Category: Dissertation Journal

Although I have not finished my dissertation, I began a full-time job a little over a month ago.  I know that this is a dangerous move and that many people who leave school before completing their dissertation never complete it.  I also know that even in the best circumstances this will delay my progress.  This…

It’s taken me about a year to reach this point but I finally completed and submitted to my chair a draft of chapter 2, the literature review.  It’s pretty solid but it’s still a draft. There are a handful of places that I know I could expand but I’ll wait until I hear back from…

I am having a very hard time keeping myself on track with my dissertation. I’m having trouble maintaining focus. First, there are so many other interesting and worthwhile things to do that I keep getting distracted. I am trying to keep the rest of my research agenda afloat and other projects on track. I am…

Last week, I defended my qualifying exam and was advanced to candidacy. Today, I finished creating, checking, and uploading reports and data files for the 11 institutions who administered my survey to their students. So now I’m officially done with everything except my dissertation proper. I plan on spending the long weekend holiday (Thursday is…

Unless there are some surprises in store for me, I have all of the data for the first “half” of my dissertation. Before I can organize and analyze it for my own purposes, however, I want to get it organized and analyzed for the institutions that so graciously asked their students to participate in this…

Last week I finally began scanning survey instruments to turn pencil and pen marks into data. Using the setup in the photo, I’ve scanned most of the surveys. The scanner I’m using is quite old but it’s a beast that still scans very quickly. It even scans surveys printed on longer sheets of paper and…

Completed surveys from two of the eleven institutions participating in the first wave of data collection have arrived.  Now I’m working with my colleagues in IU’s Center for Survey Research (CSR) to transform these from a stack of completed surveys into an SPSS data file.  One of my colleagues in CSR likened this process to…

I’m a few weeks away from my qualifying exam so I took an opportunity to update my dissertation synopsis so my advisor can use it to write my second question.  It includes my final survey instrument and a few notes related to the pilot administration. In the meantime, I wait for surveys to be administered…

My first set of surveys is printed, packaged, and awaiting pickup by the FedEx man.  In other words: HOLY SHIT I’M REALLY STARTING MY DISSERTATION!