After completion of the course, students are able to:
- systematically and independently collect and process data and provide a structured report in the form of a scientific article
- adapt the writing of the article to the readership, layout requirements and current discussions of a selected journal
- critically reflect on the work of fellow honours students from both their own and related fields
- provide feedback on a draft article from their own field
- communicate in English about the content and the results of their research.
N.B.
Taking the Honours thesis course in period 2 is only possible in exceptional circumstances. E.g. disproportionate study delay for which the student cannot be blamed. The Honours thesis must be the final course to be completed in order to ask for permission to take it in period 2. Requests for taking this course in period 2 are always dealt with by the Board of Examiners IMEW. The Board of Examiners decides whether the student can participate. Requests are to be sent to the Board of Examiners before 1 October 2017, via: examencommissie.geo@uu.nl |
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A description of the Bachelor’s thesis can be found in the prospectus of the regular Bachelor’s programme, in which special attention is given to the Honours thesis.
The honours thesis is seen as a variation on the Bachelor’s thesis (for MMW, MNW and NWI); the expansion by 7.5 EC should be clear from the final product and should be spent on collecting or processing empirical data. This means that a literature study alone is not sufficient.
In contrast to the regular Bachelor’s thesis, the honours thesis is written in the form of an article. This succinct method of reporting, focused on a select group of readers, involves specialist writing skills and as a result the student needs to have a thorough understanding of the content. As a separate contribution – and therefore not as an appendix to the actual article – honours students need to indicate why they have chosen a particular journal and how this choice has influenced the writing process. This is included in a separate note in order to force the students to be very conscious of their choice of journal and the consequences of this choice.
The selection process of the topic of the honours thesis takes place in the same manner as that of the regular Bachelor’s thesis.In this case, the honours coordinator is the person responsible; supervision can be done by another lecturer.
Mode of Instruction
The honours thesis is set up in an identical manner to that of the Bachelor’s thesis. If possible, honours students are placed together in intervision groups; however, it will not be possible to create intervision groups exclusively composed of honours students.
As all three bachelor programmes of the educational institute work with coreferates, honours students will have intervision amongst themselves.
Assessment
Assessment is identical to the regular Bachelor’s thesis (research plan, final product, presentation and peer review), but the final product is not written in the form of a thesis but in the form of an article. The article contains a clear and logical description of all the elements of the research cycle: motivation, research questions, methods, results, discussion, conclusion and recommendations. As a separate supplement, the honours student presents an account of the choice of journal and how this has influenced the writing process. If the student chooses to also focus on the supplementary learning objectives, then these too must be incorporated in a separate appendix. The final assessment of the finished product is carried out by the supervisors of the Bachelor’s thesis.
Academic skills: communicating academically, doing research,writing and presenting
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