Survey on the Obstacles of Thesis Writing for the Postgraduate Students Case Study: Postgraduate Students of Zanjan University

The purpose of this study was to find out the obstacles of Thesis writing for postgraduate students from Zanjan University graduate students’ point of view and presenting solutions for solving existing problems.

This study is an applied research which has been carried out through a survey-analytical method. The sample consists of 170 graduate students of Zanjan University who were selected randomly. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data.

The findings indicated that the students had more difficulties in 'collecting and analyzing data."Compilation of research methodology" is in the second position. Respondents have faced the least problem in the compilation, printing and publication of the findings. Students at the Faculty of Agriculture have faced more problems in the selection stage, but in other stages of the dissertation development, students from all faculties were in the same situation. Also, postgraduate students have more problems than Ph.D. students in the stage of "compilation of theoretical foundations and research backgrounds." In the other stages of the research, there was no difference between the master's degree students and the Ph.D. students.

Thesis writing is a process that begins with the selection of the topic and ends with the publication of the findings, and each of the stages has different activities that need to be considered individually and special planning should be done to solve the identified problems. In this reas each, all of these steps has been studied, which professors of research methods and statistics courses and postgraduate students can take advantage of this in formulating operational policies.