A System of Thesis and Dissertation Supervision: Helping Graduate Students Succeed

Abstract

Twenty-nine psychology graduate students participated in a thesis and dissertation supervisory system. The system included weekly meetings, task specification, feedback, and incentives. Regular participants completed significantly more tasks when academic credit depended on task completion than when it did not. In comparison with a college-wide control group, a higher percentage of the participants in the supervisory group defined the topic, read relevant articles, collected data, wrote a draft, and completed their projects. In comparison with a psychology control group, the graduating participants completed MA theses of similar quality.