Long Time, No See

Well it has been almost a year since my last blog post! Maybe that is just a reflection of how crazy a PhD program is when you enter the final year. Things have been pretty hectic. Everything I thought I knew, I was told I didn't actually know!

The whole scope of my thesis has pretty much changed in the last few months... while I have run six studies in my time here only 3 will be included in my thesis + a meta-analysis... which I have yet to start as I am don't even know exactly where to start with that.

Now I am just trucking along, trying not to lose hope that I will actually finish this darn program some day. I am ready to stop hemorrhaging money and start earning it... I just have to keep my brave face on and push through the pain. It will all be worth it in the end.

Until next time, stay mighty!

And We're Off... Again!

Study 4 is now up and running! It got launched Thursday of last week through all of my regular mediums - advertising on forums, e-mails, facebook, mailing lists, etc. This upcoming week we will release it on Mechanical Turk. I've never used something like this to recruit participants, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. I am lucky enough to have a fiance that is a computer programmer - so he has made this whole thing a lot easier! There was no easy way to import a survey from an external site into Mechanical Turk so he had to come up with a bit of code for me. He is the best of the best so it should all work fine when we launch it next week - but I guess we won't know until it is up! I just hope there isn't a glitch where someone can do the survey over and over and use up the set amount of money there is to pay participants!

We are hoping to get about 500 participants this round. The more the better, of course. Especially though as this is a replication study we need to NOT have the biased sample we ended up with before. I find it is getting harder to recruit participants these days... especially for a survey study that is as long as mine (takes about 30 minutes to complete). On the one hand I can understand as it is fairly long... but on the other hand I don't really understand how people could not want to contribute their mind to science. You grow up reading about different studies and the results of them... how could you pass up the opportunity to be one of those people who is counted in. One of the people who make up the average. I dunno, maybe I'm just weird cause I find that awesome... maybe that is why I have decided to pursue a career in science ;)

That is all for now!

*poof*

Writing, writing, writing....

It has been a while since an update! I am really slacking!

Well lets see... since my upgrade I have completed a 3rd study looking into sociability and online gaming. That study is now done and dusted and I am just finishing the write-up on it so my supervisor and I can submit it to be published. How awesome would that be? I think that the study itself is actually quite good and hopefully reviewers will think the same.

As far as progressing forward, it looks like the next study is going to be a replication of study 3. Due to the fact that my sample was insanely unbalanced the first time around, this will allow us to try and see if the same effects are visible in a balanced sample. If we find that it will not only strengthen our original findings, but also allow me to use this as a starting off point for my 5th study.

I am a little concerned that I am supposed to have 6 studies done by December... as the writing up of the dissertation process is supposed to start in Jan of next year. Having a replication study in the mix does make that a little more feasible but still... it's crunch time!

I am recently been accepted to present at two separate conferences in June - one in Stockholm and one in Germany. Sadly the one in Stockholm is insanely expensive (They want 450 pounds just for the registration fee!!) so I am going to have to pass on that one :( I am very excited for the Germany one though! Especially cause M. Griffiths and R. Bartle are the keynote speakers! Also super excited cause I get to present study 3 which I think is my best work to date. But the best part? Rex is going to fly out and spend a few days with me in Germany before the conference :)

That's all for now!

P.S. That vacation I talked about in my last post, was the best I ever had. American Idiot was unbelievably amazing.. Just unbelievable.

Upgrade!

Well I have finally been upgraded - I am officially a PhD student. While it did not go as smoothly as possible at least it is finally over and a decision was made in my favor. While I know I will basically have to rewrite everything I have submitted thus far, at least I have a good rough version of the first 3 chapters of my dissertation.

It is almost Christmas! There is enough snow outside that it would make it impossible not to notice it is that time of year. Hopefully the snow will decide to stop falling at some point so I can fly home for New Years! I am so excited to be spending New Years Eve in Las Vegas with Rex and my Mom! I can't wait! Then off to NYC to see "American Idiot" - with Billie Joe playing St. Jimmy! This is going to be the best vacation I have ever had... I can tell already!

Saturday I will be cooking my flat a Christmas Lasagna to celebrate the holidays! Should be fun :)

Until next time...

Lit Review Woes..

Well it is coming close to the end of my first year as a PhD student here and that means it is time to submit a literature review + proof of experimental work in order to officially be upgraded from an MPhil to a PhD student. While I have already submitted two different versions of a lit review to my supervisor.. I am currently working on a third version. This is the kind of work that no matter how long you have to finish it, you could always add/rewrite/reorganize...

At least my proof of experimental work is taken care of - I have already completed and written up two experiments and am currently in the planning stages of a third study that will revolve around the idea of social competence.

In other news, the end of my first year of my PhD also marks the end of the Master's courses.. since they are an obscenely short one year here in the UK. I have made a few really close friends who are on the Master's course and sadly I am having to see most of them go. The last week or so I have been in a super-heightened state of anxiety due to the fact that 1) my Master's friends are leaving me (/clings) 2) the deadline for my lit review is looming 3) I am soon moving in to my new accommodation and need to pack my inordinate amount of things and 4) that I have to get everything ready to go before I leave to go home and visit America (Finally!) in the middle of October.

It is like a cluster of all these things going on.. and it is leading me to a mild nervous breakdown! /deep breath

On a side note, it is pretty amazing how you can form lifelong relationships in only the span of one year. Once the realization came that they would be leaving, I realized how close I really am to some of them. I guess it just goes to show that there are simply some people in the world you just 'click' with and once you meet them you grow close at an accelerated rate. Who knew that they were hiding from me on the other side of the world though!

Until next time...

Stereotype Threat and Me

So my second experiment has come to a close... and the data is crap.

I was really thinking we would find a significant effect but alas.. science can be fickle. I can take solace in the fact that the world is the way it is.. I am just trying to measure it. Therefore, since there was no significant effect.. it isn't really my fault per say - it is just the way the world is.

I am now trying to write it up and make sense of all the numbers on my screen. Problem is that Julian is putting more stuff on my plate before I have even finished consolidating all the stuff from this study! This morning while I was still running ANOVAs and writing my methods section I get an e-mail from him containing a load of articles on social competence. While I do appreciate that he took the time to find some literature for me, it also made me feel slightly incompetent as he stated in his e-mail that he did a brief search and found loads of things. Whereas a few days ago, when I was in a meeting with him, I told him I did a brief search and all I could find was studies done with children. Which is true.. but I digress..

In this e-mail he also mentions that in addition to the data analysis that I am doing, and the writing up of the study I am doing, I should start reading the social competence literature and start developing a study around social competence. Now.. I agree with this statement.. however I wasn't planning on actually thinking about that until I had finished steps 1 and 2 - i.e. data analysis and writing up the study.

I guess I am just feeling the pressure of my PhD right now.. not only do I have to tie everything up on my second study (which will take some time as I have to actually sit with my data and the literature and decide what my crap non-significant results mean... which has to be more than just saying "my hypothesis wasn't supported), I have to start reading about and developing another study, AND work on my literature review.. which I have about 5 weeks to finish.

/sigh.

Maybe a cookie will make me feel better..

Deparmental Talk I

On Wednesday I had to give my first departmental talk - and it went pretty well. While I was nervous up there I think I was able to pull off the illusion I wasn't 'too' horribly nervous and those who asked questions made sure to ask nice ones :)

The next day I had my second research committee meeting and that also went well. We talked about possibilities for what I could do at Blizzcon (qualitative research seems to be the consensus at the moment, but we will see if that changes as Blizzcon gets closer), as well as possible suggestions for some side-projects that could be done while I am running my stereotype threat experiment. They really are pushing for me to complete my lit review by October, which I think is a doable goal so I am going to aim for that.

Lets see, what else... today I went to GBK and had a chicken/cranberry/Camembert burger which was heaven while I was eating it but omg did I want to throw it up 20 minutes later. Too rich for my blood.. and I don't think the vanilla milkshake helped my cause :( Not sure if I will eat that combination again because it is still feeling heavy in my stomach and I ate it like 5 hours ago...

I was hoping to go out for a jog today, which it still could happen but Hannah's housewarming party is in an hour or so - so it would have to be after that. We'll see how it goes... I have a feeling working-out isn't going to make it into my schedule today :( Which is unfortunate, but then again I'd probably get cramps when I starting running due to the massive burger sitting in my tummy.

Until next time..