I fell ill today, so now I'm really not feeling christmassy. I woke up with a really sore throat, feel chilled to the bone and I feel achy all over - even in my fingers. I just feel lethargic. What bad timing!

Hi Algaequeen, this is a very salient thread to me. Virtually everything you have described is relevant to me and I'm sure that I'll experience what you're currently going through, post-submission. I can't say whether it's normal or not because I don't know many people, personally, that have completed PhDs. I feel that when something has been a central, defining part of your life for 3 years, then it is only natural that you view things very personally and take things to heart. It represents all of your hard work, effort and determination to see it through; you'll will rightfully be proud of what you have done and feel that it deserves appropriate recognition and respect. Thats how I feel, and it has been a source of arguments and tensions in both my acadmic and very minimal personal life. I'm not chauvanistic, not elistist and certainly not pompous. However, when it comes to my work, my responsibility for the past 3 and a half years, the thing that I have given more attention to than friendships, personal happiness and health, I am jealously protective and like an overbearing parent who wants the best for their child. Maybe a little melodramatic, but I haven't worked on something for over 3 years without developing 'feelings' for it [yes, maybe that says more about me than my work!]. Perhaps not the best similie, but it's like being a master baker: you use the best ingredients possible to bake a cake with great care and attention, and then some seemingly snooty individual says 'no thanks' to a slice.
I feel that you haven't experienced the anticipated resolution of these feelings because it isn't all fully over yet, not until after the viva. However excellent your thesis may be, it's not going to feel like it's all done and dusted until the examiners have signed on the dotted line. So, you're still going to feel anxious, nervous and sensitive about your thesis because you can't put it and all of the associated feelings behind you yet. I think (for me, anyway) that things will feel a whole lot different (and better) after the viva because then the thesis, the task, will have truly ended and you'll be able to more easily put it all behind you and move on.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if I told you how I think you should present your data then I'd be effectively doing you research for you and I have enough of my own. You've used triangulation, so you'll be corrobating your quantitative findings with your qualitative findings. Remember the fundamental rule of mixed methods, which is to combine methods with complementary strengths and non-overlapping weaknesses. By weaving together, I mean don't keep the qualitative data and quantitative data separate where possible - you aim for integration. Otherwise, it'll look like you've just don't separate qualitative and quantitative studies. What you could do is use joint displays, so tables combining the qualitative and quantitative findings together for each of your research questions. You could qualitise the quantitative data (and vice versa) and show how the findings actually agree with and strengthen one another.
Most importantly, don't worry. The problems you're having are actually amongst the six major issues in mixed methods research and there's not much out there in the way of guidance. I can recommend some books: Teddlie and Tashakkori (2003), Creswell and Plano-Clark (2007/2010), Greene (2007), and Shannon and Andrew (2009). You're doing education-based research. The guy who's papers you might want to seek out are Onweugbuzie's. He's one of the Seven Horsemen of mixed methods. Have a stab at looking for papers by Johnson, and Pat Bazely has some free papers, which will help you, fishing about on the internet.

I'm not in the Xmas mood either. It doesn't even feel particularly festive this year. Usually, I can sense it in the air, but there's definitely not chrimbo magic this year. Of course, it could just be me.

Congratuations, Dr Littlestar.

Hi Canonly1. I think that with mixed methods research, it can be difficult to know how to present the results of the data analysis. Why did you use mixed methods? Complementarity? Development? Expansion? Triangulation? Did you use a model from one of the existing typologies? If I know this, I might be able to help give you some ideas on how to present the data. Roughly, I can say that you want to present the data in an integrated format, so weave the quan and qual data together to tell the story of your research. The decision to use the research questions to group your findings together is a good idea, provided that you research philosophy is appropriate. Take a dialectical or multiple paradigm stance and you decision will be harder to defend. Pragmatism would be appropriate her because it's praxis over theoria; the research questions drive the methods that are used.

Thanks everyone. It does feel good to be finally seeing the tail end of things. Satchi, my thesis has 11 chapters in total.

As with Delta, I think I'd go for the safe option too.

This depends, I think. If it's qualitative research, you can use 'I'. Afterall, you're essentially the instrument. I also think for reflective elements, that reflect your growth and development, you can use 'I'. For quantitative work, it's third person. If it's mixed methods, depending on your worldview, you can use a combination of the two.

What are the chances of that? Of all the people it could have been on that machine next to you, at that particular time, on that particular day...At least he's now clearly heard your side of the story.

I've just finished and e-mailed my last chapter off to my supervisors. That's it. No more chapters to write, hopefully. There may be some corrections to do with it, but I'm nearly there now. Of course, there's always a down-side, a counter balance. I have to write a paper over christmas for publication. Then I have to do my references and put all the chapter numbers and sections in. However, I've done the appendix and I almost have a full thesis. I have to submit by early Feb, but hopefully I'll do it towards the end of January.(gift)

Tada!

I'd lodge a complain, all right. What a jumped-up, little, paranoid and self-important fart. I think you could use your Patient Advice Liaison Service to help make an official complaint.

I have no money and no time for Christmas, this year. But this will be the last one I'll be working through one so, although resigned, I'm relieved. Ho, Ho, Ho.

Cauliflower is only disgusting if you over-boil it. Raw, or al dente - it's yummy.