Browsing by Author "Stenlund, Saida"

The purpose of this study was to find out what kind of social support was provided in the discussion forum among graduate students. The target of this study was the online converstations between graduate students in the Gradutakuu discussion forum. There are far too many students who have not graduated because of the unfinished thesis so it is important to find answers how to support the students better in their thesis writing process. It is in everyone's interest that the students will get their thesis done and graduate. This study is a case study and qualitative contents analysis was used in a inductive way to code the messages. The data was gathered from the online discussion forum. The main result of the study was that the social support given on the discussion forum between the students was mainly emotional. Esteem support had the second biggest role in the supportative expression followed by informational support. Every message at the discussion forum included at least one expression of emotional support. The results indicate that the discussion forum was an alternative platform for students to reach for support for their thesis writing process, especially what it comes to emotional support. It may be that the students did not get enough support through the formal thesis writing guidance and because of that they ended up looking for an alternative support from the discussion forum. The results suggest that in the thesis guidance there should be paid more attention to the role of emotional support.