The dormant symptoms of PhD stress we should not ignore

Often scholars engrossed in their PhD work tend to ignore their stress symptoms. Ignoring or turning a blind eye to these symptoms is not one of the greatest ideas because if there is too much of accumulation of pressure within without identification and a vent out it may result in a harmful outpour. A mature scholar would not let the symptoms lie but would surface them and handle them. There are certain feelings and   experiences that are often found specifically in PhD scholars. They are:

1. A perpetual feeling that you don’t have the potential to work hard
2. An overwhelming feeling with the  work pressure
3.  A sense  that you are not  constructively exploiting your true potential for your PhD
4. The lack in focus
5. A feeling that your efforts are not strong or impactful
6. A lack of control over actions and outcomes
7. A feeling that  the easiest of tasks have become challenging
8. A perpetual sense of fear and uncertainty
9. Physical and emotional  tiredness
10.  A negative apprehension that everyone would get exposed to your inability to perform

Often, those who even recognize these underlying symptoms of stress try to be more organised or work harder but these are not the solutions to the problem. The target should be on the root problem. The following approach may be of help in a general way for dealing better with the problem:

1. Take things slowly: This is the hardest but the most essential thing to do under a lot of work pressure. Slowing down helps to think and simplify the tasks so that they could be handled properly
2. Self-introspection: Peep into your own schedule and eliminate all the extra things you have been working. It is a good start to prioritize your work and focus on one thing at a time. Break down your tasks into smaller steps and follow the progress step wise.
3. Observe your reaction when things go wrong: Whenever you are in a problem what is your reaction? Does it come to you as a personal failure or do you involve yourself into the problem and figure out a solution to the same. Small failures are an inevitable part of research and your reaction to the same contributes towards your success
4. Learn to let go:   Coping up with failing in your PhD may be a tough task, to say simply but certainly it is not the worst thing that could happen to anybody. You should never lose trust in your own capability. Look at the problem holistically and try to find a solution. If no solution is available don’t take quitting as a personal failure.

As they say, there is always a room for improvement. How much ever carefully the thesis be developed, it is always advisable to proof read the text not just one but  more times  so as to ensure that the problems  are eliminated at all levels.

Before the final submission, each paper should be edited very carefully. Some tips that may help to add quality to the research work are:

Keep aside sufficient time for proofreading: The schedule for research should be so planned that the research scholar must finish all work and keep aside sufficient time which is exclusive for the purpose of proofreading. Not just once but couple of times. This should be planned way before the submission deadline

Handle one grain at a time: There are many problems to deal with when proofreading and correcting thesis work and it is important that the researcher moves ahead step by step. Always begin with punctuation errors and then graduate to spelling errors and finally towards the structuring of the sentences

Extra caution with Names and Numeric:  In all the places in the thesis where names or statistical figure have been incorporated, the researcher must be sure of the spellings and the figures. The same caution applies to facts and figures

Hard Copy proof reading: After have carefully gone through a soft copy, may be more than one it is still important to go through the proof reading process on a hard copy. There may be few mistakes that may get overlooked on the system but get noticed or come forth prominent on a print out

Read loudly: This is a technique not followed by many researchers but it is often a very useful technique. Reading out the thesis loudly helps to identify the mistakes that the eye may have overlooked.  It is even better to ask another person to read it out to you, in intervals and as a listener you could concentrate on mistakes that may have not been noticed in proofreading

Make use of common sense along with logic: The computer only works on logic. It may help the researcher with spelling errors but the application of the word and its suitability is the decision and discretion of the researcher. The use of correct vocabulary is the skill of an experienced researcher and the scholar could seek professional advice for the same

Getting third person perspective: This is the last but a very important tip as a neutral opinion helps to get a holistic perspective to the thesis and helps to eliminate biases if any

Cross Sectional Study Design: The use of cross sectional design is used for the kind of research that collects data on more relevant variables at a single attempt from different kinds of people, subjects or phenomenon. The key feature here is that the data is collected at the same time.

 The cross sectional design offers a snapshot of the different variables in the study. It would help to bring forth those variables that are representatives of a cross section of the population. These designs usually depend upon the survey techniques for the collection of data.

Cross Sectional Study Design have key advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantages are:

•  It collects data on multiple variables
• Data is collected from a large number of respondents
• Data is collected from varied subjects
•  It collects data on attitudes and behaviour
• It aids exploratory  research
• It helps to generate relevant hypotheses for future research
•  The data from this is useful for many different researchers

The main Disadvantages are:

• Augments chances of error
• Adds the cost as the subjects increase
• Increases cost as there are multiple locations
• Does not measure or evaluate change
• Does not focus on cause and effect
• It does not control independent variable
• It is more time bound

Longitudinal Designs

As the name is indicative, a longitudinal design collects the data over a span of time. The measurement is taken on each and every variable in not just one time frame but over two distinct times. It aids in measuring change and comparing it over time. Time series and panel are two different types of longitudinal designs.

When we talk of the first type, a Time Series Design compiles the data on a similar variable at predefined regular intervals.  This is done in a form of aggregate measures of population. There are a lot of uses of Time Series Designs.

• Putting up a baseline measure
• Comparing the changes that have taken place over time
• Keeping a record of the trends
• Predicting trends for the time to come

The presentation of Time Series data is in the form of pictorials like charts and graphs. Analysis and interpretation from these graphs looks for four types of patterns that are identified.

• Long term trends
• Cyclical Variations
• Seasonal Variations
• Irregular Variations

There are some advantages and disadvantages of Longitudinal Designs. These are:

Advantages:

• It is very easy to collect data
• Representation of data in graphs is easy
• Interpretation of data is easy
• It is useful for prediction of short term trends

Disadvantages:

• The approach for data collection changes over a time period
• It is difficult to bring out more than one variable at a certain time
• It needs to be clubbed with qualitative research for explanations
• It relies on the assumption that present trends will remain unchanged

Cross Sectional Studies: The cross sectional studies are simpler and target at discovering the phenomenon, concern, attitude by looking at snap shot view of the cross section of the population. This helps to obtain a more holistic picture which holds relevance with the time in which the study was conducted. To give an example, the use of a cross sectional design would be to have a look at the demographic characteristics of the population. The advantage of these kinds of studies are that they mostly  undertake only one contact with the population under study and the cost involved in undertaking the study is relatively cheaper.

Some studies do pre-test and post-test work towards measuring the change in the situation or the phenomenon that is the focus of the study.  These kinds of studies mostly measure the effectiveness of a programme. These kinds of studies are usually a variation from the conventional cross sectional studies as they take into consideration two sets of data collection which is cross sectional on both sides.  The purpose is to determine if any change has occurred.

 Retrospective Studies: Another kind of study is the retrospective study. The name itself is self-explanatory and as obvious it is used to study a specific phenomenon which has had an occurrence in the past. The probable approach adopted in these studies is the use of secondary data collection which reveals information and data on the previous studies and databases.

Prospective studies: In contrast to retrospective studies, the prospective study design targets to estimate the probability of the occurrence of an event in the coming future. They help to guess what would be the outcome of any event. Usually the general science experiments are of a prospective nature as the experimenter can only know the effect or impact of an experiment only after it has run its course.

Longitudinal Studies: This kind of studies stretch over a longer time period where data is to be collected repeatedly throughout the course of the study. The time span of the longitudinal studies could be from few months to several decades. These kinds of studies help to identify the correlation between the variables and mostly are not able to give out a causal relationship