Hi to all! I am doing my PhD in the field of psycholinguistics and I have designed a specific experimental design for which my supervisor agreed. However, I noticed that my experiment had a significant flaw and I did not take into account an important factor, which would lead to our results not being so valid. Anyway, I managed to re-design the experiment taking into account thιs confounding variable. Of course I am going to send the new experimental design to my supervisor. However, I am afraid that he will consider that I have not read the literature well and therefore I am not a good researcher since I did not find this confounding variable earlier (I was ready to proceed to data collection!). I am very puzzled about how to deal with this issue...Any suggestions would be more than welcome. Thank you in advance!

Thank you very much for your answers!

I accept that recruiting billingual research assistants constitutes the one and only solution... However, I don't have the budget to hire an official translator...

Hello to all! I am a PhD student in psycholinguistics. I am currently designing my first experiment regarding cross-cultural differences in gestures production. For the needs of my study I will videotape people of different native languages speaking and gesturing. My problem is how I am going to analyse their speaking since I don't know arabic and dari (these are the languages I am going to analyse). Do you know if there is a translation software (ideally free) that I could use to analyse their discource?

Yes, you definitely can. I have just published my paper (qualitative study) and I have added some participants' quotes on discussion section.

Hello!
I was in the same position with you last year as I had to recruit both children and parents and I ended up having more children than parents. What I did (except from recruiting them in their children's school) was that I visited any community centre, public library (on children's section) that was near my home location in London. I was approaching them in person (however, I had to spend some hours there) explaining them what my experiment was about e.t.c. The majority of them did spend some of their time there to contribute to my study (It was a 15 minutes experiment)! If you are in the UK go and check IntoUniversity organisation (I was working as a volunteer there) that has to do with children of poor, immigrant or dysfunctional families. There, the kids' parents surely do not have a degree.

Hello!
I need your help one more time!
As I have posted in an older post I have completed two masters (both MSc) in psychology in not too prestigious universities (I received high 2:1 grade for both and I have also published one of my thesis). Additionally, I have just been offered a scholarship for an MRes in a really prestigious university (high position in rankings) with excellent professors within the field I am interested in (cognitive psychology). However, while the scholarship covers the tuition fees it does not cover some of the other basic costs (housing, food, e.t.c.).Therefore, I need to cover these expenses myself (I have some savings).On the other hand, though, I am really concerned about the necessity of the MRes. Is it worth to spend all my savings for a degree that may be needless to my goal (funded PhD)? Is it possible to be accepted into a funded PhD having only MSc and without prior conducting an MRes? And what about the university's reputation? Does it play a role? Thank you in advance.

Thank you all for your answers!

#TreeofLife : Unfortunately, I am currently away from UK so I cannot meet her face-to-face. However, I sent her an email again asking her to give me feedback for some specific parts of the manuscript. We will see....

# beamsource: My draft was not rejected but to be honest I don't know if this means that it is accepted (I mean if they still want to see my updated manuscript so as to make a decision).

''Also, how do you know that your supervisor hadn't checked your drafts? It might appear to you that a couple of hours is not enough to thoroughly read through a script, and it's probably true. But skimming through it for crude mistakes is possible in that time and might be enough when the draft IS actually fine.''

I know that because when I was working on my thesis she had the same behaviour (I forgot to mention this). On the other hand though, this made me search and read more. Having completed two MScs I think I know when the supervisor indeed check the drafts (my supervisor of my second master thesis was gave me detailed feedback in my draft). Additionally, I really doubt that a manuscript submitted for publication is fine when simply there are not crude mistakes. I mean it must be a really good work. When you are inexperienced in this process coupled with the fact that you are no native english speaker you need some more help from a more experienced person (such as your supervisor).

''Maybe you're underestimating your skills here?''

Possibly you are right here. I've noticed that I do this all the time...

#Hugh: Thank you a lot for your suggestions!

Hello!
I am really concerned about my supervisor's behaviour. I was clear from the beginning of our cooperation that my intention was to publish my thesis and she agreed. However, she is quite indifferent about the publication process. For example, I noticed that when I prepared the initial manuscript and sent it to her, she didn't bother to open the file and she simply answered me that everything was fine (within hours!). Since it was my first time I was submitting a manuscript for publication I decided to trust her. This had as a result to receive the reviewers' comments that stressed some points that I am sure that would have been avoided if she had devoted some time to check my manuscript! I was so angry!
I decided to address all reviewers' comments one by one (thankfully they did not reject my manuscript and I have to re-send it with some corrections) and I sent the file with the answers and the manuscript (updated) to my supervisor to check it (here we laugh) although I knew that this was futile...And I was true. Within an hour she answered me that everything was fine (!?!?). I knew that she didn't even open the files as I had included some questions to her and of course she did not answer them.
The worst thing is that she accepted to be my referee for PhD applications and now I am sure that she will not spend more than 10 minutes on my reference. I am desperate since I do not have other referees from my master....
I am so angry...I really cannot understand why would a lecturer behaves like this...When we had a discussion and I told her that I would like to follow an academic career and she seemed to be really supportive. I really want to publish my thesis since this could constitute a positive factor towards been accepted to a funded PhD.
Has anyone experienced something similar? What should I do? Thank you in advance!

I read somewhere that in the psychology field having a 2:1 is not impressive...I don't know if this is true though....

Thank you everyone for your answers!

AOE26: You give me hope!

323cjm: REALLY? I am actually searching for a funded PhD and that is why I posted this message. I am very anxious if I can compete people with firsts....So, there IS a possibility to gain funding for my PhD... It was an already advertised project or it was a specific topic you had in mind?

Hello everyone!
I have just completed an MSc in Psychology and I received a 69% grade for my master thesis (I ended up with a 68% degree grade). I find that this is not a good grade as I was trying to get a distinction and I am trully disappointed. What is your opinion? Do I have any chances to be accepted in a PhD position with these grades?
Thank you in advance for your answers.

Hello everyone! I am about to complete a MSc in Psychology (conversion course) at University of Hertfordshire. Prior to that I completed a MSc in Applied Psychology at Middlessex University (both UK). I desperately want to follow an academic career in cognitive psychology and for this reason I am searching for a research assistant position so as to gain some experience in research prior to apply for a PhD.My question is : what are my chances of getting accepted in a research assistant position with degrees of ex-polytechnic unis? Is there anyone who has similar experience? Thank you in advance!