Recently, among the 88 ordinary undergraduate theses that were sampled in a university in Hubei, 5 were identified as "problematic graduation theses", and the relevant instructors were given a notice of criticism by the school. In addition, more than one 985 university requires that if it is identified as a "problematic graduation thesis" in the random inspection of the superior undergraduate graduation thesis, the thesis supervisor shall refer to the major teaching accident to deal with it.
Recently, the results of sampling inspection of undergraduate graduation theses (design) have been announced in various places. Among them, some students who have graduated have been "selected". "The one-year graduation thesis was sampled and failed" has become a hot topic on online social platforms, and in this regard, many netizens "came forward to say" their experience of being selected and asked to revise the paper again. It can be seen that "problematic" undergraduate graduation theses are not uncommon.
Although whether to write a thesis after graduating from a university has been a topic that has been discussed many times, in an interview with reporters, many university professors bluntly said that the problem undergraduate graduation thesis is a reminder that our undergraduate education should make up for this part of students' academic writing as soon as possible, which is not only related to whether the student's graduation thesis is passed, but also related to whether the student's four years of college have received sufficient thinking training.
Behind the unqualified undergraduate dissertation, both the supervisor and the student are responsible
In fact, as far as unqualified undergraduate theses are concerned, both the supervisor and the student can be said to be "derelict in their duties". In an interview with reporters, a college undergraduate tutor said frankly, "The quality of the first draft of many undergraduates' papers is worrying, far from meeting the basic academic standards, let alone innovative." As a result, these papers often need to go through multiple revisions to barely meet the requirements. In addition, many supervisors also lack the importance of undergraduate graduation theses, and some supervisors even "send" their own graduate students to "guide" undergraduate graduation theses.
In fact, in recent years, the sampling inspection of undergraduate graduation theses has become more and more stringent. In January 2021, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Measures for Sampling Inspection of Undergraduate Graduation Theses (Design) (Trial), which stipulates that the sampling of undergraduate graduation theses shall be conducted once a year, and the sampling objects shall be the theses awarded with bachelor's degrees in the previous academic year, and the sampling proportion shall not be less than 2% in principle. At present, the requirements for plagiarism checking in most schools have been reduced from the original 30% to 20%, and the stricter ones have even dropped to less than 8%.
In the face of strict sampling requirements, Xiao Wang (pseudonym), a fresh undergraduate graduate, told reporters that recently, she was overwhelmed by several "mountains" such as graduation thesis, graduation design, internship and job hunting, but the graduation thesis made her feel especially "pressured", and the consequences of being "shot" in random inspection made people "tremble" just thinking about it. However, Xiao Wang also admitted that she didn't start writing her thesis until two months before the pre-defense, and the time was indeed a bit tight. However, like Xiao Wang, many undergraduates are stuck in the second semester of their senior year before the time point of the pre-defense in April, one or two months in advance, or even a week or two in advance. Sometimes, even with repeated urging from their supervisors and the college, some students are still unable to complete their dissertations on time.
The lack of academic writing guidance is also the reason for the frequent occurrence of problematic papers
When it comes to writing, at the end of the college entrance examination every year, most people's writing training seems to come to an end. According to the reporter's investigation, at present, few domestic colleges and universities have set up special writing courses, and only universities such as Tsinghua University and Fudan University have opened college writing courses or established writing centers. Due to the lack of systematic writing training, many undergraduates feel confused when writing their dissertations, which also leads to the overall quality of undergraduate dissertations being unsatisfactory.
Ma Zhen, a professor at Fudan University's Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, pointed out that college writing is very different from the test-taking essays in middle school, and that academic writing in universities tests students' thinking skills, expression skills and academic literacy. Specifically, college writing covers academic elements such as topic selection, literature review, thinking logic, argumentation methods, experimental design, and diagrams. Based on years of experience in supervising students' dissertations, Ma Zhen believes that it is difficult to quickly improve the writing level of college students by relying only on reading books and self-study.
For example, he said, for science and engineering students, even if they don't plan to continue their studies, they must complete a dissertation before graduation. As a special applied and academic style, scientific research papers do not require flowery rhetoric, but they put forward extremely high requirements for students' ability to analyze, summarize and express logically. For those science and engineering students who are interested in further study, mastering the skills of thesis writing is even more crucial.
Zhao Yuyang, a young teacher at the School of Sociology of Shanghai University, also believes that in the process of teaching students English writing, he deeply feels the urgent need of undergraduates for essay writing teaching. Taking sociology as an example, students need to extract questions from the real society, design topics, and construct the framework of the thesis, and finally the specific writing process. In order to help students find suitable research topics, Zhao Yuyang and other supervisors lead students to participate in community and neighborhood social practices in various places during the summer vacation of their junior year. Although he pays great attention to cultivating students' logical thinking skills in his daily courses, it is difficult to significantly improve students' writing skills in a short period of time due to the limited number of credits.
College students' writing in the age of AI deserves special attention
Although the "writing ability" or auxiliary writing ability of artificial intelligence is increasing day by day, many university professors have made it clear in interviews that they firmly oppose the use of AI by students to write.
Zhao Yuyang emphasized that academic writing in universities aims to cultivate critical thinking, not just written expression skills. At present, AI technology cannot replace basic thinking training, and once students rely on AI tools, it hinders their ability to think independently. Zhao Yuyang, who received a complete bachelor's, master's and doctoral education in the United States, cited as an example that foreign universities have provided systematic general writing courses for all students since their freshman year. Through about three semesters of academic writing training, students are not only able to master certain writing skills, but also develop an in-depth understanding of the concept, structure, and framework of the dissertation, while completing a large amount of academic reading.
Ma Zhen believes that although AI has performed well in literature collection and grammar revision, text has always been a carrier of ideas. Among the seven core modules of general education at Fudan University, many module courses use course papers as assessment. As a result, "general literacy" has become a foundational skill, and a number of tutors have delivered a series of lectures for students.
However, some professors said in an interview with reporters that although they oppose students using AI to write, the use of AI to assist in writing teaching is a way to try. A scholar from a university told reporters that because of the limited number of educational resources and teachers, and the large number of undergraduates, the low teacher-student ratio makes the number of students who need guidance for each tutor larger, and it is indeed difficult to give each student full attention and personalized guidance. With limited resources, if AI is used to train students' writing and thinking skills, it may be on the agenda of universities.