SCPI Master Thesis

Course goals

• Being able to provide a theoretical foundation for a research question and to search the existing scientific literature to provide an overview of the results of previous studies.
• Approaching a societal issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. 
• Reflect on various disciplinary perspectives, and make motivated decisions for a mono-, multi-, or interdisciplinary approach.
• Develop a research proposal and conduct independent research and make explicit the knowledge, motives, values and considerations on which this is based.
• Being able to apply methodological and analytical skills in order to analyze data in a scientifically sound manner.
• Being able to clearly communicate the results of a research project in an academically written text.
• Being able to scientifically discuss your own results and put them in a broader perspective, i.e.: being able to discuss the results based on interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical arguments, to identify strong and weak aspects of your own research, and to identify implications for future research and for practice.

Content

The Master Project takes place in the second semester (period 3 and 4) and consists of two interrelated components: the writing of a master thesis (this course) and an internship (course 202300017 Master Internship). Ideally both are focused on the same societal challenge, but this is not a strict requirement. The topic of the master thesis is is the choice of the student.
 
For their master thesis, we strongly recommend students to analyse existing data to answer their research question. These existing data can be made available by the internship organization by the master thesis supervisor at the department of Interdisciplinary Social Science (ISS), or found by students via online databases (e.g. DANS). Some students may be able to collect their own data as part of their internship and use these data for their master thesis.

During the writing of their master thesis, students work largely independently, with guidance from the ISS supervisor. Supervision will take place in small tutorial groups and/or individually, and will include the exchange of (peer) feedback. The research students undertake for their master thesis will need to have an interdisciplinary approach, that is: students draw on a combination of (theoretical) concepts from various behavioral and/or social sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology, anthropology). Students reflect on the various disciplinary perspectives, and make motivated decisions for a mono-, multi-, or interdisciplinary approach.