Predominant Shortcomings Experienced by Examiners of LIS Master’s and Doctoral Theses and Dissertations. An Examiner’s Perspective

Experience has shown that students largely struggle to produce acceptable dissertations because of omissions emanating from the planning/research proposal, execution, and reporting stages. This chapter aims to discuss the common errors experienced by examiners of library and information science (and allied disciplines) theses and dissertations by using my thirty years of experience as an examiner of more than one hundred and fifty theses and dissertations. The chapter is largely a phenomenological study. Errors occur at different stages of thesis development due to poor planning, execution, reporting, supervision, and insufficient student preparedness for a master’s or doctoral level of work in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitude. The chapter recommends ways to alleviate the shortcomings. Although the chapter is informed by the lived experiences of one examiner and some qualitative content analysis, evidence of similar cases is reflected in related studies, some of which are reported in this chapter. The chapter adds to ongoing discussions on thesis writing that is likely to benefit both students and thesis supervisors and enable discussions on this important research domain.