"Graduation thesis duplicate checking requirements are becoming more and more strict. This year's requirement cannot be higher than 10%, and it was lower than 20% in the past. " Cai Lili, who is about to graduate as a doctor, told reporters that Shanxi University, where she attended, put forward higher requirements for the proportion of duplicate checking of graduate papers this year. Under the background that the country pays more and more attention to the quality of postgraduate training and strengthens and improves the supervision and monitoring of education evaluation, the topics of postgraduate dissertations are frequently searched.
Since March, Jiangsu and Guangdong have successively released the results of spot-check evaluation of master's degree theses in 20 19. In addition, Hebei and other three provinces have released the results of spot-check at the end of 20 19, and found that nearly 200 master's degree theses are "problematic" or "unqualified".
On 20 19, 1 1, the office of the State Council Education Steering Committee conducted a collective interview with universities and research institutes that found outstanding problems in the sampling inspection of doctoral dissertations in 20 18, demanding that "the number and proportion of problematic doctoral dissertations should be greatly reduced in the sampling inspection of doctoral dissertations in 2020."
As the graduation season approaches, graduate students are about to face thesis defense. So, what problems are exposed by the sampling results of graduate dissertations? What is the deep-seated reason behind it? How should relevant departments, universities and scientific research units improve?
Lack of innovation, depth, loose structure and irregular format-
What's the difference between "question papers"
"Some papers have limited workload and lack innovation; The research ideas and methods are not feasible; The structure of the paper is loose, the logic is not enough, and the scientific problems mainly studied and solved are not condensed; The degree of standardization is not enough, and there are many problems in text expression and arrangement. " Guangdong Academic Degrees Committee summarized the * * * problems existing in the sampling inspection of master's degree theses in 20 19 years.
The Notice on Further Improving the Quality of Doctoral Dissertations issued by Shandong University in June 5438+February last year also confirmed this conclusion. The circular pointed out that according to experts' comments on "problem papers" in recent years, it was found that the main problems were insufficient innovation, insufficient research depth, simple research methods, thin workload or examples, unreasonable topic selection and irregular writing.
At the same time, the notice also pointed out that tutors who are studying for graduate students and guiding students are prone to become "problem papers", and some disciplines become "problem papers" frequently.
From the public sampling results, the reporter found that there are problems or unqualified graduate dissertations, except for problems in topics, methods, structures and norms, and also show some characteristics in professional disciplines and degree categories.
"The problem rate of natural science dissertations is significantly lower than that of humanities and social sciences. In the humanities and social sciences, the problem rate of dissertations in economics, management and art is significantly higher. " Gao Yao, an associate professor at the School of Education of Tianjin University, pointed out.
"Generally speaking, newly-added degree-granting units or units with weak academic strength in comprehensive universities are prone to unqualified sampling of papers." Wang Chuanyi, an associate professor at Tsinghua University Education Research Institute, concluded that "soft science" with weak professionalism and low threshold is more prone to unqualified papers.
According to the information learned by the reporter from the Annual Report on the Development of Degree and Postgraduate Education in China, as early as 20 15, the dissertations with problems were distributed in various disciplines, among which economics, education and art accounted for more than 10%, management exceeded 9%, law exceeded 7% and others were less than 5%.
In addition, according to the results released by Jiangsu this year, the unqualified rate of professional dissertations is 3.59%, which is lower than that of the previous year, but still significantly higher than that of academic dissertations 1.57%.
"This result is still in line with our feelings and judgments." Professor Chen Hongjie, director of the doctoral education research center in China, Peking University, analyzed that in recent years, the scale of professional degree graduates has continued to expand, surpassing degree graduates for the first time in 20 17 years. The increase of quantity has certain influence on quality control.
Gao Yao thinks: "The unqualified rate between academic papers and professional papers should not be simply compared or over-interpreted, because the evaluation criteria of the two are different. Even within professional degrees, there are great differences in the training characteristics, training scale, form and content requirements of more than 40 different professional degrees. "
Lack of process evaluation, imperfect diversion mechanism, friend circle defense-
How did the "problem paper" come into being?
Why do the dissertations that have passed the defense still have the above problems? "This reflects that the quality self-discipline awareness of very few graduate students in mathematics degree awarding points needs to be further strengthened and the quality culture needs to be further cultivated." Gao Yao said.
According to Wang Chuanyi, the most commonly used methods to ensure the quality of papers are blind review and defense before defense. Blind trial generally sends more than 3 experts with senior titles to review, and then enters the defense link after passing. Respondents' reports and papers are reviewed and graded by 5 to 7 experts.
However, there are still some defects in this design, leaving loopholes for a small number of people. "The doctoral defense is almost the defense of a circle of friends. The tutor's suggestion list is all familiar friends, and it is easy to' give away' or' release water'. " The doctoral tutor of a university in Hubei revealed.
At the same time, "in China, everything will be fine after graduation defense, and there is no requirement to hand in the doctoral thesis after revision." Expert opinions are only pointed out in the defense. The paper has been finalized and will not be adjusted and improved. Anyway, I defended myself. After the defense of foreign doctoral students, the thesis should be revised according to the opinions of defense experts and anonymous judges, and then formally submitted. "A person familiar with Wuhan University told the reporter," From the perspective of postgraduate, especially doctoral training process management, there is a lack of process evaluation, and key links such as comprehensive examination for doctoral students, mid-term triage, and topic opening report are difficult to really reach the designated position, and there is no elimination mechanism. "
"Usually, majors with low academic level are more prone to problems." Chen Hongjie analyzed management as an example. "Although engineering management, business administration, information management, etc. They are all management classes. In fact, the professional differences are quite large, which leads to a variety of criteria for judging papers regardless of students, tutors or review experts. "
In addition, Chen Hongjie also found a very "Chinese style" phenomenon in his investigation. "A considerable number of papers are unqualified because the judging experts think that the topic is inconsistent with the theme. For example, a doctor of economics does not study economic issues. Why is this? This is related to our doctoral degree system. It is very difficult and demanding to apply for a doctoral program. Some schools will adopt a flexible approach if they cannot apply for certain majors. For example, a tutor who does not have a doctorate in this major will have a doctorate in a similar or adjacent discipline. As a result, the tutor trained students according to the requirements of this subject, but finally reported in the name of other subjects. Such a paper can easily be considered unqualified. "
Strictly export, strengthen the responsibility of tutors, and optimize the training process-
Improving the quality of papers focuses on the whole process management.
"The sampling system of dissertations has played an important role in ensuring and improving the quality of postgraduate training and degree awarding, forcing degree awarding units to take the connotative development path of focusing on quality improvement." Gao Yao thinks.
The reporter learned that many colleges and universities have taken corresponding measures to improve and strengthen the management of graduate thesis and degree awarding, and strictly "export".
In March this year, Tsinghua University issued a document on degree management and study style construction, which clearly pointed out that tutors should strengthen the guidance in the whole process of postgraduate training, and put forward suggestions for the diversion of postgraduate students who are not suitable for further study.
Shandong University has added two links in the degree awarding process: one is "self-examination of papers", which re-examines the papers that have passed the defense before each voting; The second is "the content of the defense report". When defending the postgraduate thesis, it is necessary to explain the opinions and modifications of the external audit experts before the defense.
Sun Yat-sen University will increase the proportion of spot checks on dissertations. In 2020, 50% of doctoral dissertations and 20% of master's dissertations will be sampled. At the same time, the school also proposed to strengthen the supervision of the whole process of examination enrollment and establish a training model of "annual assessment and gradual diversion".
In 2020, Xiamen University put forward higher requirements for the proportion of duplicate checking of graduate dissertations, and adjusted the proportion of duplicate checking of all graduate dissertations except my published documents from "less than 20%" to "less than 10%".
Many experts and scholars said in interviews that in order to improve the quality of graduate papers, "we can't rely solely on external review papers to replace internal quality control, nor can we use post-inspection links to replace pre-control links." We should not only strictly control "export", but also strengthen process management and strictly control "import" and "training".
"A paper can be revised, but it takes time to train doctors and masters, and it also takes time to cultivate perspectives, positions, theories and methods." Wang Gang, a professor at Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, repeatedly emphasized the important role of tutors in the interview. "The tutor is the first person in charge, and it is necessary to establish the idea of making a clean contribution to academics in order to cultivate good graduate students."
The reporter noted that the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Degree and Postgraduate Education issued by the Ministry of Education on 20 17 has made it clear that "the tutor is the first person responsible for the quality of postgraduate training", and at the same time, it is proposed to guarantee the tutor's rights in enrollment, training, funding and academic evaluation. For instructors with problems in training quality, the training unit shall take measures such as quality interview, restricting recruitment and suspending recruitment as appropriate.
Postgraduate dissertations are an important basis for obtaining doctoral and master's degrees, a concentrated expression of graduate students' scientific research ability and achievements, and an important social document. Only by truly turning to the connotative development path of quality improvement can universities give full play to the important role of postgraduate education in knowledge innovation, technological innovation and prosperity of philosophy and social sciences.
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