I have overheard a discussion where some people were discussing how someone’s bachelor thesis does not contribute anything useful to the field. They were surprised that the guy could actually graduate with that thesis. This got me thinking. Is a bachelor thesis supposed to contribute anything to the field? I read the guy’s thesis and I think it does a very good job in summing up what exists and analyzed things in a thorough manner. Again, does a bachelor thesis have to contribute anything to the field?
Sounds like he has a fine Literature Review, and with about four more sections to that paper, including Research Methods and Data Analysis, he could have a decent thesis.
I’m pretty sure that the answer to this quration will vary depending on school and field. Has he asked his professor?
How would someone who only has a Bachelor’s know enough to contribute something useful to the field? They’ve only gotten a brief overview, they haven’t specialized and they certainly haven’t sub-specialized.
No. A Ph. D dissertation is supposed to, but it’s not required for a Bachelor’s or Master’s.
It would surprise me very much if many places required a student to do original research that made a significant new contribution to a field for a Bachelor’s Thesis. While it’s been a long time since I was in college, back then a Bachelor’s Thesis was basically an honor project. You had to carry out a research project, but it didn’t have to be anything particularly new. In my case my research project didn’t work out because of temperamental research animals and I ended up doing a literature review instead, and go full credit.
Mine was required to.
Caveat: It did not have to be “significant” whatever that means
ETA - and an apology - I was referring to my masters thesis which I now see is completely irrelevant too this thread.
I didn’t even have to do a bachelor’s thesis at all.
I’ve never seen a bachelor’s thesis cited in a paper. They aren’t even archived in the college library, as far as I know. And I’ve never heard of a requirement to publish one’s research to get a bachelor’s degree. How can a research contribute to the field if it’s not published in any way?
It’s heavily dependent on the program/school. Some only require a thesis for a degree with honors.
I can’t imagine how an undergrad is supposed to make an original contribution to their field. A typical bachelor’s program would only have a handful of classes directly related to the major and they all tend to be fairly broad. Original research isn’t really something that a typical undergrad would be doing.
I didn’t have to do one for my degree, per se. I had to do one for a required class that if I didn’t pass, I wouldn’t get my degree. It was research and conclusions, not necessarily “new” knowledge.
Mine certainly didn’t.
I know someone whose first paper (of their many papers) was their bachelor’s thesis rewritten as a paper for a journal.
Sure, that’s not unusual. But I don’t think any bachelor’s program requires this, whereas Ph.D programs usually do require their research to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Way back so many, many moons ago all undergraduates in my course did an honours project.
Typically they did an element of their supervisors research projects. It would have been unusual to have considered it cutting edge but did contribute.
My honours project was testing an assumption of a doctorate project being conducted with the same supervisor. When my project showed the assumption was invalid the PhD had to be revised and I got a footnote and citation (as an unpublished BSc thesis) in the doctorate thesis and later my supervisor wrote the BSc project up (with significant extension) and got the paper published, also giving me a citation for the unpublished study.
IME this isn’t true even for Ph.D. programs, at least in US academia. A doctoral thesis is supposed to be publishable, and adjudged as such by the thesis committee consisting of researchers knowledgeable about the field, but I don’t think it’s at all usual for a thesis committee to require that the thesis be actually published (or even accepted for publication) before granting the degree.
Not saying that there might not be some Ph.D. programs that do require this, but I don’t believe it can be considered “usual”.
For a bachelors level work I would be quite upset if there was an expectation of a contribution. At this level a student is in training to be a practitioner of the art. A project, even with a thesis, is intended to be part of the education process. Any problem project must have a 100% chance of success and must take the a student who through every phase of executing a project. A project that is intended to make an actual contribution is, by definition, not 100% sure. It faces a student with the prospect of having their project hamstrung by unknowns that will prevent them making it through the entire process within the tight time constraints they are under. I just used to see students get poor marks despite ability and effort if they were handed such a project. At undergraduate level the entire emphasis must be on pedagogical outcomes, not some high principle of contribution. That is for graduate level study.
+1
There are some universities that provide the option to submit a thesis that is nothing but a bound set of published papers. This can be controversial, but I do know people who have done this. Requires a very solid body of work, but does avoid thesis paralysis.
I don’t think I’ve even heard of a bachelor’s thesis before this. I guess I vaguely remember some folks doing an honors thesis, or something like that, but I don’t remember anything called a bachelor’s thesis. Certainly wasn’t required to graduate at my school, for sure.