I've been thinking about posting all day, but I felt a little silly putting up a happy post after that hand-wringing post. I think periodically, "Maybe I should drop out of school. It is just too crazy to be a mother of four and a full-time doctoral student. With two part-time jobs." But the thing is, I love school. I'm good at school. If I could drop out of bill-paying, or laundry-folding, or or or -- then maybe I'd be on the right track. I had a great day on campus yesterday and my stress level is lower.
Today I have been working away (I started to say slogging but it honestly hasn't felt like a slog) on my results and discussion sections. I have a beautiful sentence to share with you:
The results of this test were significant, χ2(2, N = 46) = 6.3288, p = .042.
Which means I can assert in print that my idea, my baby idea that hatched almost ten years ago and has been waiting to flutter out of the nest, was right. It feels awfully good.
I might see some fluctuation in that p value as the last of my data trickles in, and I might end up back in marginally significant territory again. But I have several marginally significant results, from testing various ramifications of my hypothesis, and collectively they are enough to say, Hey, we should pay attention to this. I am hypothesizing a modest effect size and my sample is not enormous, so the consistent trend toward significance in my results is pretty intriguing. And I'm going to enjoy that .042 while it lasts.
Tonight I wrote a rather emphatic conclusion to my paper; before I submit it to my project director I will have to go back through and sprinkle in some potentiallys and putatives. But here on my blog I can say what I am really thinking, which is, Yes! My idea was right!
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