Teaching troubleshooting skills to graduate students.
other · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39287073.
- Also identified by DOI 10.7554/eLife.100761 and PMC identifier 11407763.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Troubleshooting is an important part of experimental research, but graduate students rarely receive formal training in this skill. In this article, we describe an initiative called Pipettes and Problem Solving that we developed to teach troubleshooting skills to graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. An experienced researcher presents details of a hypothetical experiment that has produced unexpected results, and students have to propose new experiments that will help identify the source of the problem. We also provide slides and other resources that can be used to facilitate problem solving and teach troubleshooting skills at other institutions.
Medical subject headings
- Education, Graduate