Thank you for your replies everyone. I feel much more confident about my results, as I have done a huge amount of analysis on it (my supervisor suggested perhaps too much).
Also thank you Joyce for your comments on the literature review. I think I really need to look at restructuring the whole thing. Perhaps when I've done that it will come along a bit easier. :-)

Thanks for you reply. In a way it is probably good that there is no guidelines, but I just worry about justifying everything. I feel a lot more prepared if I have a reference saying something is acceptable - but I guess this is related to my own lack of confidence. I'm a quantitative researcher by nature and this qualitative chapter has driven me crazy. I've enjoyed it, but I'm constantly second guessing myself. I think I'll ask my supervisor to elaborate on his comments just to be sure of what he meant to. Thanks again.

Hi all,

Firstly a thank you. I have lurked these boards for three years and your discussions have been so helpful. I am coming up to my three year deadline in October. Unfortunately I'm going to over run. :-( I have written a first draft of four chapters out of eight and still have a load of analysis and the bulk of my literature review to do (is that really far behind?!).

Anyhow, I've had some feedback on my thematic analysis, and my supervisor has asked me to justify the amount of data I acquired. To be honest I just kept getting it until it looked like a lot - so I have no idea what to say! Are there any guidelines about the amount of data needed? For some context, I gathered responses on an online forum, and used thematic analysis to gather categories of interest for the following chapter so it was only a preliminary study (hence I'm worried I may not have collected enough).

Thanks for any help. PS, are all the other 3rd years way ahead of me? How long does it take to do the lit review? My supervisor told me not to write one in the first year - thought that was great at the time, but really wish I'd gone against him now!