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Dissertation progress report.
May. 20th, 2003 12:17 pm1. Re-ran my principal analyses using logistic regression techniques, thereby solving the statistical problem my advisor and I identified last Wednesday.
Lots of analyses, and I won't go through them all here. The gold medal result, however, is confirmation of my original hypothesis: parental endorsement of physical discipline techniques is significantly associated with their children's degree of deviance from developmental norms. The more disabled the child, the more likely the parent to select physical discipline as a response to child misbehavior.
It's not really appropriate for a "yay," because it's such a sad result, but... yay. My original findings did not disappear when subjected to more appropriate data analysis techniques.
2. Ran tests of models involving family stress and parent-child attachment quality as mediators or moderators of the relationship between disability severity and physical discipline endorsement.
None of the models are significant. This isn't surprising, for technical statistical reasons which I will not go into unless pressed, but it would've been a good additional contribution to the current state of knowledge if one or more of them had been. So, a minor alas.
3. Researched graduation requirements and deadlines for the University of Iowa Graduate College. Key dates:
June 12: Degree application due, signed by me and by my advisor John, stating that I intend to graduate in August.
June 24: Psychology Department must file a "final exam request" for me, which involves certifying that I've met all requirements for graduation other than the dissertation.
July 3: "First deposit" of finished, complete, formatted dissertation due to Graduate College. They check the formatting against their 46-page thesis formatting manual and give it back to me with a list of required corrections. Only after that may I have my defense.
July 21: Last day possible for the Psychology Department to report that I have passed my defense.
July 23: "Final deposit" of thesis due, with all corrections required by my dissertation committee and the Graduate College duly made.
August 1: Commencement.
It's very helpful to have all these deadlines spelled out. (The other, unspoken, deadline is that if I don't defend by the end of July I have to retake comps, a thought so terrible that I must avert my eyes from this paragraph even as I write it.) I can now start backing up in time and making self-imposed deadlines: if I must have my final draft by July 3, when should I get a first draft to John? If my defense needs to happen before July 21, when do I need to distribute reading copies to my committee? I think it will also help me set appropriate deadlines with John, who has had a draft of my introduction and methods sections for months without reading it. I'm pretty sure that he'll be more focused with concrete deadlines in front of us. I sure hope so.
4. E-mailed my advisor my results and set up an appointment to talk about them on the phone this afternoon.
Yay. My dissertation is finally getting somewhere. I'm starting to believe that I'll really finish.
Lots of analyses, and I won't go through them all here. The gold medal result, however, is confirmation of my original hypothesis: parental endorsement of physical discipline techniques is significantly associated with their children's degree of deviance from developmental norms. The more disabled the child, the more likely the parent to select physical discipline as a response to child misbehavior.
It's not really appropriate for a "yay," because it's such a sad result, but... yay. My original findings did not disappear when subjected to more appropriate data analysis techniques.
2. Ran tests of models involving family stress and parent-child attachment quality as mediators or moderators of the relationship between disability severity and physical discipline endorsement.
None of the models are significant. This isn't surprising, for technical statistical reasons which I will not go into unless pressed, but it would've been a good additional contribution to the current state of knowledge if one or more of them had been. So, a minor alas.
3. Researched graduation requirements and deadlines for the University of Iowa Graduate College. Key dates:
June 12: Degree application due, signed by me and by my advisor John, stating that I intend to graduate in August.
June 24: Psychology Department must file a "final exam request" for me, which involves certifying that I've met all requirements for graduation other than the dissertation.
July 3: "First deposit" of finished, complete, formatted dissertation due to Graduate College. They check the formatting against their 46-page thesis formatting manual and give it back to me with a list of required corrections. Only after that may I have my defense.
July 21: Last day possible for the Psychology Department to report that I have passed my defense.
July 23: "Final deposit" of thesis due, with all corrections required by my dissertation committee and the Graduate College duly made.
August 1: Commencement.
It's very helpful to have all these deadlines spelled out. (The other, unspoken, deadline is that if I don't defend by the end of July I have to retake comps, a thought so terrible that I must avert my eyes from this paragraph even as I write it.) I can now start backing up in time and making self-imposed deadlines: if I must have my final draft by July 3, when should I get a first draft to John? If my defense needs to happen before July 21, when do I need to distribute reading copies to my committee? I think it will also help me set appropriate deadlines with John, who has had a draft of my introduction and methods sections for months without reading it. I'm pretty sure that he'll be more focused with concrete deadlines in front of us. I sure hope so.
4. E-mailed my advisor my results and set up an appointment to talk about them on the phone this afternoon.
Yay. My dissertation is finally getting somewhere. I'm starting to believe that I'll really finish.
