STUDENTS’ PREPAREDNESS towards WRITING A BACHELOR THESIS; A SURVEY-BASED INVESTIGATION

Abstract

This paper investigates how students perceive their preparedness when they start writing their bachelor thesis. Students at the University of Agder (UiA) will, in their first semester, receive lectures in ethics, academic writing and referencing to equip them for future writing, mostly academic reports. In the Civil Engineering Department, an IMRAD report template is used during their bachelor thesis. The Civil Engineering Department also requires lecturers to use variations of the same template for every report to prepare the students for their bachelor thesis. This paper will use this year’s bachelor students as a case study. In January and February, the students attended a workshop and followed a course titled "TFL200 – system course for engineers". The workshop gave the students a recapitulation in academic writing, referencing, the writing process, project management, and how the template is structured, explaining the template's different parts. TFL200 covered ethics, systems theory, innovation and LCA, sustainability, and academic writing. In the spring semester, two surveys were sent out to third-year bachelor students in Civil Engineering writing their bachelor thesis. The first survey was sent out at the beginning of January, before the students started their course and workshop. This survey investigated to which degree the students feel prepared, motivated, and ready to write their bachelor thesis. The second survey was conducted in late February to evaluate the effects of TFL200 regarding the bachelor project and the workshop, measuring the student's current preparedness, motivation, and to which degree the students feel competent.