Hacer o no hacer una tesis: Percepciones de egresados de un programa de enseñanza del inglés de México

Most undergraduate programs in Mexico train their students in research. Thesis writing, as a product of research, is considered an option to obtain a degree. This article presents the case of an undergraduate English Language Teaching (ELT) program from a university in Mexico where, despite the relevance given to research, students avoid writing a thesis. The aim of the study was to identify the perceptions of the program’s former students about thesis writing and, to know if these perceptions contribute to choose other forms to obtain the degree that do not imply the production of some research process. A qualitative method was followed. Semi-structured interviews were applied to a population of ELT graduates who had taken some subjects focused on the student being able to develop knowledge in research. The results suggest that the difficulties faced by the participants may lead to choose alternatives that are simpler and faster than writing a thesis. The most mentioned challenges were problems writing in English and Spanish, selection of the research topic, and a lack of support from the professors.