I can help. my coaching and consulting services could help you save hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars in tuition. How? if you'll apply the strategies that i used to complete my dissertation nominated as a dissertation of distinction in record time, then you'll be better able to get and stay organized, reduce your stress, increase your productivity, complete a high quality dissertation or proposal faster than you thought possible, and meet or beat your academic deadlines. I enjoy this type of work and can relate to being a student , so i only charge $40 an hour and your initial consultation is free. As your dissertation coach and consultant, i'll provide as little or as much support, guidance, and collaboration as you need to successfully complete your dissertation or proposal.

My step by step strategic action plans, checklists, and practices can help reduce your stress and improve the academic quality of your work. Click on the single best tip tab t o read the number one, most useful tip i can offer you. Your research consultant will provide personalized help in any combination of the following ways. l ive c onsultation. arrange one on one / small group sessions. Let's focus on what concerns you whether structure, research design or statistics for a research proposal or final project. Our thesis and dissertation consultants help student researchers to write detailed research proposal outlines and or outlines for specific sections of the final research paper such as the research design amp research methodology .

Helping you with the outline process will organize your ideas and help you to better meet thesis / dissertation committee member expectations. Writing a good outline for research proposals and final research papers helps students to complete reading for and writing a thesis / dissertation more efficiently. Essentially, research proposal or final study outlines are a framework within which you will only need to 'fill in the blanks ' with details of your thesis or dissertation. To help you to meaningfully 'fill in the blanks ', our dissertation / thesis help may start by either 1 covering the basics with explanations and everyday examples or 2 showing you how to write your research paper with scholastic maturity and authority. For instance, we will demonstrate how to be 'critical ' when writing a research design and research methodology for a thesis or dissertation proposal and other parts of the final research project. Our thesis and dissertation consultancy is also here for you to feel free to bounce your ideas off of your consultant and even ask your ' silly questions '. We help student researchers at any or all of the following stages of writing the research proposal or final research project.

I have a masters degree in probability and statistics and i have been employed full time as a professional statistician since 1993. I created my own statistical consulting business, statistically significant consulting, llc, specifically to help doctoral students with the statistical aspects of their dissertation. You can read more about me and my statistical consulting services on my home page: occasionally, doctoral students are challenged on the validity of using parametric statistics to analyze summative scale scores. Im referring to a scale score that is derived by averaging or summing many likert type survey questions to measure an underlying construct like emotional intelligence for example. So, for example, lets say you have 10 survey questions measured on a 5 point likert type scale like: 1 strongly disagree 2 disagree 3 neutral 4 agree, and 5 strongly agree.

The idea is that each survey question measures some facet of the underlying construct e.g. Emotional intelligence and that by averaging all of the questions, you get a valid and reliable measure of emotional intelligence. Of course work needs to be done to establish validity and reliability, but for the sake of this discussion, lets assume we have a valid and reliable instrument of this type.

Parametric statistics refers to statistical tests like the t test, anova, and linear regression analysis. Those statistical tests are called parametric because they are based upon an underlying probability distribution e.g. Sometimes, empirical data do not meet the strict assumptions of parametric tests e.g. In that case, remedial steps are undertaken such as transformations of the data or use of non parametric statistics. But, for the sake of this discussion, lets assume the summative scale score and other data e.g. Independent or dependent variables to be compared with the summative scale score meet the assumptions for the parametric statistical analysis. Personally, i believe it is appropriate to apply parametric statistics in this case.

Apparently thousands of other researchers agree with me because you will see parametric statistics applied to summative scale scores in thousands of published articles in high caliber peer reviewed journals. If i understand correctly, those who question or oppose the use of parametric statistics for analysis of summative scale scores are concerned that the scale scores, while measured on a continuous measurement scale, are not truly measured on an interval or ratio measurement scale, and technically, parametric statistics do assume interval or ratio measurement scales. I think their concern goes like this: the individual survey questions that make up the summative scale score are measured on an ordinal measurement scale. With ordinal measures, we cant necessarily say that the quantitative difference between strongly disagree for example and disagree, is the same quantitative difference between agree and strongly agree. So, the question becomes, when you derive a summative scale score from multiple likert type survey questions, does the resultant summative scale score have the same problem as the likert type questions? for example, taking the average of 10 likert type survey questions measured on a 5 point scale would produce a measurement with a continuous measurement scale, meaning it can take on fractional values like 1.13, 2.56, 4.87. One might ask, is the difference between 1.00 and 2.00 the same as the difference between 3.00 and 4.00? i take the position that if there is a difference i.e. The summative scale score is not truly interval or ratio , it is likely to be relatively insignificant.

In other words, the results will still produce valid and meaningful results most of the time in my opinion. I think that averaging out over multiple survey questions kind of smooths that issue out, making it a relatively small concern. Perhaps the worst case scenario is, report this potential threat to validity as a limitation of the study. Several of my clients, and their committee members have had some misunderstandings about the use of parametric statistics with ordinal data, so i decided to write this article. Many statistical procedures such as pearsons correlation and linear regression analysis require certain assumptions about the data in order for the procedure to be valid.

Examples of categorical variables are: 1 gender 2 what is your favorite color, and 3 level of agreement, strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree. Examples of continuous measurements are: 1 height in inches measured to the nearest 10th of an inch weight measured to the nearest 10th of a pound. The only difference between nominal and ordinal is that the order of the categories for a nominal variable has no meaning whereas an ordinal variable has a meaningful order from smallest to largest. For example, you cant put favorite color, red, green, blue, yellow in order from least to most, but strongly disagree is clearly less than disagree, which is less than neutral and so on.