Postgraduate students’ difficulties in writing their theses literature review

• Main Authors: Zahra Shahsavar, Haniyeh Kourepaz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-01-01
• Series: Cogent Education
• Subjects: literature review; postgraduates; thesis writing
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2020.1784620

This study set out to identify postgraduates’ problems in writing their theses literature review section. We adopted the exploratory sequential mixed method design. In the quantitative part, we applied descriptive analysis to evaluate 40 completed master theses based on the Akindele’s (2008) guideline. In the qualitative part, 10 postgraduate students took part voluntarily in semi-structured interviews. To analysis the interview data, the raters applied Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis. The results indicate that most students, even proficient ones were not able to synthesize, critique, or explain the literature in their writing. They mainly focused on summarizing other researchers’ findings and interpretations. Other problems dealt with lack of sufficient knowledge and time to complete their literature review, and the deliberate dereliction of some supervisors and professors who do not fulfil their obligations to provide the students with sufficient information about writing it. Solving these problems can not only change students’ negative feelings and experiences in writing their literature review section but also enhance students’ motivation to write any pieces of writing effectively.