Not really a fan of mytomatoes - it reminds me just how long working for 25 minutes straight is!:$

Morning, Sneaks. Thanks you very much for the PM. I'm going to send you a very nice mixed methods book. I've will have used a lot of techniques, all with their own theoretical considerations and methods that need describing and it just seems so stupid (even though it's probably not) to stick it all in a methodology chapter - it'll be huge if I do. Plus with trying to show how the questionnaire is put together in each of the phases...I'll have the methodology that describes the entire thing and it'll be really unwieldy and much more difficult to follow. I'll have phase 1 and then the methods (descriptive phenomenology), which will need describing, plus the rules and conventions I used to write the items. Then I'll have phase 2 concerning item selection, the method I used for this and then the pre-testing method. Then phase 3 and all the methods I used for that. I'm not sure how I can hope to plonk that all in one chapter. There's always the linking with the appendix, but that'll already be full. I'm going to have a meeting with my supervisors I think, see what they think and argue if necessary.
The Wham bar was okay, but they've changed the recipe, it didn't have many fizzy bits in it and the cold weather made it extremely crunchy. I've had better Wham bars to be honest.

Thank you both Rick and Joyce for you helpful comments; it's much appreciated. This is really food for thought and I'm really struggling to think about the best way of going forward with my methodology. To me, it just seems more logical to discuss the overall methodology and then have the individual methods and results described for each individual phase - I think it would flow better. But the, as you say Joyce, there is convention. Hopefully, there is also more than one way to skin a cat.

Pack it in kids, or I shall punish you by making you write my ethics bit for mi thesis! I hate ethics, absolutely hate it. I think it's, erm, unethical to have to write about ethics.

Sneaks, do you use Microsoft Office 2007? If so, it's possible to save it as a pdf directly from that. You may not have the little add-on though to do it, but you can get it free from Microsoft Office online. I'm not sure about the best place to print it but at A0 you're looking at a charge of about £25-£30 - ouch.

Happy New Year, Sneaks. Yes, I think you can print as A0 or A1 with Powerpoint, but I find it never comes out like it looks on screen. So what I'd do is save it as a pdf and then use Adobe Acrobat to print it out at that size. That's what I've done in the past with posters for conferences. There's less chance of anything going wrong.

Hi Joyce, thanks for your input on this. I'm not sure what mixed methods model you might have used in your research, but I've adopted a sequential exploratory mixed methods design to design a questionnaire and it's comprised of 3 phases. The first phase is concerned with generating the content, the second with assembling the instrument and the third with, essentially, validating it. I've found that there are so many considerations in formulating and implementing a mixed methodology study that it alone should constitute the methodology chapter in my thesis. So what models did I consider, what sampling strategy, data collection and data analysis, validation paradigms and the like.
My idea was then to break down the chapters into into one for each of the phases, which can deal with how the questionnaire was put together in the sequential form indicated by the methodology, so it follows the spirit of the sequential exploratory design and shows, bit-by-bit, how one phase informs the other and the questionnaires is gradually put together. So, although the methodology chapter discusses phase 1 as qualitative and concerned with item generation, the actual method that was used to do it (descriptive phenomenology in my case) and results are covered in the phase 1 content generation chapter. I just find that what I have done is so complicated and so many considerations where made that I just can't fit it into a single methodology chapter because of the size and complexity. You have really got me thinking now. I'll bet it probably seems really stupid now. :$

Aww, cheers for the turkey, Eska. Pity I've just had scrambled eggs for my dinner and am now eating a Wham bar. Thanks for your input too, as it's nice to know someone else thinks it's logical too. I'll see what other people think too - and if I can get a consensus, I'll feel happier rolling with it.

Hello everyone, I'm pressing on with writing and planning and I'd like to ask what you think of this...

I'm using a mixed methods design for my work and so I think that describing this and all the considerations that you have to make should make my methodology chapter. Now, my mixed methods model consists of 3 phase and each phase is made up of particular methods that I have to use for the data collection. What I want to do is not have these methods in the methodology chapter since these methods are not actually the methodology - plus it would make my methodology chapter more complicated and unclear than the bible. What I want to do is have 3 proceeding chapters in my thesis that describe each phase, so chapter 3: Phase 1, chapter 4: phase 2, and so on. In each of the proceeding chapters, I'd then like to discuss the particular methods and results of the mixed methodology study I have done for each phase. I think it will flow better and make for a clearer read, and show how each phase of the mixed methodology study informs the next.
I'd be really interested and appreciative to see what you think, if I am making sense.

Honestly, Keep_Calm, as the others have said, it's nigh on impossible to actually read everything from end-to-tail because there's just so much of it. Like you, I just tend skim read stuff and take bits from here and there, and then, if I find something really important, I'll read it all. I actually feel a bit guilty and like a cheat because I've got references in my work that I have barely read...:$

How about Introductory Statistics for Engineering Experimentation? I have this book and have sent you a Private Message. Let me know if it's crap and I'll see what else I have.

Thanks for letting me know. It seems that with only 9 months, I may get away with having to do my upgrade because by the time they get around to organising it, I'll be nearly at the end of my funded time scale. Hmmm...

Good morning everyone. I can't believe it but I'm about to begin my day's work at this time in the morning - I'm looking for flying pigs and everything, because this is such a rarity. To cut to the chase, I've been thinking about my upgrade for my third year and nothing has been mentioned to me about it. I've mentioned it to my supervisory teem and they seemed to say although it was necessary, they were quite dismissive about it. So, my question is, it's so late in the day now, will I have to do one? If I have to do this upgrade, does anyone know what it typically entail? Thanks a lot, everyone.