Overview of wowzers

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Viva on Friday and found major mistake
W

I think if they pick it up you just have to be humble and accepting but not too apologetic in that the rest of the work stands up. Rather than say it in a way that looks like lack of attention could you put it in a way that it was more to do with being a relative novice to the method used and you have taken this on board as a training development issue that you are confident won't be repeated (i.e the more you have put the method to practice the more you've learned how to interpret without error evidenced by your picking it up on your re-looking at the data and you are able to correct before publication)?

Viva on Friday and found major mistake
W

They have already read your thesis now so all you can do is reply to their comments on the day. As it is one of many findings go through and be doubly sure it's the only error. Then make a note of all the pages where the error is mentioned, check your intro and conclusion. Make some notes (you can't get too detailed now) on how you would revise the thesis in light of this (it might be deletion of a section -some re-wording) and take it with you. If it is noticed and they bring it up just talk them through how you are confident it doesn't change the structure or integrity of the thesis and the other more significant findings, assuring them it's easily and quickly solvable. I'm not sure on if you bring it up if they don't - as it's a wrong statistic, obviously you wouldn't publish that as a result in an article but I don't know how you would personally feel it being left in your printed (un-revised thesis)? Anyone got any experience with this? Good luck.

VIVA panic!
W

Well done :)

Moving from a Russell Group to Ex-Poly
W

Hazy that's an absolutely excellent point about how you are perceived from winning funding.

Moving from a Russell Group to Ex-Poly
W

Agreed. A good PhD is a finished PhD, if lack of funding is an issue go for funding unless the other uni dept is very poor. Russell group uni's can have some very dodgy depts in the ratings too!!!

VIVA panic!
W

I hope this worry turned out to be nothing to worry about and we get to learn soon that you are Dr Millymoo.:D

Article request
W

Anyone have access to this please? I can't download as my uni doesn't have access. Much appreciated.

http://editlib.org/p/40703/ New media and research dissemination: the case of performing mathematics education research: Gadanidis, Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia Volume 22, Number 1, February 2013 ISSN 1055-8896

Thank You!!
W

Hi Incognito. The temp job is great news, I saw your posts about getting work. I also really appreciate you still posting despite having finished, it's great to get old hats perspectives :D Sorry to learn you are having a rough time personally, it always seems the way doesn't it that when one part of your life sorts itself out something else slips, I hope it's all back on track soon.x

Advice needed please.
W

It all depends what you want the MA for. No point getting an MA that's irrelevant to what you want to do e.g if you want to do PhD you might want to consider a Masters in research methods. Also anything too far removed from your BA might mean you don't get accepted on the MA in the first place.

Social Research Method
W

That's a lot of stuff to cover! Do you have a hypothesis on how they are reproduced that you are working from or are you going to use the data to generate your own theory. E.g. There's an American analysis on how your name reproduces inequality through teacher expectations and he started with a hypothesis whilst Willis in Learning to Labour looked at why working class boys got working class jobs (reproduction of class inequality in school) and he generated theory from the data.

Stupid stupid error (literature review/methodology)
W

Could you do a short period of follow up data collection to see if anything has changed? How long do you have left?

Some
W

I suppose it depends what, if any claims you are making from this qualitative information. I've been taught that qualitative data still needs to be contextualised so you should record how many people said what, their gender, where and how the info was gathered etc etc. In my MA I went with a mix of Chickpea and HazyJanes approach by saying things like 'a commonly expressed view (80% of respondents) was that....' Of course statistics can be inflated so if you only spoke to 10 people, 80% sounds like a lot but isn't in real terms so you might want to say 8 out of 10 people said.....

Chances of getting a funded-phd
W

I think the grade for your degree is equivalent to about a 2:2 in the UK and some Universities want higher than that, at least a 2:1. Your MBA sounds like you are going to get the equivalent to a Distinction in UK terms which is excellent (of course this depends on the grade for your dissertation). If you get a first for the MBA even though you have a 2:2 undergraduate score you might still have a chance. I would say the best thing is to approach universities you want to study at and see what grades they are looking for. Their admissions department should be able to tell you if your grades are equivalent to what they are looking for. Sometimes it's not about the grades it's about the strength of the research proposal that you write and if the university department has someone that can supervise you. I know someone who got a scholarship at a top UK University with a merit at Masters level. Good luck :D

Desperate and confused
W

BTW I know lots of teachers without a teaching qual, especially in work based learning! I was one fo them...I do have the cert now though but I taught for 8 years without one! You don't have to teach in a school or college ;-p If you really feel teaching is for you and you need a salary I strongly suggest Teach First. They pay you while you get your qual plus you are not restricted to teaching your degree subject if you have strong A levels in other areas. So if you have a humanities degree but have B-A* A level maths you can teach maths. You would be a particularly strong maths candidate if you did quantitative analysis or statistics training in your PhD too. They take on for secondary and Primary and there are still places in some subjects for Sept with Primary nearly full for this year but Humanities are full for this Sept.


Desperate and confused
W

I'm afraid to say that job prospects for humanities teachers, especially FE are about as bad as postdoc opportunities (FE funding is being heavily cut as are posts and salaries). Now if you were maths or science that would be a different conversation!

As you already have postdoc funding I'd be inclined to go for the postdoc, particularly when the need for compulsory teaching quals is being eroded anyway so you may find yourself with another qual that won't get you anywhere. Already in private schools, FE and some free schools there is no actual requirement for a teaching qual (FE requirements were revoked in September). You'd be better doing the postdoc and some part time voluntary work in schools or colleges or paid agency work to build teaching experience. Hope that helps with your decision.