In the social sciences participatory research, that can include action research, is a valid design to use, especially if your doing community focused research. In terms of doing a PhD with action research, in principle I cannot see the problem. infact the professor who supervised my PhD had previously supervised an action research based PhD. Although he did say the key to success was that the action research led to a clear and validatable change in practice in the organisation/community in which the research took place, as I could not achieve that I moved to a case study. if you keenly interested in action research I would push ahead with your PhD and identify a potential supervisor who understands the methodology.

Hi MJ,

Wow I have never known such a fast turnaround from submission to viva. If you honestly feel you won't be at your best for the viva that quickly, I agree you should ask for the viva to be delayed. Remember though you and your supervisor want the same thing! So your supervisor would not have done this unless they thought you are ready. Interestingly I know a number of people who would want to swap places with you - the longer the gap the worse the nerves seem to get and the more doubts set in.

It is also important to remember the poster and presentation is really to benefit you! It will give you something to talk around in the viva, you are not going to pass or fail based on the poster or the presentation.

good luck with your viva.

I am not sure what area you researching, but to be honest I think it is unacceptable. As a supervisor I always agree a feedback date with my students and as I expect them to stick to agreed deadlines I also stick to feedback dates. For me, depending on the size of the draft it varies between two and four weeks and I always diary a follow up meeting to discuss feedback. Moreover universities are now prescribing feedback turnaround times for academics of between two and three weeks. The other thing to remember is that despite of your supervisors 'various roles' they will have been given time to supervise you and to provide feedback.

Moving forwards, I agreed complaints are never pleasant and can be damaging to the relationship you have with your supervisor but sometimes you have little choice. It is clear you have tried talking to your supervisor with little effect, have you approached your second supervisor? Alternatively I would have a chat with your students union to see what they advise.

I don't think you should be discouraged by the fact they did not pick up on little errors. From my experience it is unusual for this to happen in academic interviews. As an interviewer, I might have asked for clarification of points in a presentation, but I would not have asked you a question and emphasised the errors in your answer. I suspect the interviewers will have made notes on each candidates performance and allocated a score (explicit process insisted upon by HR). On this basis the best candidate will be offered the post. The reason for the nodding etc is to encourage you and keep you going, as the interviewers are aware that interviews can be stressful. By nodding I find candidates feel at ease and will expand a lot more on the point they are making thus showing the depth and breadth of their understanding.

So is this the answer to the problem then? Delete a thread complaining about spam with a large number of replys rather than post a detailed response to how your going to deal with the problems. Please enlighten us - I joined this forum in 2008, it would be a shame to have to terminate my membership under these circumstances.

I think it is time to review this editorial policy "We deliberately limit the number of moderators to help keep the editorial policy of the Forum consistent" because whilst consistency is essential, I suspect more moderators would help remove this deluge of spam especially at the weekend.

As the person who started this thread, before anybody asks I have emailed the team separately from my university email account (showing I am genuine) offering my services free of charge for weekend spam patrol.

Thanks Reenie, anything your web development team can do would be very much appreciated.

Can someone please be more proactive in policing the spam posted on the forum it is really starting to detract from this forums usefulness. May I kindly suggest you identify more people to act as moderators to delete this rubbish quicker!

This is due to the university regulations I would expect. My university does not allow students to study concurrent qualifications, this may explain why they have made the offer they did. With a conditional offer they can be sure the module has been completed. it would be worth contacting the course leader though to discuss the situation given the overlap is only two weeks.

It is really going to depend on your supervisor, I would say you should have some say on the examiners. I remember my supervisor suggesting some names and asking what I thought before he made the approaches - that all turned out fine! I think it is important your comfortable with the choices but it is even more essential that your supervisor knows them. Neither you nor your supervisor want any suprises at the viva!

The purpose of this request, I would think, is really just to check that your writing or have the ability to write at level 8 (PhD level). In which case I would personally take the longer 4,000 word document. I remember being asked something very similar when I started my PhD. I would not worry so much about the mark the work received, but make sure you correct any typos etc!

I would email both and see if they would be willing to meet for a chat about your ideas. I personally would not have an issue with this if you emailed me and another colleague directly - but make sure they both know you emailed the other! Although if your looking for a funded PhD, they are not likely to be in a position to make these sort of offers. At my university (a post 92) this is a faculty decision with the studentship (no matter now funded) being externally advertised and recruited to by HR.

I think I am coming to this debate a little late as it sounds like your moving to a decision. Not sure of your field, but mine is vocational and mainly taught in post-1992 universities. I did my PhD via part-time study taking five years and fitting it around work, it is achievable so don't give up the job!

I share any office with a colleague who holds a EdD, and I am supervising an EdD candidate who specialises in my area. To be honest I don't see much difference in rigour, it is more the nature of the claims to a contribution which differentiate the two, with the EdD you will contribute to practice more than theory. Publications wise it makes no difference, especially give the impact dimension of REF now making practice focused research more important. Benefits wise year 1 & 2 of the EdD are taught (which helps!) as it gives you a good grounding in philosophy and methodology (IMO from what I have seen) you will still have a thesis to write and you still have an equally challenging viva. So choosing between the two is really about you, which you would prefer (more or less structure?) and ultimately what your researching. Indeed when I did my PhD my supervisor had a student who transferred from EdD to PhD - same topic etc without an issue so don't feel restricted either.
If you want any more advice get in touch.

Assuming this is a PhD, you will need to articulate a philosophical position for the work, so using this you can then argue a pluralist methodology (mixed) with the two stages you identified. Personally as a mixed methods researcher I would lay out the work as you suggest in the second option, but discuss the relevant data collection and analysis aspects in the related results chapter. In the discussion you then need to show how these two stages of data collection link to a specific objective or how they triangulate. Hope that helps.