Improving the quality of undergraduate theses by teaching the conventions of scientific writing and professional peer review

Background/Question/Methods

Undergraduate theses and other capstone research projects are standard features of many science curricula, but participation has typically been limited to only the most advanced and highly motivated students. With the recent push to engage more undergraduates in research, some faculty are finding that their typical approach to working with thesis writers is less effective (given the wider diversity of students) or is inefficient (given the higher participation rates). In these situations, a more formal process may be needed to ensure that all students are adequately supported and to establish consistency in how student writers are mentored and assessed. To address this need, we created BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol, a teaching and assessment tool. BioTAP includes a rubric that articulates departmental expectations for the thesis, and a guide to the drafting-feedback-revision process that is modeled after the structure of professional scientific peer review. In this paper, we present the results of a study that compares the quality of theses written by students who used BioTAP versus those who did not, controlling for academic and demographic variables that could confound the results.

Results/Conclusions

We found that BioTAP not only helps student write more compelling arguments for the significance of their research, but also helps them more clearly interpret their results and discuss the implications of their projects. Thus, we now recommend that all students in our department use BioTAP when writing honors theses.  In this presentation, we will also discuss how BioTAP has been successfully adapted to other departments and other disciplines, including economics, chemistry, and engineering.