I was interested to see in an earlier post 'Paper rejection reversed', Phdee saying that his work done prior to registering on the PHd was excluded from the Thesis.

I wonder if this varies by institution. I have been 'playing' with researching questions that appeared significant to me during my (clinical) day job. An early paper was well received and I was advised to consider taking it forwards using a PHd to boost my research skills. However, due to lack of confidence in my ability (intelligence and 'sticking power') I opted to do a MSc where I could look at the same area.

My dissertation demonstrated that identification of early changes in some clinical markers was possible. Subsequently I have followed this up with a published study showing that this change was significant in predicting who would and would not get better. During the process I have found that I thoroughly enjoy doing research in a structured way and so took up the offer of progressing to a PHd.

My PHd is rerunning the post MSc study with a larger sample and controlling for more potential confounding factors. A follow on qualitative study is planned to see if we can describe why the change occurs early in some patients but not others.

So for me, my post-MSc paper is setting the foundation for the PHd. I had planned to include it in the Thesis a preliminary study, and was given to understand from my supervisor that this would be OK as long as the study had not been part of any award bearing course.

Does anyone else out there in 'PHd Forum land' have any experience of this?

Yes, my own PhD began with work done in my MSc research and continued by including a review of a decade of professional practice. Some suggestions...

Deductive route: you could introduce this material in the literature review, critically examining your previous work and extending it theoretically. That revised, updated and novel theoretical model would then be tested through experiment, empirical observation, action research etc.

Deductive route 2: Treat the previous work as a hypothesis to be refuted/tested/investigated. Here you would take an impartial stance, looking at your work as if it were someone else's published theory that you had reason to be interested in.

Inductive route: use the prior work as initial observations, conduct further empirical observation to supplement that data, code and categorise the data, and allow theory to emerge. Or use further data for focused coding.

In all cases, you will not be able to copy and paste the MSc work. I'd also advise you to seek some novelty and strong theoretical outcomes that allow the work to meet the requirements of a PhD.

I would agree with your supervisor ... as long as your post MSc study hasn't been submitted for a degree/qualification you can use it as part of your PhD. A PhD has to be original research but it's ok to include preliminary work you've done and if it's part of a bigger study you can include other people's results as long as you acknowledge them and they have a bearing on your results.

Good luck (up)