Factors Supporting and Preventing Master Thesis Progress in Mathematics and Statistics – Connections to Topic and Supervisor Selection

Abstract

Mathematics and statistics major master graduates of a Finnish university answered a questionnaire about the master thesis process. Their response was analyzed to find connections of the topic and supervisor selection to the factors supporting and preventing the master thesis progress. Certainty of the thesis topic and of selecting a supervisor does not seem to predict smoother thesis progress than uncertainty of the selections. Students who are not very sure but still fairly sure about the both selections provisionally meet more supporting factors and less preventing factors than other students. An interesting observation is that there are factors which support the progress of some students but prevent the progress of some other students. Mathematics teacher specialization students' experiences differ slightly from those of the other specializations students, in particular, their theses are graded lower and they hesitate more the selection of the master thesis supervisor.