Building trust was a massive element in my interviews - I approached participants through a wider support group - which gave me the legitimacy I needed. you could also try something as simple as making them a cup of tea!

Also - do check your questions, a friend of mine doing a PhD showed me their interview questions and they were ALL either leading questions or closed questions. Make sure questions start with e.g. why, what, where, how and you'll be able to elicit more findings.

I'd jump on any offers you get - there aren't many about!

I'm late I'm late! its 5.04!

Ok, so my main task tonight is to submit one of my chapters as a publication to a journal. I have a few changes to make and I have to run some stats on it boooooo because I might have mucked them up :-(

bad luck, I've had a series of dreams where me and Jake Gyllenhal are sharing a flat :-x :$ Haven't told hubby that though, although Jake is RUBBISH at helping with the PhD.

I managed to get a very little bit done on my PhD last night. I want to do more tonight, so HAVE to finish my RA goals before 5 (preferrably before then and then work on PhD without sup noticing 8-) )

I managed to do about 200 words, but it involved a lot of thinking abotu what I was going to say, so tonight should be easier to get more done (up)

My RA work is supposedly 20 hours per week, but it takes over

My RA job has taken me away from my studies. Its time to fight back!

I'm now working 5-9 on my PhD!

And I'll report back here about what I've managed to achieve.

I should be on my last few months now, so may use this instead of my goal thread. Anyone is welcome to join me in my little 5-9 club :-)

I'm in my fourth year and still have a thesis to write - you are not alone!!!

My hubby went to a technical writing course for his work recently - and there advice was...

"just bash it out" (much to the amusement of my immature hubby)

But the phrase has stuck with me (because of hubby laughing about it every 2 seconds) and I tried it! and it worked!

Having said that, I still have a ton to write - but getting *something* done, even if its just a paragraph is a great feeling.

made NO progress today at all due to data issues. Problem is, if I admit that to sup, she won't pay me for today. But she's just phoned to say she wants a copy of what I've been doign by tonight = frenzied panic when hubs gets home (as I need him to do clever stuff in excel to get the right data for me) and spenidng all night doing work :-(

I have a love for dropbox and knows no bounds :$ well, the only annoying thing with it is that I can't download the actual box to my uni computer - as I'm not an administrator on it, but you can still download it offline.

So I used dropbox, I also have 3 external hard drives (2 x 1tb and one 80gb) - so I backup dropbox to them once a week. - I have a huge fear that the dropbox company will suddenly go out of business over night or something and steal all my data.

also its obviously not great if you have highly confidential data.

I also back up my writing on googledocs.

ooh I'd be careful there Batfink, I had a few participants like that.

I'd be very very clear about confidentiality and anonymity - get them to signed an informed consent form (if you don't anyway) and give them a copy of the confidentiality info - i.e. how you treat and store the data.

I had one person that tried to complain abotu an interview to the uni - luckily the uni recognised that I'd done everything in accordance with ethical guidelines - I think this person was just trying to be difficult :-s

ooh I'd be careful there Batfink, I had a few participants like that.

I'd be very very clear about confidentiality and anonymity - get them to signed an informed consent form (if you don't anyway) and give them a copy of the confidentiality info - i.e. how you treat and store the data.

I had one person that tried to complain abotu an interview to the uni - luckily the uni recognised that I'd done everything in accordance with ethical guidelines - I think this person was just trying to be difficult :-s

Hi all,

I'm having a weird issue at the mo. I actually *want* to do PhD work! - but I have NO time :-( This week I have to work 6 days towards another project and at the weekends I've been working flat out with hubby to get his PhD done. And when I go onto mine in the evenings, he starts moaning that we haven't spent any time together relaxing.

So my weekdays are all other work, weekends are his work, then I have to sit and watch tv otherwise he gets in a mood :-( I've tried explaining about how little I'm getting done during the week, but he just says I should prioritise my time better - not helpful considering my sup is my sup and my boss for the other work, so she just piles it on.

ah well. Today's first goal:

open SPSS!

My understanding is that PCA is exploratory FA, so it will look for latent factors - which will be the ones produced in your rotated matrix at the end.

What SPSS doesn't do is confirmatory FA, this is used once you have your factors and want to confirm they still apply/apply to a different sample. You can do this using Mplus, AMOS or Lisreal, but not SPSS.

(I think anyway!)