Theses aren’t beneficial for students who aren’t interested in research

C/O Ousa Chea on Unsplash

With the winter term wrapping up, many students in their final year are also wrapping up their thesis projects. Thesis projects are multi-unit courses that can range from six units to as large as 15 units. It’s a large research project that many students spend several hours on throughout their final year.

While not all programs are required to do a thesis project, some programs do require one, including health sciences, integrated science and arts and science. However, a year-long thesis is a big undertaking for most students. Although thesis projects have faculty supervisors, most of the research you done independently.

While not all programs are required to do a thesis project, some programs do require one, including health sciences, integrated science and arts and science. However, a year-long thesis is a big undertaking for most students.

For example, I’m doing a thesis this year. As part of my project, I’m doing a literature review, which involves looking at academic articles on my topics and analyzing current methods, findings and theories in the existing literature. Most of my work involves sitting at a computer, looking at articles by myself. I do have a meeting with my supervisor every week, but even that is mostly self-conducted: I ask my supervisor questions regarding my thesis and outline what I’ve done so far.

I enjoy my thesis topic and I think what I’m doing is important. Yet, even I run into issues and struggle with completing my thesis. I’m sure it’s even more difficult for those that don’t enjoy doing a thesis project. Thus, doing a thesis should be something that is optional for students to partake in.

For one, not everyone wants to pursue research in the future. A thesis can be very valuable when it comes to developing your research skills, but not everyone is interested in doing research after their final year. Some students who finish their undergraduate degree go directly into the workforce, some students complete further studies but opt for a course-based graduate or professional program and some students just simply don’t like research.

If you don’t like research, it can be hard to write a research-based thesis. Even if you do like research, thesis projects typically require you to come up with a new spin on an idea or a theory and not everyone has the capacity to do that. You may like researching topics, but only things that already exist in the literature, such as researching for a project or presentation in a molecular mechanism.

If you don’t like research, it can be hard to write a research-based thesis. Even if you do like research, thesis projects typically require you to come up with a new spin on an idea or a theory and not everyone has the capacity to do that.

Furthermore, some students gain more from doing course-based work. Maybe taking a presentation-based course, an inquiry course or a lecture-based course is something that is really up their alley. Since we’re paying for our education, shouldn’t we have a say on how we want to learn? Having requirements for certain courses makes sense because, at the end of the day, we’re getting a degree in a specific field.

However, we should have the option to choose the way we learn our required content. If we need to learn about molecular biology, we should have the option to do a thesis, but also have the option to do a project, paper or presentation on it instead.

The need for optional thesis projects is further exacerbated by this year being online. Many students are facing burnout. As we hit the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, it’s important to acknowledge the higher levels of stress that students may be experiencing as well as the decreased motivation that has afflicted us by storm.

Being motivated enough to do self-directed research on top of the pandemic can be incredibly difficult; thus, it is important to consider making thesis courses optional — and especially so this year.

By making thesis projects optional, students will have the opportunity to choose whether a thesis is the best choice for their learning. Some degrees, such as programs under the department of health, aging and society as well as the English and cultural studies program already have optional theses. If optional thesis projects are doable in these programs, they should be doable for every other program, too.

Photo C/O Grant Holt

As students return from the winter break to begin new classes, a large population of students will be returning to their undergraduate thesis or seeking a thesis supervisor for the following year. The undergraduate thesis is a characteristic, and sometimes required, component of many four-year honours degree programs. Regardless of program, senior theses are designed to allow upper-year students to hone their research skills and prepare them for graduate studies.

I am completing my undergraduate thesis in an analytical chemistry lab alongside five other undergraduate students. While our projects vary in nature, the expectations of our thesis in terms of time commitment and research goals are essentially the same. However, the assessments for my thesis as an integrated science student differs from that of the chemistry students in the lab, which differ even from the chemical biology students — despite being in the same department of chemistry and chemical biology.

For example, the thesis report for students in the chemistry program is worth 40 per cent of their final grade whereas the same document for students in the chemical biology program is worth only 25 per cent. Besides the differences in weighting for the same assessment, students in chemical biology are required to complete different assessments like project outlines and interim reports while chemistry students must only complete their report and final presentation.   

While all senior theses conducted by students in the department of chemistry and chemical biology are worth nine units, senior theses that conduct arguably similar work from students in the department of biochemistry can be worth up to 15 units. This becomes especially alarming when students from departments outside of biochemistry complete their thesis in a biochemistry lab and receive less units than their biochemistry student counterparts.

It makes little sense to have students that are under the same expectations and striving towards similar research goals receiving different academic credit.

Rather than the assessment for senior theses dictated by the program to which these students belong, assessments should be decided by the supervisor. This will not only ensure that students completing virtually the same work are assessed equally, it will provide supervisors more control over the research conducted under their supervision and allow them to create assessments that better reflect students’ achievements.  

Additionally, as all senior theses share the same goal to improve students’ research capabilities, and considering students, for the most part, can conduct their thesis under the supervision of a supervisor outside of their program’s department, there is no real need for program-specific thesis courses. If the fear is that students within the same program will not develop the same transferable skills or be graded equally, the faculty rather than the program can mandate that all senior theses must include specific components and the same time commitments.

It may also be useful to consider implanting a mandatory seminar session for undergraduate thesis students to attend. The integrated science program already has such a seminar in place, where thesis students within the program are required to present updates on their research and peer-review literature reports and other related assessments.

If seminars like these were to be implemented faculty-wide, the typical undergraduate senior thesis could be restructured so that it is in total worth a standard number of units where the large per cent of a student’s grade is determined by their supervisor, and a certain smaller per cent is devoted to seminar assessments.

No matter what action is taken, it is clear that the current structure of undergraduate senior theses does not create fair opportunities for all students involved and requires serious restructuring.   

 

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