Content analysis of defended master theses at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Current trends in educational sciences can best be evaluated by assessing the master and doctoral theses defended at the universities. The goal of the present paper was to do a qualitative content analysis of the titles of master theses defended at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Total of 393 master theses defended in the period from 2012 to 2021 were the subject of this analysis. Of these, 287 were defended at the department for teacher education and 106 at the department for preschool education. As expected, most of the studies dealt with early elementary school students and preschool children. Many studies contained the term “development” in its title, and it was referring to all domains from speech to socioemotional and motor development. Several studies examined parental and teachers’ attitudes towards various topics. In relation to the subject, most studies dealt with science education, followed by physical education and language. A number of studies had special education as the main topic, covering issues of teacher competencies, creativity, support to students with developmental disabilities, to the quality of life. Students have studied various relevant topics. In the future, we expect to see an increase in studies covering digital competencies of teachers and evaluation of online education.

Keywords

• master theses
• educational sciences
• trends
• content analysis