Bachelor’s Thesis
In the bachelor’s thesis process, the students develop and demonstrate their ability to apply their knowledge and skills to a task that requires the practical expertise related to their professional studies. At its best, the bachelor’s thesis a way to promote business and industry and the various sectors of society, and therefore it should preferably be implemented as a cooperation project with a company or organisation. The bachelor’s thesis can also be implemented as a pair or group work by students representing one or several fields of education.
The bachelor's thesis can be a practical expertise or development task, or applied research related to the student’s field of study. Also theses implemented by students representing different fields of education are encouraged because they provide a possibility to produce multi-professional solutions. Ideally, bachelor’s theses produce practical solutions to real-life problems. Therefore it is recommended that the bachelor’s thesis is integrated with practical training.
The bachelor’s thesis demonstrates the student’s ability to pursue independent and target-oriented work in the field of expertise related to his studies. The bachelor’s thesis process enhances the student’s critical thinking, creativity and ability to solve problems.
Bachelor’s Thesis as a Learning Task
The students’ abilities to implement the bachelor’s thesis are developed from the very beginning of their studies. During the studies, the students’ information seeking and handling skills, ability to work alone or as a member of different kinds of teams, and the theoretical and practical competences develop and accumulate. The bachelor’s thesis summarises and deepens these competences.
The bachelor’s thesis challenges the students with professional demands in a way that differs from their earlier learning tasks. Towards the end of the studies, the students are expected to develop their comprehensive thinking skills and ability to assume responsibility as an expert.
As a learning task, the bachelor’s thesis aims at developing the skills that the students can utilise and apply later in their lives. These skills include the ability to review and become aware of one’s own choices, decisions and actions, and to understand them. They also include critically reflective working behaviour, i.e. reflection on oneself in relation to the job, critical vision sharing; asking for feedback, challenging groupthink, learning from mistakes, argumentation, sharing knowledge; experimentation, and awareness of employability. In this sense, the student does not think that the problem dealt with in the bachelor’s thesis is fully solved when he/she submits the thesis. A typical feature of critically reflective working behaviour is that thinking is a process: a solved problem generates new ones. By taking on new problems, an expert develops his/her expertise throughout his/her career.
Credits
The number of credits assigned to the bachelor's thesis is 15. As a rule, the thesis is done towards the end of the studies. The curricula of JAMK’s degree programmes contain courses that are designed to support and prepare the students for the bachelor’s thesis. The degree programmes provide support and guidance in choosing an approach and method that suit best the topic that the student has chosen for his/her thesis.