What a difference a week makes! The optimism I felt on returning from holiday has now converted into great confidence that this thesis can be completed.
After a few days work I now have the spreadsheets set up to analyse the diary data. This will tell me how students spend their time depending on their answer to individual questions on the various questionnaires. Additionally it will also display how many 'episodes' of different durations students were involved in. I can look at this either day by day or by week or by weekdays or weekends. With over 10,000 permutations this is too many so my aim is to examine weeks first and to drill down as necessary.
The spreadsheet will tell me the average hours of students within the answer category and also the average of those not in the category. This will highlight where there are differences. To help with this I have included coloured flags that change depending on whether the difference in averages is less than 15%, 15-40%, 40-65 or more than 65%. The forthcoming week will be running through the permutations to identify where the biggest differences occur. From this I will be able to go back to the individual student profiles and investigate possible contributory factors. If necessary I can also examine the daily or weekday / weekend results.
The overall plot is to have the analyse completed by the end of December and to then get on with the writing up. I have now mapped out the time between January and June to keep the writing on schedule. The target is for the first draft to be finished by the end of April and then to submit at the end of June. All being well this will allow the viva to be held in September. I discussed this with Andrew, my supervisor, on Tuesday and he agrees that it should be doable. He is off to Singapore and Hong Kong for a 6 month sabbatical from January so good communications will be vital. Hopefully this blog will assist with this.
Thursday 27 November 2008
Sunday 16 November 2008
Beware the Leprachauns of Time
Where does the time go to these days - I must be getting older!! There may not have been as much posted here as I would have liked but progress has been made. Largely this is due to the opportunity that holidays give for taking a step back and reflecting but also thanks are due to Charlie at IOE who gave me an hour and a half of his time to help me sort out a major issue.
For some reason that I'm still not sure how I let happen I have spent a long time searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. This pot contains the details of students who share similar profiles and the search for this has been driving me potty - just like the Leprachauns, as you may have read! Of course grouping of students don't exist in a neatly packaged form - just as the end of the rainbow can never be found. Thankfully with Charlie's help I have now abandoned this wild goose chase and went off to Egypt with revived determination to re-examine things from a different angle.
As you will be aware from previous posts I am not a 'do nothing' person on holiday. After a couple of days chilling (not literally as it was by the red sea!) I read William Michelson's book on Time Use and also Barbara Adam's book on Time. Both are listed on the IATUR web site and the Michelson book has helped both to confirm that much of what I have done is worthwhile but also provided new ideas for analysing all my data. With this I have spent the last 2 days building a new set of spreadsheets which I hope will provide new insights before the end of the week.
I do now feel that I can get this thesis written and have vowed to get the final draft finished for the end of April. OK this is a little over the 12 months that I set myself but some things just have to follow their own course. If April is to happen I will need to sort out some time away from work although an extended sabbatical seems unlikely. I have created a new calendar which I will discuss with my supervisor in 10 days time.
One last thing for this post is to welcome members of IATUR who may follow the link sent round by Kimberly in her newsletter. Keeping this blog is not purely self-indulgence as it serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it helps me to track my own progress and to record some of the stages I have gone through so that I can refer to them when writing up. Secondly it is an experiment in using a blog for supervising research students at distance and allows Andrew to check what I am up to at any time. All being well we will compare notes at the end and I may be able to introduce blogging with my own students! Thirdly it is open to fellow EdD students who may want to compare notes on progress and problems as they go through the same process. Lastly it allows others to comment as they wish on my experiences so it will be good to hear from anyone out there in cyberspace:-)
More shortly - hopefully with some positive outcomes!
For some reason that I'm still not sure how I let happen I have spent a long time searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. This pot contains the details of students who share similar profiles and the search for this has been driving me potty - just like the Leprachauns, as you may have read! Of course grouping of students don't exist in a neatly packaged form - just as the end of the rainbow can never be found. Thankfully with Charlie's help I have now abandoned this wild goose chase and went off to Egypt with revived determination to re-examine things from a different angle.
As you will be aware from previous posts I am not a 'do nothing' person on holiday. After a couple of days chilling (not literally as it was by the red sea!) I read William Michelson's book on Time Use and also Barbara Adam's book on Time. Both are listed on the IATUR web site and the Michelson book has helped both to confirm that much of what I have done is worthwhile but also provided new ideas for analysing all my data. With this I have spent the last 2 days building a new set of spreadsheets which I hope will provide new insights before the end of the week.
I do now feel that I can get this thesis written and have vowed to get the final draft finished for the end of April. OK this is a little over the 12 months that I set myself but some things just have to follow their own course. If April is to happen I will need to sort out some time away from work although an extended sabbatical seems unlikely. I have created a new calendar which I will discuss with my supervisor in 10 days time.
One last thing for this post is to welcome members of IATUR who may follow the link sent round by Kimberly in her newsletter. Keeping this blog is not purely self-indulgence as it serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it helps me to track my own progress and to record some of the stages I have gone through so that I can refer to them when writing up. Secondly it is an experiment in using a blog for supervising research students at distance and allows Andrew to check what I am up to at any time. All being well we will compare notes at the end and I may be able to introduce blogging with my own students! Thirdly it is open to fellow EdD students who may want to compare notes on progress and problems as they go through the same process. Lastly it allows others to comment as they wish on my experiences so it will be good to hear from anyone out there in cyberspace:-)
More shortly - hopefully with some positive outcomes!
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