Dissertation Diary 1

So, I haven't written any posts recently as my surveys were live and I didn't want to confuse people who were accessing my blog to complete them. Many thanks to all of you that did take time to complete them the results are very interesting.

I have also been very busy recently juggling my dissertation with my PGCE application, student finance forms, ISTD applications and two jobs. This whole semester is really teaching me how to manage my time and I personally think I could do it better. I have had to prioritise whats more important and unfortunately everything had a deadline before my dissertation.

Now everything else is pretty much out of the way I have more time to focus on my dissertation. I have sent chapters 1 & 2 and my analysis from my surveys to Peter for feedback, as I am doing two part research I have had to analyse my surveys so I can come up with further research questions for my focus group that takes place on Sunday 17th. Im looking forward to my focus group as I really want to know in depth answers to what I found from my surveys. I have secured the venue, bought refreshments, advertised the session and drafted contracts for ethical purposes. So, until my focus group I have to draft the questions that I want to ask and check my audio recorder as I will be audio recorded for future reference to my dissertation all of which is explained in the contracts. I also need to write up chapter 3 as soon as my focus group is complete as this also needs to be sent in by the 19th October which is the deadline for these chapters. I hope to get this written by the 18th so I can ask questions about all of my chapters at the campus session with Peter on Tuesday 19th October.

I am unsure how I feel about my progress so far, at first I didn't know where to start, I found it very overwhelming as I knew what I wanted to write, and what I needed to include. This is something that i'm passionate about so you would think it is easy to sit down and get on with, however I found it difficult to start as I felt like everything sounded like I was repeating myself and this put me off writing anything, then I felt bad when I didn't do anything at all. Finally I found my way and words became to flow because of Peters feedback on the literature review. This got me going as I had already got a decent amount of literature reports from last semesters project proposal.
In one way I feel like I am ahead as I am writing my analysis from my surveys, however in another way I am behind because I can't write chapter 3 because I haven't done my focus group yet. Doing two part research I feel is very beneficial to my learning and my research, however I don't know if this could also hinder my deadlines or my word count until I have got further into my dissertation. Only time will tell and I don't like that I don't know the answer to that yet.

I feel for now I have done all that I can, I could start to edit and add to my previous chapters but think it would be more beneficial to receive the feedback first. So until Sunday I am going to plot my questions and cross my fingers that Sunday goes well.