“Graduate students learn how to set up tests, gather data and run the statistics on that data. And usually allowed to draw some conclusions based on those statistics. Usually not how to interpret the data.”
A wrong interpretation and your thesis and PhD are trashed.
A wrong interpretation and your thesis and PhD are trashed.
Was told once
1. Batchelor degree means you can be taught,
2. Master’s degree means you can write something about what you were taught & worked on under supervision. (Note this is back in the day when master’s theses were common!),
3. PhD means you can plan a little, think independently a little, work on your own a little & write something about it.
The above is kind of cynical but not completely wrong!
Often the research of a graduate student performs was greatly setup before the student is accepted to the department. The grants have been written and approved before the student even applied. The results are expected and if the student fails to get the thesis approved it is a mark against the major professor. Tenure is partially based on the number of successful grad students he had. More than one published paper has had faulty reasoning and conclusions.