveyMonkey report I'd see the problem). Since you've already undertaken the qualitative work, then if time really is an issue an option might be to pick several interviews as detailed case studies rather than report them all? If transcription is the problem then see if you have budget as a student to pay for this using a service.

Thanks a lot for this valuable comment. I will think it through.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

It is so unkind of them! But I would suggest that you take this negative experience as a challenge to change yourself a bit and face your fears of confronting others in social circles. This will give you a strong motivation to ignore their negative attitude towards you. So get prepared for your every meeting, try to drop your comments and if you got interrupted, don't despair. Imagine yourself in a lecture and take notes of their discussion. At the end of the day, those meetings will not continue forever, so in the meantime use this opportunity to change something in your personality that will stay within you forever. Struggle strenghthens people.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Quote From awsoci:
This is a question out of curiosity, but I've noticed that many students only have X amount of time to complete their write-up before submission.

Is it common for many PhDs to not write during the PhD but rather, just near the end? I ask because I was writing up as I was going along. By the end of my third year I had pretty much written everything up and revised a few times, and was in final revision mode, in which I had an additional 6 months to do so.

I'm just curious as to the system or circumstances that have left you in this unfortunate position. Is it the nature of the PhD that you're doing (such as experiments?) or the structure of the program, or lack of adequate supervision? This is by no means a form of judgement! I'm genuinely interested in the difference and wondering whether tailoring such programs need to be made for specific areas to allow more time for writing up for those in perhaps hard sciences or similar disciplines.

It depends on each one's circumstances. In PhD the path is not identical for everyone as in school years or Bachelor degree. Many things can pop up along the way, change of topic, delay of funds, extra responsibilities, issues or disagreement with supervisor, full-time work, etc.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Quote From awsoci:
This is a question out of curiosity, but I've noticed that many students only have X amount of time to complete their write-up before submission.

Is it common for many PhDs to not write during the PhD but rather, just near the end? I ask because I was writing up as I was going along. By the end of my third year I had pretty much written everything up and revised a few times, and was in final revision mode, in which I had an additional 6 months to do so.

I'm just curious as to the system or circumstances that have left you in this unfortunate position. Is it the nature of the PhD that you're doing (such as experiments?) or the structure of the program, or lack of adequate supervision? This is by no means a form of judgement! I'm genuinely interested in the difference and wondering whether tailoring such programs need to be made for specific areas to allow more time for writing up for those in perhaps hard sciences or similar disciplines.

I can understand that you are not being judegmental
[quote]Quote From awsoci:
This is a question out of curiosity, but I've noticed that many students only have X amount of time to complete their write-up before submission.

Is it common for many PhDs to not write during the PhD but rather, just near the end? I ask because I was writing up as I was going along. By the end of my third year I had pretty much written everything up and revised a few times, and was in final revision mode, in which I had an additional 6 months to do so.

I'm just curious as to the system or circumstances that have left you in this unfortunate position. Is it the nature of the PhD that you're doing (such as experiments?) or the structure of the program, or lack of adequate supervision? This is by no means a form of judgement! I'm genuinely interested in the difference and wondering whether tailoring such programs need to be made for specific areas to allow more time for writing up for those in perhaps hard sciences or similar disciplines.[/quo

It depends on each one's circumstances. In PhD the path is not identical for everyone as in school years or Bachelor degree. Many things can pop up along the way, change of topic, delay of funds, extra responsibilities, issues or disagreement with supervisor, full-time work, etc..

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

I agree with TreeofLife, pursuing a PhD for the sake of a better job doesn't seem a good idea. For doing a PhD, one should have a strong reason to devote a long period of one's life. A PhD would take more in the world of academia, and I understood, you want to increase your capacities for better and high ranking jobs. You can develop your skills and competence in your field by going for training courses, workshops and even doing another Master's degree..

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Quote From kikothedog:
Is it that you don't have the time for the second data set or that you think it's too much effort to add without it improving your thesis. I'm not sure I understand the problem properly, how long until you submit?

In fact it is both. But I cannot assume that it won''t improve it. It will definitely do, but the outcome might not be equivalent to time loss. At the end of the day, I feel that I need to find a way out and think of practical solutions to finish writing up in less than five months. I still have other chapters to write..

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Ok I will do it for you later at night.

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

The analysis of interview data would take a month at least, and it was intended to reply to and support a secondary research question. That is why I was thinking to drop it. But I don't know if it is possible, and I am hesitant to ask the supervisor because I am worried that he gets the impression that things are not under control and that might weaken my argument in front of him. Some pieces of advice and thoughts plssss

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skyhoo 33 posts
9 years ago

Hello,
It seems that those "symptoms" are spreading among us all "the PhD students". I have to complete writing up in less than five months. I have been in a similar situation like yours recently. I went through a hard time of despair and frustration. But I kept pushing myself on, and I decided to "try" to stop thinking about how much time is left and how much work is yet to be done. I realized that what has passed (in terms of effort and time) is worth sacrificing what is yet to come.
So keep pushing yourself and don't quit. We will be able to finish and succeed.
All the best.

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