Diploma theses as a source of data in the research of tertiary education: methodological challenges and examples of use use on the case of study programmes "Public Policy"
Abstract
The methodological paper presents diploma theses as a rich and yet undiscovered source of data for analysis of tertiary education study programmes. The biggest advantage of the diploma theses is their accessability as all theses in the Czech Republic have to be publicly accessible.
The analysis based on these data may be useful in many ways: it may provide self-reflection of and for study programmes, it may help applicants and students to understand the features of the programmes and it may also contribute to the understanding of general trends in Czech tertiary education. First, the paper reviews the use of diploma theses in research, then it discusses particular specifics of the data which should be taken into account in order to reach the best results.
To be illustrative, later we show the outputs of respective analyses focused on description of one study programme development within past 20 years, comparison of full-time and combined type of study within one study programme and comparison of several study programmes.