Experiences of Graduate Students in Thesis Writing: Its Implications to ASEAN Integration

Abstract

Graduate students often face problems of finishing their degrees based on the observation, experiences, and interviews with students and advisers. These problems are mainly due to the rigorous process of writing a scholarly thesis. Many graduate students are constrained by time and resources. Students do not have adequate research writing skills necessary for papers that reflect creativity, originality, and mastery of one's specialization. In this study, qualitative methods were used with an open-ended survey questionnaire as the basis for the discourses employed in the narrative analysis. Five respondents represented each degree program. These graduate students were asked to describe their experiences of training designed to take them through the different sections of writing their thesis papers. The responses were then categorized using Gagne's five categories of learning outcomes. Results indicate that the students found the training/ seminar-workshop informative and relevant. Based on the learning outcomes, the training improved their intellectual skills, verbal information, cognitive strategies, and attitudes.  This training also impacts on the ASEAN integration in that students are confident they would be able to meet academic and professional requirements because of the learning they have undergone through the thesis writing training. Investing in training can help prepare students to meet the challenges of writing scholarly papers which are comparable to those written by other ASEAN member states.