Senior theses: Creating a community of scholars for original, authentic research

Document Type

Journal Article

Role

Author

Published In

Language

Volume

98

Issue

1

First Page

e26

Last Page

e43

Publication Date

3-2022

Abstract

After many years of having a loosely structured thesis seminar for our senior majors, the Tri-College Linguistics Department recently redesigned our program to offer students a highly scaffolded environment in which to complete their capstone requirement, which has led to improved outcomes. We argue here for the benefits of asking students to write a senior thesis and to carry out original, authentic research on a topic of their choice. We describe our seminar design and its key components—frequent incremental assignments, peer and instructor feedback leading to repeated revisions, and intentional community building—and suggest how the program might be implemented, in whole or in part, at other institutions with similar pedagogical goals.


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