How e-learning facilitates the writing of a thesis for teachers and students

What is the assistant professor Laura Nawijn likes most of her work? His answer: supervise the theses. She explains: “Teaching and research meet very well here. Students in clinical psychology are often very interested in the subject of their thesis and they wish to immerse it, but there are times when they find it intimidating. Then it is good to work with these students. And if, in the end, they say they liked to do the research, it is very rewarding.

The best supervision

With her colleagues Joanne Mouthaan and Anne Van Giezen, Nawijn has been working for some time to develop thesis supervision in a group format. Using the supervision of the Groupwise thesis,, Groups of students receive general information on writing a thesis. What is the best way to organize your references? How do you write a strong introduction? And how can you configure the right terms of research? “You don't want to hold your students' hands, but you want to give them the feeling that if they do things in a particular way, it will work well. With the right tools, they will be able to pass the thesis process. Nawijn says that on the one hand, you can see it as a kind of recycling and in -depth courses, and on the other hand, this is an opportunity to exchange ideas with other students. “Writing a thesis is a lonely process. This is why it is good and instructive to hear others how they go there too. It also allows supervisors to give a lot of time to give general information on the theses, so that they can focus more on the content of a student's search.

Online learning

Nawijn, Mouthaan and Giezen received a Basic grant To develop an online learning module to further optimize the supervision of the thesis. “The needs of students with their mastery theses are very different,” explains Nawijn. “For example, we may want an explanation involved in the choice of an analysis method, while another remembers the baccalaureate thesis.” This gave birth to the idea of ​​using an online learning to put this type of information available individually. Students can then decide for themselves if they need more information on a specific thesis component. In addition, the thesis processes are not synchronous for all students: some always collect data while others are already involved in the analysis of their results. “We hope that with the online learning program, we can better adapt general supervision to the individual progress of students. Students who are ready for this are starting to work there right away, and those who are not ready can recover it later. This allows us to spend more time in meetings on comments and joint practice exercises.

The next step

The objective is that students start their thesis in October to be able to use the online learning program. Professors, as well as students, are therefore currently busy assessing the supervision of the thesis in Groupwise and developing the digital module. What components do students find a precious value? What should be put in the online course? And how do you motivate students to really use the tool? Nawijn hopes that e-learning will not only be a means for teachers to spend less time on general questions, but that it will also allow students to go through the thesis process more easily and to know more control and autonomy. The supervision of theses could well become an even more pleasant part of Nawijn's work in the future.