To Determine the Word Limit of the Final Year Dissertation and Practical Training Report or Project in Universities in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Dissertation is finding a new knowledge or solving a practical problem in the world which usually consists with 5 basic chapters. Practical training is work in a private, government or any other institute under some kind of supervision. Having a fixed word limit for undergraduate dissertation and practical training report gives benefits to both lecturers and students and it enhances the quality of a research. The population referred here is lecturers in Sri Lanka. Structural mailed questionnaire was applied as the convenience sampling procedure to select a sample of 115 lecturers. In order to explore the patterns in data suitable numerical and descriptive statistical tools were applied and 2 multiple linear regression analyses were performed to examine the relationships hypothesized. Both models were significant under 0.05 alpha level and Minitab 18 software was used to perform above analyses. To present the data tabulations were used. The study shows that the word limit of the final year undergraduate dissertation is determined between 10000 to 15000 words and the word limit of the final year practical training report is determined between 3000 to 8000 words. Lecturers’ experience of the lecturing field was identified as the only factor affects to the word limit of the final year dissertation. Number of words in the undergraduate dissertation, credits of the final year practical training and lecturers’ yearly practical training supervisions were identified as the factors affect to the word limit of the final year practical training report.