Should a PhD Supervisor check if the methodology is correct?

Question

I have noticed i made a mistake in my work. I need to follow some steps (wich weren't real clear for me at the beginning of my PhD and my supervsior never said anything about them), and i just saw i made a mistake. I have defined those steps in the wrong order. Let's say i did step 4 before step 3. Which obviously changed the results I was getting (now that the order is correct, the results are really bad).

It is my supervisor role to check if i am doing the correct steps in my work? Check if my methodology is the correct one?

Answer 1

My own opinion (and practice) is that, yes, it is the supervisor's job to assure such things. Perhaps not personally, as it can be delegated to others, but it should be done.

But there are a wide range of opinions and of practice. Some supervisors are completely hands-off in such things and some are, at the other extreme, overly (looking for the right word here) intrusive.

But the student also has responsibility to understand the consequences of what they are doing and proposing. So, the student doesn't get a free pass if the supervisor fails to act appropriately. Normally students study other research in their field so as to understand appropriate methodology or, perhaps, take a course in methodology appropriate to the field.

Everyone, student and supervisor, need to review the work as it proceeds to look for any red flags so that the research can be redirected early enough to be effective.

Answer 2

tl;dr: Do not expect your supervisor to micromanage your work; learn to do it yourself.

PhD is a research degree. Although there are some rules (ethical, procedural) about how research should be done, an art of doing research is more than just a simple process of following some pre-determined steps. Research by definition is aimed at creating new knowledge and often new methods of acquiring the knowledge.

As a PhD student, aspiring to become an independent researcher, you should be learning how to review your own work, how to verify the accuracy of results at intermediate steps, and how to check whether the obtained results are sensible as early as possible.

A PhD supervisor has a duty of helping you to navigate your area and structure your work. However, they should not micromanage each step their student does. It is student's responsibility to understand the details of operating procedures, do the background reading, fill in the missing details sometimes (checking their own suggestions) and ask for advice when necessary.

Answer 3

You discovered a mistake in your protocol. You discovered the mistake on your own. You ask whether you can fault your PhD advisor for not telling you (soon enough) beforehand how to avoid the mistake.

Based on your statements, you may run into an issue when you raise such blame. The protocol clearly existed independent of your advisor (because you found the mistake without input from your advisor). A reasonable retort is that you were informed where to find the protocol, and you were instructed/expected to master the protocol on your own. Alternatively said, the implicit if not explicitly stated understanding your advisor had when you started the experiments was that you would not be given a step-by-step, side-by-side (hand-holding) session to teach you how carry out the protocol(s) in detail.

In summary, even as you consider to blame your advisor after the fact, consider equally how well you understood his/her expectations about how you were to master the required protocols before you even started them. Also consider how much this incident reflects on a potential lack in your ability to thoroughly deconstruct an experimental protocol to mastery before you even start it.

Maybe the bigger lesson in this incident is to appreciate why you should ask in advance for a review to find possible faults in your thinking rather than waiting until the end to reap the consequences of those faults.