Exploring Quality Issues in Academic Master Theses of Education Majors and Corresponding Countermeasures

Journal of Pedagogical Research. Duzce University, Faculty of Education, Konuralp Campus, 81620, Duzce, Turkey. e-mail: ijopr.editor@gmail.com; Web site: https://www.ijopr.com/

Y

18

Education Majors; Masters Theses; Graduate Students; Evaluation Methods; Quality Assurance; Quality Control; Foreign Countries; Content Analysis; Universities; Evaluation Criteria; Research Problems; Writing Processes; Institutional Role; Supervisors; Guidance; Student Responsibility

2602-3717

This paper tries to probe the common quality issues in academic master theses of education majors and propose some possible countermeasures. The study sampled and evaluated 275 academic master theses of education majors in China to examine common quality issues in them, and used a questionnaire to survey 210 academic master's degree candidates of education majors to find out various problems they faced in their thesis writing process. The results show that the 275 theses have serious quality issues in research innovativeness and academic writing normativity. Three major problems were detected in their writing process including the shortage of supervisors' timely feedback, insufficient academic writing competence, and the deficient blind review management and research support of their institutions. Countermeasures, which cover four stages of topic selection, research execution, final draft review and thesis defence, were then proposed from perspectives of supervisors, master's degree candidates and institutions.

As Provided

2025

EJ1456483