This sounds like an admin problem not a supervisor experience problem? Of course you should have been informed of the assignment and deadline, but whose role was it to do that - the admin team or lecturer of that module? Are there two separate issues here?

I agree with the others. From the work and reading you have done already, you will probably have a whole bunch of factors/questions that you thought your project would address. Instead, just choose one of these factors/questions and run it by your supervisor. Once he/she approves you can focus on that and do it really well. The work you have done so far will not have been wasted of course - as it is all background that will feed into your project.

I really don't think this is a problem for your research masters. If however you go on to do a PhD, I think it would definitely be worth choosing one or more additional supervisors who do have more experience.

Don't worry - focus on your modules, research, and dissertation. Your success is in your hands : )

Is this a qualitative or quantitative project? Depending on what you are doing, you might not even need to think about variables in that way. What is your question and how to you intend to address it?

Hi there

I think it would be quite unusual for them to buy one for you! Anyway - £1000 is a lot of money. Mine is a HP and cost around £400. It is excellent - very robust - definitely highly recommend that make.

Good luck

I think it is unlikely you would get your money back. The key thing is, as you say, you are dropping out. That is your choice really when it comes to it. But you could speak to someone at your Students' Union just in case they are able to advise you of any loop holes/ways to claim back money?

Congratulations! And thanks for the useful thread (I'm saving it for when my time comes)!

Chill out so that you are nice and relaxed and in top form for your PhD. Read casually for interest only - nothing forced. That'll come later : )

The latter. Grades do matter though (otherwise what's the point in trying?). But a merit is great anyway. They'll probably take a whole host of factors into account I reckon - such as your enthusiasm and your proposal, not just your grades.

Hi Anna

I have a feeling that you did cross tabs and eyeballed the table for relationships. And additional step you could have asked SPSS to take would be Chi Square analysis, which would give you p-values - which you could interpret to suggest whether those relationships were likely to be significant (not just at chance).

As far as I understand it is your choice whether or not you took that extra step, and it seems perfectly valid to have just eye-balled the data. But if the reviewer wants p values and you have the dataset handy then you can easily go back and re run the cross tabs PLUS Chi Square analysis.

Or if you see other papers where it wasn't done and you really don't think it necessary in your paper/can't access the data at the moment then I guess you could just try to justify not presenting them.

Hope this helps.

Tudor

No but the issue may be obtaining references. As long as you've got someone else (not your current supervisors) who can write you some decent references you would be fine. Also as someone else has mentioned - explaining the gap could be tricky - ie what you did during x-x time.

Research assistant is an excellent idea as it would allow you to make new contacts and then do a PhD with them in the future if you wanted to! (but again, references would be needed)

At the moment though it sounds like it would be worth really thinking about what you want to do before taking a decision. Maybe you will get through this horrible time. I hated my first year but now it is better on the whole. Be kind to yourself. So many people go through this. A friend of mine quit hers and does not regret it at all. I am glad that I have persevered personally. Good luck with your decision.

If you think you will fail then you may as well quit. But if you are prepared to battle through and pass then staying sounds the best option - since you don't really have a Plan B at present. Maybe look into other options a bit more? Working and then coming back to do a Masters later is definitely an option. It all just depends on your specific circumstances and what you want.

Try to get on a course now, then quit once you know that you have been accepted on the other course. A slightly different scenario but a friend of mine recently quit her PhD, but only when knew she had been accepted and got funding for another one. I don't know how she got around the references part. I think she applied at a Uni where she had previously studied, and a lecturer there was happy to write a ref.

Otherwise, you can either take the risk and quit anyway, or hang in there! Is there any hope that you will learn to cope with the things you don't like? It sounds ridiculous if they don't let you know anything. You could still manage though just through doing the necessary reading and work.

Hi Apricots. Did you decide on what to do?

More or less yes. There are specific types of reliability and validity too. It actually makes it easier to go to the next level and learn about the different subtypes, as then it makes the general terms clearer. Here is a good website with definitions: http://www.statisticshowto.com/reliability-validity-definitions-examples/