Questioning the consistency and equivelancy of the thesis

I've known several graduates from the school that I referred to (Florida Institute of Technology). Some were more afraid of the comprehensive exam (brick wall) than the thesis (malleable hurdle).

This program structure is used in their electrical engineering and computer science departments; I think other departments have their own MS/MA requirements.

 

Hey Bill...

Hey Bill...

I hope you don't mind me asking this~~~I honestly can't help but wonder if your question on this issue (and mine!) is because we are looking at it from a theological vantage point.

I have a friend who teaches adjunct for CCU and he mentioned to me (his statement may or may not be reliable, but I think the principle may be true) that they wanted to hire someone with an "American PhD, with coursework" because they wanted someone who "didn't skip out on all the coursework." Assuming that person did his MDiv, the PhD via dissertation may not be a problem. But the thesis only, plus thesis only degree on top may be a little slim for theology.

I think most of the people on this forum know that theology is a demanding and "interdisciplinary discipline." Just like any of the humanities, we can't approach a theological issue as if the only issue was how to translate a greek linguistic construction, but how that relates to us as whole persons in community and as transcendent beings awaiting the eschaton of history. That encompasses a lot. I can't imagine approaching these issues without "doing the coursework."

However, couldn't a math student just propose a new mathmatical formula and then write it and that's it?

Yours truly,

Chris

 

Let's look at it:

I think that it's ridiculous to assume that a randomly chosen thesis out of Britain would be "better" than one out of Australia. Let alone that it's a sure thing.

Even if it is true that the UK has higher standards (I know of no evidence for that), there will almost certainly be a great deal of overlap.

For that matter, I'm hesitant to say that it's a *sure thing* that a dissertation coming out of a University of California campus is going to be better than a dissertation from a California approved school. I expect that there is little overlap in this case, but I'm reasonably sure that there's some.

I don't know about the "thesis only" part. But I would say that some countries have better reputations than others. St. Kitts isn't perceived as upholding academic standards as reliably as does Switzerland.

I might add that I am a skeptic about the whole concept of "GAAP".

Perhaps ideally. But if few people ever read the thesis, then most people are going to be forming their opinions based on the degree, taken as a certification. That will depend on the credibility of the school that awarded the degree. And that credibility might be colored by people's impression of the country the school's in.

Ph.D., Physics, University of British Columbia, Canada.

Ph.D.. Physics, Pohantoon-E-Kabul (University of Kabul), Afghanistan.

It kind of speaks for itself: Somalia. The Netherlands.

But that's not to say that it's a sure thing that every Canadian dissertation is better than every Afghan dissertation either. In fact, we (or at least most of us) really don't know about the current state of Afghan standards. But I think that the widespread (and probably accurate) assumption is that Afghan universities are struggling (if they are operating at all), and that standards are in fact low.

 

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Bill D.

As the context of my initial post suggests, I was *not* thinking of just the UK and Australia.

You called my question when limited to just two "ridiculous," but in the latter part of your last post you seem to be expressing that there are different levels of acceptance of the same degree based on the country in which the school is. So the question related to schools worldwide is not so ridiculous?

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Re: Hey Bill...

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Chris

I think that might have some truth to it.

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Re: Re: Questioning the consistency and equivelancy of the thesis

Then I didn't understand you.

I think that it's ridiculous to suggest that all British dissertations are better than all Australian dissertations, simply because of the country they come from. (Sorry, but it is ridiculous.)

But equally, I think that it's probably false to say that all dissertations are equally well respected no matter where they come from. Extreme examples are Switzerland and St. Kitts, Berne and Berne.

My point is that these aren't either/or choices. They are probably extremes. So my last post was an attempt to locate where the truth might lie between these poles. I'm kind of feeling my way here.

Ideally, in each particular case, the quality of the research product itself should be the determining factor, regardless of what country or university it comes from.

But that would make the degree itself kind of superfluous. It would also reopen the problem of non-accredited schools, since it's not impossible that a good dissertation might come from one of them.

The problem is that we rarely read other people's dissertations. We probably aren't in a position to properly evaluate them even if we did. So we trust that a university did properly assess the dissertation, and we treat the resulting degree as a certification. That's why degrees exist.

That means that we are no longer evaluating research products ourselves, we are deferring to others' evaluations and weighting the credibility of the contribution according to our impression of the school's larger reputation (either departmentally or institutionally).

And if we don't know anything about the reputation of a particular university, as is often the case when we are contemplating foreign countries, we are probably going to be influenced by our general impression of educational standards in that country.

That's probably not a very accurate way to proceed. All kinds of prejudices and stereotypes can insert themselves. Even if our impressions are accurate, exceptions can obviously occur and excellent work can come from unlikely places.

But we aren't really talking about which research products are truly "better" any longer. We have kind of subtly moved over to the subject of *acceptance*, which isn't the same thing at all. A weak research product may be more widely accepted than a strong one (at least by those that never bother to read it), if it comes from a place that is perceived as being significantly more credible.

 

Re: Re: Re: Questioning the consistency and equivelancy of the thesis

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That I think is exactly right.