You've got nothing to lose by applying for the studentship with your old supervisor, but if you don't get it, perhaps you could see if you could have them as your second supervisor on your current PhD? I don't think it's unusual to have a second supervisor at another university.

You'll (all) be fine... I felt like this all the way through my PhD which was in a different subject to my bachelors degree, and I managed to pass! I still feel like an imposter even now I'm a Dr ;)

If you're looking at indirect effects (or mediators), yes, some of your independent variables may effectively become endogeneous (or dependent) in those analyses. In a path model, it would look like this: Independent variable -> Mediator -> Dependent variable.

You have already identified your exogenous and endogenous variables - your exogenous ones are the independent variables (e.g., gender, age etc) and your endogenous variable is your dependent variable (e.g., treatment outcome). The terms are used interchangeably. The path model you talk of is just your hypothesised model, so you have already created it. You may use multiple regression analysis to test your model once you have collected data if your dependent variable is 'continuous'. If it is 'categorical/ordinal/binary' (e.g., yes/no or successful/not successful), then logistic regression may be better. You should probably go on a statistics course on multiple regression analyses - I'm not allowed to post the links to the ones I'd recommend, but if you message me I'll tell you

If you've already been working on a PhD for four years and you're writing papers, I think it would be pointless to try and get on to another PhD program. It's a bad situation you're in regarding your supervisor, but regarding results, it doesn't matter really if there are no/not many significant findings. Although it may be better to run another study to try and get something significant if you can. Regarding your thesis, examiners are interested in seeing that you can work independently as a researcher, acknowledge where things went wrong, what you would do differently next time. Get a different supervisor for the remainder of your PhD and run another study, write it up, and put all the bad stuff behind you.

1) If a participants asks you to erase the recording then you must do so, it would be unethical to keep it. You should check that they are happy for you to use the transcript of the interview in your analysis. Don't worry that other participants will ask you to do the same, it's quite rare (in my experience) for them to withdraw their data.

2) Put together a consent form and email it to participants before they do an interview. Ask them to provide an electronic signature and email it back, or to sign it and post it back. You can't rely on the info sheet you sent them earlier, unless you included a statement such as 'your involvement in an interview means that you are providing your consent to be involved in this study' or something similar.

Perhaps you could look for a project-based studentship instead? I completed one of those myself in psychology. Basically my supervisor came up with a research question and I worked on it as the basis of my PhD. It is not for everyone though - I found I wasn't too motivated by the topic in the end as it wasn't something I felt really passionate about, and hence it was very tricky to sit down and write my thesis. Have a look at one of the sites advertising for PhDs and see if there is something there you fancy having a go at.

I was in the same position as you a few years ago, my funding had ended, I was skint, and I found myself in my fourth year without a single chapter completed. The worst thing was this fear of writing I had to overcome. I didn't want to quit having come so far but began thinking it would be impossible to finish by September. However I did manage it! I ended up setting tough goals and committing to writing one chapter every month, and, supported by my supervisor who gave me feedback frequently, I submitted before my ultimate deadline of September 1st. It was very hard, but I'm glad I did it. You can do it too, you just need to take a more pragmatic approach to writing up, almost a 'I don't care if it's perfect or not' way of thinking.

Congratulations!

You can assume that the prices of the courses are a good indicator of the quality of the university. Out of these four, the University of Southampton is definitely the best.

Hiya. It's hard to get perspective from the position you're in, but really, once you've done the corrections you can move on and you'll never have to think about the PhD again (if you don't want to)! I also got anxious and depressed during mine, but it was such a massive relief to get it all finalised, done and dusted. I'm pretty sure you'll start to feel better soon, and everything will start to fall back into place again. I suggest (1) you have a proper discussion with your supervisor about why you need to do major corrections and what you need to do to achieve them; (2) clarify with your examiners exactly what needs to be done; (3) consider going part-time on the PhD and requesting a year to do the corrections on the grounds you have a full-time job; (4) either complete the corrections in your own time or request a day a week or something to do them from your new employers; (5) definitely take the job! I really do think if you've come this far then you should just get it all finished and try not to give up. You'll soon become less emotionally attached to the thesis and look at the corrections as a task that you just need to get through. Do the bare minimum to fully meet your examiners requests, you never know, it may take way less time than you think it will anyway. Good luck.

Hello Faye. You need to try and retain some objectivity and be pragmatic. I know it's easy for me to say and may seem impossible for you to do (can't see the wood for the trees etc) but listen up. You have nearly a draft of a full thesis by the sounds of it. Forget about your supervisors request for a complete polished draft and think about breaking down the task. Conclusions and summaries need only be short, perhaps a few pages, and can be written in a matter of days; keep the writing concise and to the point. In terms of redrafting sections, do only what is the bare minimum that your supervisor asks of you and ask him/her to be clear and help you prioritise what is most important that needs changing. If there is a whole chapter or section missing at this stage, concentrate on writing up these *now* and send your drafts directly to your supervisor for feedback (and make sure they get back to you quickly). Ask a trusted friend/partner to proofread and find spellings/typos in each chapter in the meantime, as you finish them. Don't panic about footnotes and bibliography - you could do this in one day if you really have to. There is no point in not submitting anything, as you have nothing to lose in submitting something (if you know what I mean!). Lose the idea of having a brilliant thesis you're happy with, and consider it instead as a 'working article' that your examiners will help you improve. By the way, I am a postdoc now but had to panic write before my final deadline too. I wrote up my final discussion chapter in 5 days and did my proofreading/bibliography overnight before I submitted. But passed with minor corrections :) You can do it, don't give up!!

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Going on the value of a studentship, I would reckon you'd need to be prepared to have at least £16,000 to spend per year to be able to pay the fees (£4,000 rough guess?) and have a basic living allowance of £12,000. Plus then you'd probably need another £1000 per year for books, training courses, conference attendance etc. So if you were to do a a PhD full-time in 3 years you'd need £51,000. And then of course, be prepared for your PhD to take longer than three years (a lot do), so another £17,000 in reserve. A lot of money! I've heard it's tough trying to do a PhD part-time, and personally know some people who completed theirs in no less than 8-years. Find a studentship as everyone else is recommending :)

Hi Satchi, it sounds like you could test what you're looking at using a t-test to see if there is a significant difference in "Maths marks" between the two groups (i.e., conditions). Then look at the means for each group and work out which is the highest (i.e., in which condition you will get the highest maths mark). This would work fine as t-tests are statistically the same as ANOVAs. Charls :)

I help organise and run statistical training courses that academics and phd students attend. Students are entitled to discounts off the cost of them. If you are interested, have a look here: http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/FIO/trainingcourses.htm We have run EFA/CFA courses in the past but do not have any planned at the moment. You could contact the statistician Dr Chris Stride (details on the website) if you want - he may be able to point you in the right direction in terms of forthcoming courses. In addition, check out http://www.s3ri.soton.ac.uk/cass/programme.php for other good courses you could attend (I'm not affiliated - but I have attended some of them). In both cases, as a student you may be entitled to some funding that will cover the costs.