Admission requirements
Mandatory course for students enrolled in the bachelor’s programme Security Studies. Only students enrolled into the bachelor’s programme Security Studies can follow this course.
Students need to meet the following requirements in order to be admitted to the Thesis course:
Students must have obtained all study credits of year 1.
Students must have obtained at least 45 study credits of year 2, to be completed by the start of semester 2 of year 3.
Depending on the cohort, students will have to pass one complete combination of research methods courses. For the participation in the Thesis course, the possible combinations are:
a. the combination of Research Methods 1, 2 and 3 (all completed).
b. the combination of Introduction to Research Methods and Quantitative Research Methods (both completed), and you must have followed Qualitative Research Methods.
c. the combination of Research Methods 1 and Quantitative Research Methods (both completed), and you must have followed Qualitative Research Methods.
Please note that students will never be excluded from the Thesis course without being contacted about it.
Description
This is the final compulsory module for students of the BSc Security Studies programme. To pass this course, students are expected to complete a bachelor thesis on a security and/or safety related topic relevant to the programme. Students who take this course will be divided into groups and assigned a supervisor with a particular area of expertise. The supervisor will support their supervisees through group seminars where students get instructions and materials, share their research, and receive feedback. The supervisor will define the research area that students will explore, and help students identify theories and empirical material to address the main question of their thesis.
Course objectives
After this course you will be able to:
Analyse and draw conclusions from empirical material.
Relate their own analyses of empirical material to an existing body of academic literature.
Implement and comply with the scientific standards of justifiability, transparency, replicability, and reflection.
Develop and write an extended piece of academic research.
Conduct independent research, albeit with the guidance of a supervisor.
Timetable
On the right side of the programme front page you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
After the plenary lecture and group allocation in block 3, the instruction will be mostly in the form of group supervision meetings. If a student misses any additional sessions, feedback provided during the missed sessions will not be offered by supervisors. The supervisors provide feedback (written or verbal) on a set of submitted drafts.
Attendance of the group supervision meetings is mandatory.
If you miss more than 1 supervision meeting you fail the course.
Course load 420 hours:
Contact hours (plenary lecture, group meetings): 18
Self-study hours (including working on the thesis): 402
Assessment method
Thesis counts for 100% of final grade
Grade must be 5.50 or higher
Resit of a fail is possible
Resit will take the same form
No supervision is provided after the deadline for the first take.
In case a student does not pass the resit, they fail the course. The student should start over in the next academic year and will be assigned to a new thesis group.
Additional formative (non-graded) assignments are an obligatory part of the course. Students will have the opportunity to make five formative submissions. Passing the first two submissions is manadatory for students to be able to submit the full thesis.
In the case of written assessment methods, the examiner can always initiate a follow-up conversation with the student to establish whether the learning objectives have been met.
Reading list
A selection of readings will be announced on Brightspace.
Registration
You only need to register for the thesis course lecture. The study coordinators will register you for the workgroups once the research group allocation is finished. After you have been enrolled for this course in uSis you will be automatically enrolled into the specific Brightspace course page.
Access to Brightspace is necessary because the syllabus and other information about this course can be found here. Furthermore, announcements and modifications will be communicated via Brightspace. Students have the responsibility to stay informed and are thus advised to regularly check Brightspace for updates. In uSis you can access your personal schedule and view your results.
Contact
Thesis coordinator: Dr R. Ganohariti
Remarks
For exceptions, please contact the Board of Examiners.
From 2025/2026 a pass will be required for all three methods courses offered in the BSc Security Studies programme in order to be admitted to the Thesis course.