A Handbook of Graduate Supervision at UBC, published the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth, 1998.
Many factors contribute to the problems of graduate students, and problems can occur at any point.
Associated with poor time management is the failure to plan carefully the relationship between the various stages of the study, or how they will be conceptually and systematically linked. Students may experience increased stress during the project from such factors as unexpected changes in research direction, project scope, methodologies, or design. Methodological difficulties in the research During a research project, a student undertakes numerous methodological tasks calling for different decisions. Each stage requires choosing among different methodologies. Inadequate skills or knowledge in different methodologies are the most common difficulty reported by students, particularly where unfamiliar computer programs or advanced statistical techniques are required.