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Why writing a thesis is so difficult

Gepubliceerd: 16 April 2015 • Leestijd: 6 minuten en 28 seconden • English Dit artikel is meer dan een jaar oud.

Why is it so difficult to write a thesis? Because the university won’t teach you, says language lecturer Amos van Gelderen. ‘So it isn’t all that strange that students just have a go at it.’

Illustratie scriptie Aniek Bartels

Writing a thesis is like a mad dash to the finish of a long marathon: it adds luster to your well-deserved degree. In theory, at least. Because in practice, it turns out that a thesis is often a stumbling block to students. Sometimes, students don’t have the slightest clue as to what is expected from them, and it is becoming increasingly common for them to call in the (paid) help of a thesis agency.

Why do students have such difficulties with the final thesis? Amos van Gelderen, language lecturer at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, observes two things. Firstly, study programs simply don’t teach their students how to write a thesis. After more than three years, you just have to start writing it. In addition, the requirements for theses set by programs are often vague and abstract.

At the same time, more and more study programs are the subject of criticism, because the quality of the graduation projects of their students is below par. Programs are forcing up requirements. Students who will be graduating in the time ahead will have to meet more demanding requirements.

1. Students don’t learn how to do it
Of course, students enroll for all kinds of things during the course of their studies, but Van Gelderen observes that the quality of writing of the work submitted is rarely given feedback. Teachers mainly check whether the student has understood the subject matter; whether the student’s writing is clear, well thought-out, and effective is secondary.

Writing means thinking, planning, organizing, and reasoning, explains Van Gelderen. It is a conceptual activity that requires you to consider whether the things you’re writing are correct, whether they are in the right place, and whether they’re correctly phrased. And students don’t learn how to do that. A study into linguistic skills recently pointed that out (see ‘infographic,’ p.4): Dutch HBO (higher professional education) graduates possess approximately the same linguistic skills as high school students. The researchers conclude by stating that schools for higher professional education seem to add little to the linguistic skills of students.

‘Indeed, when it comes to language, graduation theses often linger at the level of higher general secondary education’, says Van Gelderen. ‘However, the point is that we shouldn’t be expecting anything else. We don’t teach language classes to students, so it’s not very surprising that students just have a go at their theses.’

2. Criticism of quality = more demanding requirements 
Meanwhile, the thesis is becoming increasingly important. Programs are struggling with it, too. Every six years, a higher professional education program is inspected by an accreditation committee that examines the quality of graduation theses, among other things. Due to changes in the inspection system, these committees are becoming increasingly critical of the quality of theses. Some programs are even graded unsatisfactorily. In these cases, the committee comes to the conclusion that – for example – too many theses are, according to them, inadequate, while teachers have passed them.

In the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Nursing and Social Work and Services (MWD) programs, as well as the Human and Organizational Behavior Master’s, did not pass the inspection in the past few years due to an unsatisfactory graduation level. The accreditation committees found too many theses below par in these programs. In 2012, the accreditation panel believed that the Human and Organizational Behavior theses were, among other things, not well written. The ‘demonstrated linguistic skills’ were ‘insufficient’. The same year, the accreditation panel observed that nursing students were insufficiently capable of reflecting on the theory of their field. Research questions were ‘formulated too broadly’ and students’ choices were inadequately or even wrongly substantiated, or not substantiated at all.

Consequently, it’s not about punctuation; it’s about conceptual skills. The accreditation committee wasn’t satisfied with MWD graduation projects either. With regard to the theses and other student reports, the panel says that the level is ‘rather low’.  And: ‘Many projects are marked by a desultory connection between the research question, literature, method, and conclusion.’ The program got a year to improve the graduation level. The improvement plan of MWD shows, among other things, that the program wants to clarify the graduation criteria.

Those who start their studies in higher professional education this year or next year will be taking much more classes on designing a study and perhaps even on writing a thesis. ‘As of recently, nearly all programs have incorporated a research track in their curriculum’, says Simone Kooij from the Education & Quality Department, who is also a member of the assessment expert group. However, it’s not really of use to students who are graduating now. ‘They have to be brought up to standard’, says Kooij. And quite a lot, too, because for them, the bar was already set higher during their course of study.

‘You can’t expect students to write a good thesis based on vague requirements.’

3. The requirements are vague and abstract 
Amos van Gelderen also sees an advantage in the new emphasis on the quality of the thesis: ‘If it becomes more important to programs that students write good theses, they might also start setting clearer and more specific requirements.’ That is exactly what MWD promises to do in its improvement plan. Clear criteria are an important prerequisite, says Van Gelderen. ‘You can’t expect students to write a good thesis based on vague requirements. Moreover, unclear requirements will give rise to the undesirable situation of a grade depending entirely on the teacher who is your thesis supervisor.’ Establishing clear assessment criteria, however, is not that easy. In a perfect world, students can put together the assessment criteria and their thesis, so that they can see for themselves what they did right or wrong. However, if the criteria are so specific that writing a thesis becomes nothing more than a blanks exercise, you won’t learn much from it.

‘We advise programs to always look at the skills that students must master to subsequently deduce specific criteria’, says Simone Kooij. The question remains as to what ‘specific’ really means. Kooij also assisted in creating a new graduation manual for MWD.  It includes eighteen criteria a thesis must meet. Number eleven reads as follows: ‘The research method is described in a correct, clear manner’:  whereas number seven reads: ‘The research question is elaborated in relevant sub questions’. And number thirteen reads: ‘The results are described in a clear and objective manner’.  As a student, can you determine what ‘correct,’ ‘clear,’ and ‘relevant’ really mean?

Kooij admits that there still is a certain element of abstraction to these criteria, but that is done for a reason. ‘We assume that students have learned to cope with increasingly abstract criteria during their studies.’ Kooij, too, believes that the fact that current fourth-year students are not explicitly trained in doing so is correct, which is why current graduating students should get more guidance. In the Teacher Training College for Dutch, a slightly different system is used for writing assignments, says Rianne de Zeeuw-Oprel – namely, Rubrics. De Zeeuw-Oprel, a linguistic policy project manager and teacher of Dutch, explains what the rubric looks like for the graduation thesis for Dutch. The requirements that the thesis must meet are constantly described at five different levels for six themes. Does the introduction, for example, contain a research question as well as a setting of objectives, and have the main concepts been defined? Then it will be satisfactory. Are those aspects missing? Then it will be very unsatisfactory. ‘It gives the student a bit more support, because it’s easier to see what’s expected from you’, says De Zeeuw-Oprel.

Van Gelderen would rather see a clearer assignment description. ‘The aim of the text as well as the reader for whom it’s written should be much clearer from the very start. If, in addition, the length of the text, the components it should have, and the sources that need to be used are clear, it’s not that difficult to apply proper assessment criteria.’

‘Reviewing an exam is supposed to take fifteen minutes to complete. If the teacher wants to provide feedback, he will soon be doing so in his own time.’

Time and money
The conclusion is obvious to everybody. If you really take a thesis more seriously, you also need to put a lot of work into acquiring thesis skills; provide more feedback on scribblings from students during their course of study. Or should we rather say: provide feedback at all. That’s where it all starts, according to Van Gelderen. Not with separate classes on writing skills, but with specialist teachers who assess student writing assignments on more than just professional knowledge.

And that’s where two major problems emerge: time. As well as the question whether the teachers possess sufficient writing skills themselves. De Zeeuw-Oprel: ‘I believe that every teacher would love to give more feedback, but it’s very time-consuming. Reviewing an exam or report is supposed to take fifteen minutes to complete. If you want to give feedback or wish to see an improved version back, you will often have to do so in your own time. That’s what many teachers are doing.’ However, the writing skills of teachers are also at issue, says Amos van Gelderen. ‘The following is true for specialist teachers: writing about your profession is part of your profession. So teachers should also become competent at writing.’ Van Gelderen doesn’t mince matters. ‘If you really want to do something about writing skills, it’s going to cost money.’

Text: Olmo Linthorst
Illustrations: Aniek Bartels

This article was originally published in Dutch on January 14, 2014.

See also: ‘7 tips for writing your theses’.

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3 Responses to Why writing a thesis is so difficult

  1. I know this is a very old post, but I have to say I am struggling with the most demotivated and anxious period of my lifetime. I have been working on my thesis for more about a year now and especially today I am feeling a real burn out and tiredness within many ways but the most on emotional way. I am just tired how the HR (IFM) has a lack of helping students with their problems during writing a thesis.

    IT SUCKS. SO DAMN MUCH.

    I am thinking about writing my whole experience and send it to someone within HR so I can save the drama for students who will apply for the same course as many of my classmates and I did. I just really hope I can change something about the whole procedure, because what I have been experiencing is a lot more difficult than regular thesis experiences.

    I would not even be HAPPY when I will graduate it will only feel as such a relieve to not be studying at that school anymore, how SAD is that to experience.

  2. The most important difficulty is that most of the students don’t know how to find the relevant sources in order to collect the for their thesis

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