Difficulties Faced by Postgraduate Students during Writing MA Theses and PhD Dissertations in the Departments of English - Yemeni Universities from Supervisors’ Perspectives

Abstract

This study investigated the difficulties used in writing theses and dissertations in the departments of English at Yemeni universities. Data was collected from 100 MA and Ph.D. students through a questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS descriptive statistics. The results revealed that Yemeni postgraduate students face various difficulties, including selecting the appropriate tense, utilizing proper academic phrases, writing an effective topic sentence for each paragraph, employing cohesive devices such as ellipses, reporting qualitative results, and completing writing the thesis od dissertation before the deadline . The results also showed that the reasons for these difficulties attributed to the lack of reading, selecting a suitable study topic, and formulating a clear problem statement . To help postgraduate students overcome these difficulties, supervisors recommended various strategies. The most commonly suggested strategies included implementing a reading strategy, attending a specialized course for developing research proposals, and seeking guidance through a consulting strategy. The researcher recommended prioritizing reading to improve writing proficiency, selecting a manageable research topic, approaching the topic from different perspectives to avoid repetition, seeking guidance from experts and peers during thesis writing, formulating a clear, preparing research problem statement in their proposals, participating in specialized courses to learn how to write research proposals, and initiating the writing process by engaging in reading, brainstorming ideas, and elaborating upon them.