Approach

“Thesis writing is developing a way of thinking about the world. It is a way of focusing on a particular question, of identifying relevant problems, building basic knowledge around that problem, conceptualizing that knowledge base, trying to push that knowledge further by getting new data or theorizing. The way the process rolls out and into a thesis should reflect this way of thinking. This way of thinking can be applied throughout your career.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

„Most important is to have the curiosity of a researcher. That is critical. If the learner does not have the curiosity and the eagerness to continue with every single challenge, then they are just „checking a box“ when completing their thesis. Those who really have the curiosity of a researcher tend to overcome the challenges they meet. The best students that I have are always the ones that don't come back to me. They tell me: I faced the problem, I looked it up online and this is my suggested solution. That is a signal to me of a researcher / a scholar that will go far.“ (Samer Attalah)

— Samer Attalah

“The most useful mindset appears to be to bring a growth mindset. I also like to call that having a clear motive or motivation - your motivation for doing the research. The way you realise the purpose of writing the thesis – so: “Why are you doing that?” The most important mindset for succeeding in the thesis project is to consider it a learning opportunity. It’s not just a component for graduating, but there is a secondary purpose: it’s a great learning opportunity! In the end, working on your thesis is the best opportunity for receiving one-on-one mentoring – a mode of teaching and learning that universities do not offer in most other situations. If you have a learning motive, it encourages you to invest time and effort without getting too tired. If you do not identify with the project, the outcome will not be good. If you know why you are doing it, if you take it as a learning opportunity, so learning to make informed decisions, that will be a life-long skill adopted.” (Madhu Neupane-Bastola)

— Madhu Neupane Bastola

„My most important recommendation is to clearly understand and alignment with the problem you would like to help solve. To know precisely which practical problem you would like to tackle. This means not only to theoretically understand the problem, but to also, in the back of your mind, to develop an idea of how your research can help solve the problem.“ (Günter Müller-Stewens)

— Günter Müller-Stewens

“We need to be connected to practice. We cannot be philosophers who learn about real life while they are taking a walk. It is important to listen to the environment to keep our offerings up to date. At the same time, there is extra value in going through the why-question.” (Timo Korkeamäki)

— Timo Korkeamäki

“I always encourage the students to think about who the audience for the thesis is. I encourage them to (to some extent) work with that audience. That audience may be a company or some kind of organization. The student should seek opportunities to present his/her findings to them. I encourage students to express and explain their thesis to people close to them, e.g. family or friends. They should have an audience beyond themselves and the supervisor.” (Ansgar Richter)

— Ansgar Richter

“Hands-on experience is very valuable. But the ability to conceptualize a problem and pursue it in a disciplined fashion is also important. Critical thinking is vital in developing a reasonable practical set of skills. Part of what theses contribute is the sense that you as a student were able to achieve some sort of excellence of your way of thinking, and were actually able to produce something of great value.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

“Science rests on the three pillars of rigour, reproducibility, and responsibility. Ethics is firmly built into all three pillars. Responsibility, as a fundamental ethical concept, forms the basis for everything. What is rigour? Rigorous work involves everything that rests on intellectual honesty. Also, think about science as a constant process of self-improvement.” (Gundula Bosch)

— Gundula Bosch

„Why do we need research skills at all? To help us in making informed decisions. Identifying what is “right”—even though “right” and “wrong” are relative terms. Scientific approaches help us to make informed decisions based on sufficient evidence. Not to take things for granted. That is why research skills do not only apply to the writing of a thesis and graduating, but to each and every sector of life.“ (Madhu Neupane-Bastola)

— Madhu Neupane Bastola

“In their thesis, I expect students to produce insights that are stimulating for the field of practice to allow for a more profound thinking on a topic. In my field of qualitative research, I put them in a consulting context where they get lots of empirical experience with our partners, develop insights, and present them. The feedback of the partners is very important. My role as supervisor is to help them level up the quality of their work by phasing in my knowledge, too.” (Urs Jäger)

— Urs Jäger

“Going beyond curiosity is the researcher’s ability to link things together. To go beyond the research question and to understand the subject beyond the research question. To understand that what they are studying has implications elsewhere.” (Samer Attalah)

— Samer Attalah

“The strongest mindset that I try to maintain is curiosity about the world. To try and avoid taking too many things at face value. One of the things that companies benefit from is having a regular influx of new ideas and outside perspectives. If no one is asking questions, if no one is questioning the world around them, then we stagnate. We don’t grow. Growth and evolution happen through questioning, wondering. I’m trying to imagine, “What if we tried it this way?” ” (Mathew Farmer)

— Matt Farmer

“Outside-the-box-thinking starts—based on conversations with colleagues from multiple disciplines around the globe—with communication issues. The challenge is to find the same language, given the different educational backgrounds, e.g. social studies, the arts, or biochemical studies or health. We found that for adults, it is more difficult to overcome this challenge (similar to the challenge to learn a new language). At the same time, we found that the younger individuals are seemingly more open to applying concepts to different areas, more curious, and, in a constructivist sense, less entrenched in established patterns. They do not submit to pre-made patterns as easily.” (Gundula Bosch)

— Gundula Bosch

“I always advise students to do something that is genuinely interesting to them. It helps them to keep their motivation up for the duration of the thesis. A thesis project is a new experience for many students. Students have never actually worked on a piece that is so expensive in terms of time effort.” (Ansgar Richter)

— Ansgar Richter

“You have to enter into discussion with yourself. What are your life plans? What is the design of your life? OK, maybe at the moment you don’t know exactly, and you can only do it like the start-up scene and go with prototyping and testing. Try if your heart beats in the direction of theoretical work, or are you more a type of consultant? You need a decision. Not from the beginning, but when you are saying to go to academia or at least you want to keep this path open to go to academia; later, in our times, you will have no choice but to learn the craft of publishing, of doing empirical research. There is no choice here. But even on this path, there is a choice of how you allocate your time.” (Günter Müller-Stewens)

— Günter Müller-Stewens

“I think there is such a thing as being “stuck in the middle” if you are trying to perfectly balance between academic and practitioner worlds. To my mind, any kind of work is also something spiritual. This does not have to be a religious term—“spiritual” means that there is a spirit and the spirit delivers you power for your work. You have to discover where the power for your work comes from.” (Günter Müller-Stewens)

— Günter Müller-Stewens

“There should be a purpose to a thesis, but it does not have to be a purpose in the sense that is directly related to your work or conducive to your next job. I tell students that to some extent their studies may be the last opportunity to do something that is different. I would not set the parameters too narrowly. The thesis should satisfy their curiosity, e.g. the thesis work may have an aspect concerning the topic of sustainability to it, even if it is not directly related to later professional work.” (Urs Jäger)

— Urs Jäger

“I tell PhD but also MA students that they have a journey ahead of them, that I as supervisor can’t tell them exactly where it will go and where it will lead. In an MA programme, the parameters are more set, but the time duration can be somewhat extended. However, I can’t tell the student in advance whether he will complete the project in the set time. In a PhD thesis, this is even more important.” (Ansgar Richter)

— Ansgar Richter

“Your supervisor is not your boss, not your examiner, but your peer. My approach to this: I am not going to write the thesis for you. My job is to tell you if you are building momentum in the right direction that will lead to a successful piece of research. To guide you where you can find the areas that can help you write your thesis. My role is not to have all the answers for you. The role is that of a more experienced peer who provides guidance to ensure that the piece of research is coherent, meaningful, and well-founded. It’s a form of friendly peer review.” (Samer Attalah)

— Samer Attalah

“We have different types of students, and they seek different types of experiences in their thesis processes. If you try to impose the structure too heavily on them, some may be delighted, others might be very unhappy.” (Timo Korkeamäki)

— Timo Korkeamäki

“A lot that goes on in that external environment of the self as the candidate that impacts upon someone’s ability to have a positive experience. A candidate may not feel valued by their supervisors, or that they’re a part of a research culture. If you’re not a part of some kind of community, then it’s very difficult to see the worth in your own work when nobody else does. There’s this to-ing and fro-ing between having that positive affirmation. Yes, this work is valued and affirmed by others. At the same time, by getting that feedback, you can then see the value yourself. So, we need, as institutions and lecturers and staff, to take responsibility for the way that we treat those who are conducting research. We need to value their contributions and to recognize that they are on a journey. And these can be very demanding journeys to try and support somebody on for supervisors as well. But researchers need to feel that they are personally valued and professionally making a contribution of value. And I don’t think we always do both or even only one of those things actually terribly well.” (Kim Beasy)

— Kim Beasy

“I think what happens too often is that all the mentoring is around the substantive issues, the content. Mentoring might have somewhat of a blind spot on the process of research, like managing your personal workload, understanding the unwritten rules of the field, working through a reasonable process, that has boundaries, that is focused. I think part of making that more transparent to new supervisees in particular is to formalize it. To make explicit ideas such as “What constitutes a theory?”, “What is an audience?”, “How do you structure papers?” These kinds of things—formal work taken in as part of the curriculum, not just role-modelling, but actual formalization—helps supervisors (and in turn students) to internalize these ideas.” (Steven Floyd)

— Steven Floyd

“Students must know what they want to achieve. They have to ask the right questions, and answer them. The appropriate supervisor can help them accomplish this. It’s an illusion to think that a Master’s thesis is a scientific paper and context-independent (developing knowledge that draws you closer to “truth”). Everything has to do with context, relations among people, relations to data, relations to science itself. Students must be clear what they are buying into, before starting research. The challenge is that students often do not know which questions are relevant, as these emerge during the process. Besides the supervisor, the institution of the university (and how it organizes this process of match-making and helps the student to ask the right questions etc.) is important in helping them solve this issue.” (Urs Jäger)

— Urs Jäger

“The way that an individual teacher treats supervision is his or her own decision, within a general, very loose framework. We have a minimum requirement in Master’s theses; we have a minimal requirement by courses to ensure that these offers to write a thesis meet the minimum learning outcomes. However, academic freedom remains a cornerstone when discussing common guidelines or individual autonomy.” (Samer Attalah)

— Samer Attalah

“There are different types of supervisors. And not all types of supervisors are open to discuss possible research ideas with the students. So, there are supervisors who are treating their students as “slaves” to delegate some of the not-so-convenient research work they have to do. But that’s also, I think, the duty of the student to get information about the type of supervisor they are looking for.” (Günter Müller-Stewens)

— Günter Müller-Stewens

“I have learned for myself not to challenge students concerning their particular perspectives on how to approach knowledge. Rather, I test them where they come from—without trying to change them. After all, this is the last component in a longer educational process that the students have gone through. They have already had substantial amounts of education, and are now giving a last effort that is pre-defined by their previous educational experiences.” (Urs Jäger)

— Urs Jäger