I'm almost done with my thesis, supposed to defend in about a month, and I have recently discovered a huge error in the methodology of my study. It is essentially something I cannot correct due to a lack of data (data I couldn't measure due to money/facility restrictions.)

My adviser is terrific and we are going to discuss this at length tomorrow, but I was curious if anyone has encountered this type of situation and, if so, what did you do? I certainly can't defend a thesis that is, well... wrong. :-(

Thanks!

My Husband found a massive mistake in his thesis the week before the viva. He panicked and felt awful for 2 days, then did a massive literature search to find journals that supported the mistake lol - he basically built a case for his defence around it.

Could you build a defence around why you can't collect more data for example?

In the end the examiners didn't even see the mistake and he obviously didn't raise it, but corrected it in the final version anyway.