I've got it. PM me an email address and I'll send it your way.
:-) JustNic

I like iAnnotate to read and mark up all sorts of PDFs. A good book reader is a must. Also, if you use a reference manager, try to find the corresponding app. Mendeley has a great app and synchs all my references. I also recommend some sort of cloud storage (I use Dropbox and Google) to save and synch work you do on the iPad that will need to go to your primary computer, like thesis chapters.

Have fun with it! :-)

I agree with the others; it depends on your research question. Quantitative analysis can show relationships but it can't tell us -why- or give us perspective the way qualitative research can. If you're looking for causality, motivation, perceptions, and mulitdirectional/complex relationships, then qual is the way to go.

Qual research can be aggravating because it is so tied to philosophical and theoretical orientations, which can turn off a lot of people and confuse the hell out of many a phd student. Approaches can be phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory among others. Each of the approaches and the whole menu of data collection options depends on what you want to find out and your perspective/attitude/angle on it.

If you're having a problem with your sup, your topic might lend itself to a mixed methods approach or case study where you can do the bulk of your work from a qual approach but collect some quant data to support it or add to your understanding of the topic. I'm sure your uni offers trainings on SPSS or you can find someone more skilled in it to run the analysis for you.

Best of luck!
-nic

Hi Ady,
Article has been sent. Thanks for the star. :-) nic

Got it! PM me an email address and I'll send it. 8-)

Got it. PM me with an email address. :-)

Hi, I have a Mac (love it!) and have a Windows partition just so I can run SPSS & R to do my stats analysis. It works pretty well and I can switch between the two. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been able to get the Windows operating system nearly free from my uni. My Mac runs Windows faster than my Asus laptop and is A LOT lighter to carry around. That said, I would still recommend a Windows laptop if price is a concern. While you can get Open Office and other open source software free for Mac, there just isn't the catalogue that there is for Windows.

As for the MS Office versions problem, always be sure to save as the older .doc format instead of the newer .docx and you should be okay. I go between several computers that have everything from Office 97 to Office 2010 and have learned this lesson the hard way.

Previously I was using End Note but have recently switched to Mendeley. Wish I had found it sooner!

Timefortea, don't let the technology get you down and keep you getting your work done. Before the MacBook, I had to turn on my laptop, make a cup a tea or put some washing in while I waited for it to start up, click to open a program, go and feed the cat or check the post, click to open a document....you get the idea. Buying a new laptop just for the purpose of my PhD was the best thing I've done toward that end. Mac or Windows is unimportant...working for you is!

:-)Nic

James Spradley's "The Ethnographic Interview" is another classic and was required reading for me.

Good luck with your study :-)

'Factors Contributing to Dog Barking'? Or 'Factors that Promote Dog Barking'? Maybe 'Factors Influencing Dog Barking'? Am pretty sure "influencers" isn't a real word.

PM me an email address and I will send you a couple. They are formatted as a single PowerPoint slide but they print nicely on a plotter for larger conference posters.
:-) Nic

Glad you're getting sorted, Jenny. I was resistant to the meds, too, but have been fortunate to not have any side effects. It's worth it if it helps you to cope and carry on with your degree. Finishing your PhD will pay off in the long run in terms of employment and life satisfaction so you shouldn't feel bad about whatever it takes to get it done.
Be well,
Nic

Jenny, I'm sorry to hear you are feeling this way but you should know that you're not alone. I can completely empathise with you. My first year was the worst of my life and was filled with depression and isolation, especially since I didn't have to be on campus every day and didn't know anyone in the town. I once went six days without leaving my flat or speaking to another human. It was after that that I realised I had a problem and sought medical attention. The nurse I saw at my uni's health clinic suggested I focus on the depression, not worrying about the smoking. The withdrawals will just make the depression worse. I had to make a concerted effort to get out and find things to do which I did by finding online listings for local events and groups. I was also fortunate to change jobs which helped my particular situation and greatly reduced my stress. Since I was still struggling with the smoking and mild depression, I finally saw a GP who put me on a mild antidepressant which has not only improved my mood but helped with the cravings to the point that I'm nearly weaned down. I know I have to give up smoking altogether but I'm not putting too much pressure or guilt on myself; doing a PhD offers enough of that already.

Try to take one day at a time and not worry so much. You can only do what you can do. And don't forget you're not alone. :-)

I've got them for you as PDFs. PM me an email address to send them to.
:-) Nic

Hi Canonly,
I took a bit of a break for the new year and just now saw your reply to my response. You mention means so I'm wondering if your survey items were closed-ended with a Likert type scale e.g. agree-disagree-neutral? If so, then you would present the statistical analysis in table format and then discuss your interpretation of that statistical finding i.e. what was significant, explaining outliers, etc. I would suppose that would go in your findings chapter.

As for your interviews and observations, they would be presented differently because they are a different sort of data. I guess how you would present them would depend how you approached each type of data collection. A friend of mine did her thesis with open-ended interviews and observations but from the framework of phenomenology so that shaped how she reported that data. With case study, it's a bit trickier because it is, by nature, a mixed-methods approach and that is almost a framework unto itself. Many sups won't let students do case studies as they don't see it as valid or worthy for a thesis. Mine let me do it because the experimental school I'm studying is very cutting edge and the focus of my study there is rather unique.

As for your research questions, I would explain why you chose them, supporting it from the research literature and pointing out what the literature doesn't cover as justification for including the question in your study. Then you might explain why you chose each data collection method to address the specific research question. I'm doing mine with the idea that the interviews are to collect data to answer my questions and the quantitative statistical data is for triangulation to provide reliability and validity to the findings from the interviews and observations.

Again, I wish you luck with this. I found it helpful to do a search for theses that also used a case study approach just to see how they presented their data and reconciled all the different data collection methods. PM if you'd like and perhaps with a better understanding of your work I might be able to point you to a thesis that is appropriate.

Best of luck :-)

Hi Canonly,
I had a similar problem once. Have you coded the observation data in any way? By that I mean to code it to look for commonalities or themes between the observations. I found Glaser & Strauss' constant comparative method useful for analysing this sort of qualitative data. Once I identified themes or rules that appeared in the data then I was able to describe them in the write up with specific examples from the actual observation notes.

Good luck with this! Know that you aren't alone in the struggle. :-) I am currently working on a case study of a school and have found Robert Yin's book on case study methodology helpful in reconciling everything.