340054 SE Planning of the Master’s Thesis (2024W)

This course will be taught in English

As part of the seminar, students gradually develop a concept for their master's thesis. The following seminar "Master's Thesis Process" is then dedicated to the targeted elaboration of the Master's thesis on the basis of the concept developed in the "Conception Seminar". The concept for the master's thesis is developed in several phases or steps: Finding and narrowing down the topic; Research and overview of the current state of research; developmentof research questions and objectives; Reflections on assumptions/theses and the expected results; Determination of theoretical framework, method and research material; Draft of a structure or structure of the work; Formulation of the master's thesis concept; Determination of a schedule for the completion of the master's thesis.

In the first unit of the seminar, students receive information on processes, study law requirements, formalities, possible topics, supervisors, the use of reference management programs (e.g. Zotero, Mendeley) and others. In the course of the semester, students deepen their knowledge of their chosen Master's thesis topic on the basis of selected literature. Through critical discussion and reflection on their topic in oral and written form, they develop their topic professionally and methodologically and deepen their reflective skills as well as their knowledge of scientific work. In the course of the semester, you will work out the content and structure of the thesis in several steps, present the results in a presentation and then write them down in the context of a seminar paper (= formulated master's thesis concept). The students are individually supervised and advised by the seminar instructor with regard to the theoretical framework of the thesis, methods for data collection and analysis models. In the course of the semester, the students also contact potential supervisors, obtain their feedback on an initial rough concept and document this in a meeting protocol. After successful completion of the seminar, students will be able to refine their research design in the subsequent Master's thesis process seminar and successfully work on specific parts of their Master's thesis.