What will happen if you work with me for your Master Thesis?
The purpose of the thesis is to begin to learn how to develop and conduct a scientific study. This knowledge is important not only for those of you willing to pursue a career in academics or any other research institution, but even more for those of you that are interested in the clinical practice within different contexts ranging from schools, health and social structures and national and international emergency situations.
Overall working on a Master thesis is a big work that takes time, effort and engagement but can also be very rewarding. It is a major step in your career and a great opportunity for you to show your understanding of the teaching received but also your ability to build something new from what you have learned. Creativity is very important and along with the scientific rigor in the methodology it is important to make your work unique with your perspective and understanding of the issue.
Dissertation is a long process which requires approximatively one year from the beginning to the end of the process (500 hours of work are expected). So, I encourage you to get organized and proceed in a timely manner.
Here is an essential timeline ⏳:
18 months before the date you are expecting to graduate:
1) Identify a research topic that motivates you based on which you should 2) Choose an available and supportive supervisor that works on that topic. Next you can 3) Select, state, and describe the overall goal of your research and 4) Write a research project proposal based on your idea and presented to the potential supervisor (me?).
12 months before the date you are expecting to graduate:
It’s time to start working on your thesis. This means 1) Discuss the specific project and timeline, 2) carefully revise and study the literature on the topic (and start drafting the introduction), 3) define the research questions and hypothesis, 4) define the methodology (draft the study section of your thesis), 5) collect the data
Between 6 and 3 months before graduation:
6) analyze the data 6) write the result section and carefully revise the introduction (background section), 7) write the discussion, 8) revise and edit the entire work including references.
Remember: frequent meetings with me or the lab members should take place for all the 12 months (at least once a month!)
15 days before graduation
Get ready for your defense by preparing the slide and talk.
The day of the graduation
Show what a great job you have done and …party!🥳
Below are the essential steps that you should have in mind before and while writing your thesis.
What should you do before starting this journey?
Here are some useful things to do before getting started, remember a good start is important!
Identify a research topic that motivates you. You will have to work hard on this and spend many hours studying, understanding and analyzing this issue so you better select something that interests you!
If you have no idea on what to focus on here are some tips that might help you define your topic:
- Feasibility: Opt for a topic that aligns with your skills and interests, ensuring that it is manageable within the scope of your abilities and academic background.
- Practicality: Choose a topic for which sufficient resources, including relevant literature and access to potential participants, data sources and methodologies, are readily available.
- Relevance: Select a topic that aligns with your long-term professional goals, demonstrating its significance within your field of study.
- Motivation: It is essential to select a topic that not only inspires you but also sustains your motivation throughout the research process, as personal enthusiasm can significantly contribute to the success of your thesis.
- Choose an available and supportive supervisor. See top of the page for instruction on how to identify available supervisors. If, I am the supervisor you selected follow on to step 3, otherwise our journey together ends here!
What to do if you would like to work with me or the Isola della Calma team for your thesis?
If you have decided that you would like to work with us, we surely can’t wait to meet you.
So it is time to present yourself by e-mailing me your CV and a thesis proposal.
Here are some useful steps to get this done in a nice way.
Select, state, and describe the overall goal of your research.
This involves choosing a specific topic or research question that is both relevant and manageable. If you choose me as your supervisor, the topic you choose should ideally align with one of the following themes:
a) Emotional regulation and stress in school-aged children in relation to wellbeing:
- Effects of school-related stress on psychological functioning
- Effect of environmental stress on psychological functioning
b) Emotional regulation and stress response in school-aged children in relation to learning:
- Relationship between emotional response and learning
- Effects of school stress on learning.
- Threat response (and regulation) in adolescence and metal health
- Effects of traumatic stress on psychological functioning
- Effects of environmental pollution on development
- Effects of green exposure on regulation and pro-environmental behaviors
Once you have selected the topic, clearly articulate the goal of your study—what you aim to investigate, explain, or understand. This should be a focused and concise statement that outlines the primary objective of your research, guiding the direction of your entire thesis. Ensure that your goal is both significant to the field and feasible within the time and resources available. This is the central question that your dissertation will want to answer. This is the result of your thinking, and it shows how you will deal with the subject. Having said that, I strongly advise you to do some preliminary research to get an overview of the subject and to review and study some literature in order to build up a personal reflection. In this way, you will identify the most important and relevant issues for you and what you want to study.
Write a research project proposal.
Now that you have in mind what you want to study with your thesis work is time to write a 1000 words proposal to present your idea.
This research thesis proposal will be, together with your CV, your way to introduce yourself and convince me that supervise you for your thesis is one of the best decisions of my career 😉
I will select 10 master students each academic year and I usually receive much more requests than the ones I can accept. Hence writing a good proposal is an important step.
Here are some tips to help you write an outstanding project proposal for your thesis.
- Remember to stick to the 1000-word limit. Be concise but precise!
- Follow the classic structure and include Background, Aims, Material, Methodology, and expected findings.
- Remember to Keep it simple! Make sure to a) grab the attention and excite about your project from the very beginning, b) show how your research is innovative and valuable–show your enthusiasm for your project—enthusiasm is contagious! c) Organize your proposal so that it is tight, well-integrated, and makes a point, focused on a central question.
- Have a clear and engaging title
- Show that your project is feasible: you can do it and know how to (or can learn how to) do it!
Last but not least, your research proposal is not a binding document; it is a proposal. It is well understood by all concerned that the research you end up pursuing may be different from that in your proposal.
Instead of treating your proposal as a final, binding document, think of it as a flexible way to plan an exciting (but feasible) project that you would like to pursue.
If you got to step 5 it means that we are now officially working together.
I am sure this is going to be an exciting journey and hopefully we will both learn o lot from it! Before we get started here are some useful suggestions.
What should you expect from your thesis-journey?
As already anticipated this a long, hard but hopefully very rewording journey. Here are some basic steps that I recommend.
STEP 1: What to do before you begin
Since this is a long journey, my suggestion is to start off with the right attitude and mindset. Thake a moment to find which is the right way for you to approach the challenge ahead. Remember this is a good way to train for future challenges! Also please keep in mind that, while expecting to work hard, this is a fun challenge and not a scary threat!
Also keep in mind that “mens sana in corpore sano” so always remember to take care of yourself. Do not neglect your physical and emotional health. Working hard does not mean not having fun or enjoying life!
Once you have the “taking care of yourself” figured out you can make sure you know what you want to get from this thesis-journey. To figure this out a good way to start is by asking yourself what you want to be when you grow up (yes the time has come!), this will help you understand how you can take the most from your thesis for your future goals.
This is also a good time to understand with who you are playing with. Get to know me and the other lab members. Set up a proper communication and keep it going throughout the journey. Together is better and teamwork is the best way to achieve any goal. So get to know your playmates and keep up the communication with me. E-mails, meeting and informal chats are more than welcome always.
One good way to start the communication process is to meet and discuss your project.
It is time to improve the quality of the project and begin to learn what it means to think scientifically.
STEP 2: Literature review- search, study (and study, and study) and start writing
To better define your project, you need to know as much as you can on the topic. However, since you cannot learn everything, you need to select the scientific papers that you want to read more carefully. Here are some helpful things to keep in mind:
- Focus on scientific papers published on international journal. Try to select top quality journals (a good way is to look at the journal Impact Factor) in your discipline.
- Focus on recent literature. The last 10 years are a good bet. However, you might need to go back to older works when reading about theories, models or “classic” studies that are a must-know on the field.
- Accurately select the keywords for your search in google scholar. Also consider looking at the reference of a mapper that you decide is particularly relevant for your study.
- Review papers and meta-analyses are usually a good start.
- Read the abstracts to select papers that might be more interesting and to check the quality of the paper (e.g., is the methodology sound? Number of participants, measures).
- Carefully read the papers you have selected (this might help)
While reading start drafting the key-points you will want to include in your background.
This is the right moment to outline your introductory chapters.
Note on Writing:
- Keep in mind that writing a scientific paper has its rules and best practices
- The use of AI should be use with caution!
The process of writing a thesis requires both the ability to generate original content and well-structured arguments, as well as a broad understanding of the field of study and the research methodologies used. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) and technologies assisted by it, such as ChatGPT or similar services, can be useful tools for thesis writing, but they must be used with caution, awareness of their limitations, and transparency. In the case of using AI to improve language and readability, to organize the text by generating outlines and schemes to guide the writing, or for the analysis of large amounts of data, it is important that the contribution provided by AI is recognizable and still subject to critical reworking and personal revision. To avoid plagiarism, moreover, in a thesis, it is essential to include bibliographic references and external sources to which a section of text refers, a task that is often difficult in the case of texts generated by AI. Therefore, extreme caution is suggested when using AI, and if it has been used in the writing of the thesis, it is requested to include a dedicated section at the end of the thesis specifying how and in which parts of the thesis AI was used and taking full responsibility for the contents.
STEP 3: The “real study”
Time to have the methodology clear in mind and start with data collection.
This is the time when you can feel really lucky to be part of the team. My suggestions is to have some ideas in mind on how you want to collect your data and then reach out to me or other team members in order to shear ideas and come up with a solid plan for data collection. Data collection is also a team work and you will most certainly be part of a group of students collecting data together thus sharing the journey.
STEP 4: Almost there….😅
Time to wrap up your work. Write the discussion chapter and work on the revisions and editing (including references).
Make sure that you deal with the submission of your thesis and its defense in the proper way!
Now that your thesis has been submitted is about preparing a killer presentation for the defense!
STEP 5: You did it!🥳