Factors Affecting Undergraduates’ Difficulties in Writing Thesis

Abstract

Undergraduates faced difficulties when the students were in the process of writing a thesis in order to obtain a bachelor's degree This study was aimed to examine the factors affecting undergraduates’ difficulties in writing thesis and identify the dominant factors. This study based on the primary data gathered through questionnaire survey based on a five point Likert scale from a sample of 80 undergraduates of Faculty of Management and commerce of South Eastern University of Sri Lanka academic year 2014/2015. Descriptive quantitative design was used in this research. For the data analysis, this study used descriptive analysis and graphical presentation by using SPSS software and Excel to analyze. The result revealed that mainly, there are three factors affecting undergraduates’ difficulties in writing thesis, they are Psychological, Socio- cultural and Linguistics factors. (1) undergraduates’ difficulties in psychological factors 3.55 as a mean value., (2) undergraduates’ difficulties in sociocultural factors 3.25 as a mean value. (3) undergraduates’ difficulties in linguistic factors 3.48 as a mean value. From the three factors it is concluded that psychological factor is the highest difficulties faced by undergraduates. Finally, it was found that first, dominant score of psychological factor is the self-esteem (35.14%) and they were difficulty in gaining the data of thesis (3.79) and difficulty in choosing the title of thesis (3.71). Second, dominant score of socio-cultural factor is the students-lecturer relationship (34.32%), and they were communication problems with supervisors (3.39). Third, dominant score of linguistic factor is the diction (34.64%), and they were difficulty choosing the right vocabulary (3.65) and difficulty using punctuation, capitalization (3.61).