Ere Uibu
The University of Tartu is the only institution of higher education in Estonia which offers a postgraduate level curriculum in Nursing Science. The study form is open university part-time studies, because the student of nursing science is often a working nurse/midwife, a nurse manager or a teacher of a Health Care College, often married, with children or about to start a family. This background makes the students more likely to be at risk of poor commitment to studying, and even though the compulsory subjects will be passed, writing a master’s thesis may turn out to be “a mission impossible”. Also, earlier research has shown that writing a research-based thesis and academic texts represent a real challenge for undergraduate and graduate students. Based on this prior knowledge, the main focus of this action research was to map students’ advancements in their studies and in master’s thesis writing and to identify the support and the main obstacles they have been experienced during this process. On the basis of gained information, it is possible to continue and plan the most suitable interventions for helping them to be more successful. An e-environment-based anonymous questionnaire was used for data collection and the targeted population were all students (N=51). The final sample comprised of 29 students. 14 students confirmed advancing as planned while 15 of the students had been advancing slower. 10 students reported their participating in master’s thesis writing camps and 8 in joint supervising seminars. Students reported that, during their studies, they received a large amount of help from teachers and tutors, from the curriculum and from their families. Nearly of equal importance were their internal motivation, willpower and persistence and time planning abilities. Students claimed that for thesis writing they mainly received help from their supervisors, from relevant courses, from teachers and from peers. The main obstacles to advancing properly were high working loads, weak (time)planning skills, family problems and problems with conducting research. Students still need more supervising, including extra motivation from supervisors, extra assistance and feedback in specific topics (for example in philosophy, methodology, data collection, academic writing), some concrete additional materials (for example materials about research methods) and a time planning guidance. The results indicate that extra assistance is needed mainly in specific topics, including critical thinking and writing skills development. The results may also refer to uneven prior training and to insufficient self-supporting learning skills.
