What will happen if you work with me for your Bachelor Thesis?
The purpose of the thesis is to delve into the international scientific literature on a topic of your interest. Your task will be to summarize the literature and provide a thoughtful commentary on it. To do this, you’ll need to choose a topic that is specific enough to be explored in depth but not too narrow. For example, you could focus on topics like: – “The effects of media exposure to terrorism on teenagers’ mental health” – “Emotional regulation in primary school children and its impact on learning processes: the role of the classroom environment.”
Overall, working on a thesis under my supervision will imply having the goal to practice 1) searching the scientific literature for relevant and valuable studies, 2) reading and understanding the studies and critically analyzing them 3) summarizing your findings while contributing with your perspective.
Which topic can I choose? And how do I choose a topic?
The topic you choose should be somehow related to something that you find interesting and wish to learn more about; in addition, it should ideally align with (but is not limited to) one of the following themes:
– 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
– 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
What to do if you would like to write your thesis under my supervision?
- Write an email and signal your interest
- Write a 200 words proposal explaining what you would like your thesis to focus on and why you selected this specific topic. The proposal should include a) The question you would like to answer with your literature review, b) how you plan to find the information, c) why you would like to answer that specific question.
- E-mail the proposal and wait for an answer within 5 days.
What happens once you are officially working on your thesis project?
Once is time to start working on your thesis here are the steps to follow:
1. Choose the Specific Topic and share your chosen topic with me, either via email or in person during office hours, so we can discuss and refine it together.
2. Conduct a Bibliographic Search: Identify two or three relevant keywords and begin your literature search using tools like Google Scholar or PsycInfo. I recommend attending a library workshop on bibliographic research or learning how to access articles from home (using a proxy if necessary).
Your research should:
– Focus on studies published within the last 10 years (set a date limit of 2015).
– Focus on international journals (avoid, when possible, books or book chapters, as these will generally be older);
– Include, where possible, not only research articles but also reviews or, even better, meta-analyses (the latter provide a very comprehensive and accurate overview of the literature on the topic).
3. Conduct an initial analysis of the articles identified through the bibliographic research. At first, there will be hundreds of studies! The initial phase involves going through all the works and, based on their title or abstract, identifying those that are most relevant and pertinent to your work. By the end of this phase, you should have selected a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 13 articles that you consider highly relevant.
4. Study the selected articles.
5. Based on what you have studied, create an outline for the thesis. For example: Chapter 1 → Emotional regulation in primary school, Chapter 2 → Regulation and learning: the role of the environment, Chapter 3 → Final considerations.
6. With this outline and the selected articles clearly in mind, it is time to consult with me again to:
a. Determine if the selected articles are appropriate,
b. Discuss the thesis outline together,
c. Assess how to logically divide the various paragraphs that will make up each chapter.
7. It’s time to start writing BUT before you begin, please remember to format the thesis properly according to the guidelines for the final project. Don’t wait to do this later!
8. Drafting the Chapters. The first two chapters of the paper must contain the literature review and a summary of the articles read and studied, while the third chapter will include your conclusions or final considerations. Specifically:
a. Chapters 1 and 2– Each chapter should include the review (summary and brief commentary) of the selected articles related to the chapter’s theme. You can briefly introduce the topic (e.g., one page to describe what emotional regulation is), summarize all the studied articles schematically (e.g., using a table containing authors, study objectives, methodology, and main results), and provide a brief description of each study included in the table. For each study, include: the objective, method (participants, methodology, and areas investigated), main results, and a comment. At the end of the chapter, include a discussion/commentary on all the described studies.
b. Chapter 3: A commentary/summary of what was reported in the previous two chapters. What do I think? What have I learned? Did I find what I expected on the topic, or was I expecting different data? Why?
9. Once you have completed the three chapters, you can write a short introduction: why did I choose to focus on this topic? What did I want to explore in depth? This should be also uploaded in Uniweb and must be no more than 250 words.
PLEASE NOTE: Throughout the thesis (but especially in the first two chapters), it is necessary to pay attention to some FUNDAMENTAL aspects:
a. Use scientific language, not narrative or conversational language.
b. Maintain a logical flow (this is why it is useful to create a detailed outline of what you intend to write!).
c. Pay attention to grammar (e.g. verb tenses), syntax (sentence structure), and punctuation (avoid sentences longer than three lines!)
d. Attention to the Bibliographic References → Citations in the text and references at the end of the thesis. This means: always cite in the text where the information you are reporting comes from (not only if it is the exact wording – in this case, the text must be in quotation marks – but also when you report any information!). You must indicate where that information can be found because you didn’t make it up! I expect a citation every 5-10 lines. Cite correctly! To know how documents should be cited, and references must be written please refer to APA style. Every citation included in the text must have the corresponding bibliographic reference at the end of the thesis.
Please send one chapter at the time when you think that is complete (including formatting, structure, content) – in other words, when it is ready for printing!
When all three chapters have been reviewed by me and re-corrected by you, you can send me the complete thesis (i.e., all three chapters together, including the bibliography and a half-page introduction) for a final review.
Once the thesis is approved you are ready to upload it on Uniweb.
Good job! Most of your work is over, you should be proud of yourself.