MALK5900 Master's Thesis Course description

The master’s program final exam is a written thesis in the form of an innovation project report with an executive summary. The thesis should describe a project based on best practice for the relevant field.

The 60 ECTS thesis for the specialisation in Innovation and Implementation will justify and describe an innovation project in an organization, whether public or private. The student must be in a position to suggest and implement the project, or the organization may request a particular project for the student to conduct. The thesis will describe all relevant factors in the change process, and include an evaluation of the results, including customer satisfaction. Needs assessment; choosing primary and secondary objectives; means and methods of change; implementation strategies; required resources, and results, must all be reported. The candidate must present an analysis of risk and success factors, and an analysis of ethical and legal concerns in the project.

All courses included in the specialisation must be completed with pass grades and all coursework requirements must be approved before the candidate may submit the master’s thesis.

On successful completion of the course, the student has the following learning outcomes classified as knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student can

• analyze and critically assess the scientific work of others

Skills

The student can

• demonstrate working knowledge of the ethical and technical principles that govern scientific research and publication, including international citation and reference standards
• demonstrate that they can plan, implement and evaluate a supervised innovation project in accordance with research ethics guidelines and regulations, and guidelines from relevant governmental bodies (i. e., The Norwegian Data Protection Authority, relevant Norwegian Research Ethics Committees and so on)
• choose and apply relevant methods of data collection for research or scientific inquiry
• write a thesis according to criteria determined by the university
• critically assess the results of his own work
• critically assess various sources of information

Competence

The student can

• participate and promote the development of behavioral sciences
• justify their professional behavior with reference to ethical guidelines, general ethical considerations and their own assessment of the situation
• analyze and critically assess various sources of information with relevance for the thesis

The thesis outline and the thesis are individual work. The thesis outline must be submitted the semester before thesis submission at the latest.

In addition to the compulsory seminars on research ethics, the students must participate in and submit work requirements for the 6 compulsory thesis seminars. The seminars require preparatory work in research methods, implementation strategies, article writing, and use of library services and search engines. Individual adaptations are dictated by the candidate’s chosen project. Students are advised to find a lab group to participate in.

Thesis supervision is compulsory. Students are assigned a field supervisor employed and trained for this purpose by the Department of Behavioral Science, with responsibility for students for the duration of the project. Field supervision is 40 hours per project, distributed according to agreement between student and supervisor. In addition, the Department of Behavioral Science provides back-up supervision as needed up to 20 hours per project. As the supervisor is formally responsible for the fulfilment of requirements by data protection authorities and ethics review boards, the thesis cannot be submitted without the written approval of the (main) supervisor.

As the thesis supervisor is formally responsible for the fulfilment of requirements by data protection authorities and ethics review boards, the thesis cannot be submitted without the written approval of the field supervisor.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

a) Two research ethics seminars are 100 % attendance required before submitting the thesis  outline. The seminars will take place digitally.

b) Completion of 6 attendance required, two-day digital thesis seminars with all tasks approved. These tasks are written submissions of no more than 5000 keystrokes each. The order of submissions 2 - 6 is individually determined by the student in collaboration with the field supervisor. Task approval is granted by the field supervisor.

1. An outline of a project idea, with a tentative timeline.
2. An analysis of the contingencies for implementation of the project.
3. A description and justification of search strategy and choice of background literature.
4. A justified suggestion for research design.
5. A detailed description of methods for data collection, including methods for securing data integrity, and a justified suggestion for data analysis strategies.
6. A risk and vulnerability analysis for the project, and strategies for data protection and security, including application of approval from external bodies.

c) Approval of final thesis outline by program faculty. The outline must incorporate the subjects of the tasks mentioned as Course requirements b 2 - 6.

d) Submit a signed contract with the appointed supervisor.

Thesis. Submission of master’s thesis according to program specifications, consisting of a project report. Technical standards according to the current APA manual. Submitting dates each year: June 15th  and November 15th.

Thesis format

The Master’s thesis consists of a project report. The format of the project report should conform to the publishing conventions of the science of behavior analysis, and the length should be appropriate for the work that is reported. The project report must include an executive summary for the Best Practice project bank. The project report is written according to the current APA Publishing Manual Standard; double spaced Times New Roman size 12 with standard margins for MS Office Word. Examiner’s guidelines are provided.

Ethics and data protection

Theses are submitted that require approval from the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD) and or Regional Committee for Medicine and Health Sciences Research Ethics (REK). For some theses, the topic in itself will force a discussion of normative ethical evaluations, even when REK are not involved. This is the case when invasive/restrictive interventions are described; data comes from functional analysis assessment of challenging behavior, or when members of vulnerable clinical populations are subjects in the studies (this list is NOT exhaustive, and student and supervisor are jointly responsible for determining whether the ethical evaluations should be part of the main body of the thesis). In cases where advice on ethics aspects of the project is relevant, The National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (NESH) should be contacted.

Web pages:

NSD https://nsd.no/

REK https://rekportalen.no/

NESH https://www.forskningsetikk.no/retningslinjer/hum-sam/forskningsetiske-retningslinjer-for-samfunnsvitenskap-humaniora-juss-og-teologi/

If the decision is made that a discussion of ethics is not required in the main body of the thesis, the student writes a reflection note - a short description of the deliberations that were made before this decision was reached (maximum 6000 keystrokes). If student and supervisor decide that there is no need for registering the project with NSD, a description of the deliberations preceding this decision is also required. Ethics and data protection can be treated in the same reflection note.

The note should describe the type of data collected, whether personal information is involved, and whether application for approval by external such as REK and NSD bodies are required. If a case number has been assigned by external bodies, it should be included.

In addition, the note should describe whether a risk and vulnerability analysis has been performed, and if it has, it should be included as an appendix.

All

Grade scale A-F

One internal and one external examiner will assess all exams.