I am honestly panicking and need some academic advice.
I recently submitted my master’s thesis and my supervisor later asked for the data of participants. I sent my professor the data the same day he asked for it.
The problem is that I accidentally sent a wrong spreadsheet version first. In two columns that should have contained discrete participant ratings, there were smoothed/processed values from an earlier plotting/visualization version I had experimented with while preparing graphs. The actual statistical analysis and reported results in the thesis were done using the proper original response values.
I realized this when professor asked me this question about the values and then I told him about the wrong file and sent him the corrected one.
Now I’m terrified this looks suspicious even though:
- the corrected dataset reproduces the thesis results,
- participant counts and statistics are consistent,
- and I proactively corrected the file before being confronted.
Has anyone dealt with something similar in academia? How serious is something like this usually viewed if the final dataset and analyses are internally consistent?