Ensuring Sustainable Academic Development of L2 Postgraduate Students and MA Programs: Challenges and Support in Thesis Writing for L2 Chinese Postgraduate Students

Abstract

This study, based on Activity Theory, investigated the challenges and support for L2 Chinese postgraduate students in their master’s degree (MA) thesis writing. The five participants, currently PhD candidates in applied linguistics, shared their experiences of MA thesis writing. The data include multiple drafts of theses and semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis reveals that these participants went through four kinds of challenges: (1) selecting the research topic and theoretical basis; (2) meeting the high requirements of MA theses, using new research tools, and overcoming linguistic barriers; (3) writing the literature review; and (4) writing the discussion. The findings reveal the challenges were caused by four levels of inner contradictions in activity systems. The main support was provided by their supervisors, whose tailored help was more effective than the related courses they took. More sources of support came from their fellow students, the assessment panels of the research proposal, and the thesis defense. The analysis illustrated how these participants managed to receive support by interacting with the academic community. This study is expected to shed light on postgraduate education in general and the sustainable development of individual students and MA programs. Its implications may not only benefit Chinese L2 postgraduate students and their supervisors but also those in similar EFL contexts.

1. Introduction

Many L2 postgraduate students who are enrolled either in master’s degree programs or doctoral programs regard thesis writing as an arduous experience due to their limited ability to meet the increasingly high standards of their institutions [1], lack of experience in academic writing [2], limited proficiency in English [3], and insufficient genre knowledge [4,5]. Most research on thesis writing was carried out among L2 postgraduate students who studied in English-speaking countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., but little is known about L2 postgraduate students in non-English-speaking countries. Although different kinds of support are provided to help postgraduate students overcome the difficulties in thesis writing, most related research focuses on the feedback of supervisors [5,6]. Additionally, previous studies either focused on challenges or on support, respectively, while the close relationship between challenges and the corresponding support has seldom been explored. Thus, this paper intends to investigate the challenges that L2 postgraduate students in China have to face in the process of completing their master’s theses and the support that these students receive from various sources to ensure the sustainable development of individual students and postgraduate programs.

The present study intends to help understand the challenging situation faced by EFL postgraduate students when they are writing their MA theses, the causes of the problems, the possible solutions to overcome those challenges, and the difficulties from the perspective of Activity Theory [7].

2. Literature Review

Research on the challenges for L2 postgraduate students’ thesis writing dates back to circa 1990. Researchers [1,3,8] have recognized the necessity of exploring the difficulties of L2 postgraduate students in their thesis writing so that better guidance could be provided.

2.1. Challenges in Thesis Writing

Numerous studies have detailed the challenges for L2 postgraduate students’ thesis writing, which are mainly categorized as linguistic challenges [9] and non-linguistic challenges. Linguistic challenges include appropriateness of language use [3], logical structure [4,10], and mechanics (e.g., spelling) [1]. Other challenges that are not directly related to writing itself are classified as non-linguistic challenges, such as time pressure [11,12] and selecting proper research topics [8].

Specifically, linguistic challenges for L2 postgraduate students include proper selection of vocabulary and accuracy of grammar [3], clear organization, and coherence of ideas [1,4,9,10]. It is also found that L2 postgraduate students have problems with proper citation [11] and the format [1].

For non-linguistic challenges, L2 postgraduate students have trouble selecting a proper research topic [8]. In addition, they undergo time pressure, as they spend much time reading related literature to select a research topic with which they are not familiar [12]. Additionally, they also face difficulties in writing a literature review critically based on integrating and synthesizing the existing literature because of a lack of critical thinking [10]. However, related studies have focused either on the linguistic challenges or the non-linguistic challenges instead of considering both issues in a study.

2.2. Possible Support for Thesis Writing

Existing research shows different kinds of support are available for L2 postgraduate students to overcome the challenges of thesis writing, mainly in three strands. One is from supervisors; the second is from peers, which is the recently emerging strand; and the third is from other sources such as information consultations and workshops.

As for support from supervisors, most examples focus on the supervisors’ written feedback [13,14], the interaction between supervisors and their students [15], and the perceptions of both students and supervisors regarding the supervisory support [16,17]. It is found that supervisors provide plenty of support in language use and writing conventions as well as logical structure or organizing ideas [1,18], format correction [1], appropriate expressions [1,6,14], proper citation, and avoidance of plagiarism [1,11]. Supervisors’ feedback is helpful for students to establish their academic identity [6] and get involved in the academic discourse community [14]. Supervisors also provide support on non-linguistic aspects, such as the selection of research topics, as mentioned previously [8,19].

The peer community, another important source of support, helps in promoting genre awareness, reader awareness, logical writing, proofreading, and correcting language errors [20,21,22]. Moreover, peers could give inspiration on research topics and help provide related resources, including relevant literature, an online dictionary, etc. [22,23].

In addition to supervisor and peer support, some studies have explored other sources of support that received less attention. For instance, Ma’s study [24] introduced different formats of information consultations (ICs) and investigated the effectiveness of tailoring ICs for doctoral students’ personalized needs in thesis writing, which they could not receive from group learning. Jusslin and Widlund [25] explored the function of thesis-based workshops and found workshops could provide tailored tutoring, advance students’ genre knowledge, and provide a peer learning community.

In summary, most of the above-mentioned research on challenges and support has been carried out among international students who are studying in English-speaking universities, while EFL students who study in non-English-speaking countries might be in a rather different situation. In addition, most previous studies focused on doctoral students, but students enrolled in master’s degree programs are underexplored.

In addition, previous research either put more emphasis on challenges or on support, and we argue that the challenges and the support are closely related and need to be further explored. Therefore, this study investigates both linguistic and non-linguistic challenges that EFL Chinese postgraduate students face in the process of writing a master’s thesis, as well as all types of support they receive to overcome these challenges. This study is expected to shed light on other similar EFL contexts.

3. Theoretical Framework

The present study takes Activity Theory [26] as its theoretical basis. Activity Theory, derived from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, views learning as an expansive and goal-oriented process through reciprocal mediation between individuals and the sociocultural environment [27].

Activity Theory regards learning as social practice, in which the activity system is the central conception [26], including six interrelated components (see Figure 1). Subjects are the individuals or community members who participate in an activity. They are motivated by the object, which is the goal to which “the activity is directed” [28] (p. 67). Subjects achieve the object by using tools (e.g., research tools) and interacting with their community, in which members share the same goals and to which subjects are affiliated. In the process of achieving the object, subjects are also mediated and regulated by rules (norms or conventions) as well as the division of labor, which is the shared responsibilities in the activity system determined by the community [26].

Grounded in Activity Theory, the process of postgraduate students’ thesis writing is conceptualized as activity systems in which “subjects” (postgraduate students) use “tools” (e.g., research software) to achieve the “object” (e.g., completing a master’s thesis). This process involves interaction with the academic community (e.g., supervisors and peers) and is regulated by institutional rules (e.g., university regulations) and the division of labor (e.g., the roles and relationships between postgraduate students and supervisors).

The interaction and mediation within and among these elements bring out four kinds of contradictions [26] (see

Table 1. Engeström’s [26] four levels of inner contradictions in activity systems.

Contradiction Level	Engeström’s Definition
Primary contradiction	Within each constituent component of the central activity
Secondary contradiction	Between the constituents of the central activity
Tertiary contradiction	Between the object/motive of the dominant form of the central activity and the object/motive of a culturally more advanced form of the central activity
Quaternary contradiction	Between the central activity and its neighboring activities

), as “contradictions are historically accumulating structural tensions within and between activity systems” [30] (p. 137). For instance, when postgraduate students have the new object of finishing a master’s thesis, i.e., a new element from the outside, it triggers an inner struggle and the need to change. When postgraduate students take action, the tension between the components within the old activity system will lead to a secondary contradiction. For instance, the tension between subjects (postgraduate students) and rules (requirements for a master’s thesis) might become a challenge. After a new activity system has formed but is still unstable, conflicts between the old activity and the new activity will arise. After going through the tertiary contradiction, the new activity system is established. The quaternary contradiction is between the new activity system and its neighboring activity systems [26], which might be the activity systems of journal articles or doctoral dissertations in our case. Contradictions are the driving force for expansive learning [31]. In overcoming and resolving contradictions and challenges, individuals interact with the environment and explore new learning resources or support from the environment as a way for development [7]. Expansive and sustainable learning is realized by interacting with ”experts”, who provide support and ladders to the novice step by step [32,33]. After going through all the contradictions by interacting with the community in activity systems, sustainable development is achieved. Writing a thesis is a process of expansive learning, and the Activity Theory is used to analyze the learning process of postgraduate students in writing a master’s thesis.

Activity Theory has been used to explore L2 student–professor interactions in L2 disciplinary writing [34], academic publication of doctoral candidates [35], and peer feedback in L2 writing [36], but it is seldom applied in thesis writing research. Our study addresses two questions from the perspective of Activity Theory:

• What are the major challenges that EFL postgraduate students meet in the process of writing an MA thesis?
• What kinds of support are provided for EFL postgraduate students to overcome the challenges of writing an MA thesis?

4. Research Methodology

4.1. Research Design

By adopting a qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate the challenges L2 postgraduate students had met and the support they had received in the process of master’s thesis writing. Based on the interview protocol (see Appendix A), face-to-face interviews were carried out with the participants’ permission, who had been informed of the research purposes. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Afterwards, thematic analysis [37] was conducted with Nvivo 12.

4.2. Research Participants and the MA Programs

This study adopted purposive sampling to recruit participants. In order to enhance the representativeness of the outcomes [38], five postgraduate students (Candy, Michele, Bob, Emily, and Jessie) who earned their master’s degrees from different research-oriented universities in China were deliberately selected (see

Table 2. Profile of participants.

No.	Pseudonym	Age	Gender	Year of Graduation	Thesis Topic
1	Candy	38	Female	2021	Cognitive Linguistics
2	Michele	28	Female	2021	Term Translation
3	Bob	25	Male	2022	Academic Writing
4	Emily	26	Female	2022	Multimodal Writing
5	Jessie	29	Female	2020	News Discourse Analysis

). Currently enrolled in a PhD program for applied linguistics, they recalled and narrated their experiences of writing their master’s theses.

The master’s degree programs they used to be enrolled in are all academic programs as opposed to professional degree programs, where the former puts an emphasis on research and the completion of a thesis is mandated. All these MA programs follow a standardized, strict, and regulated procedure to assure the quality of the thesis, mainly including a thesis proposal defense, three stages of assessments, such as internal and external assessments, and a thesis defense, in spite of the slight differences among these universities.

All these MA programs in applied linguistics have a well-designed curriculum, offering a variety of courses before the participants began to write their thesis. Among many courses, courses on academic writing and research methodology are mandated for all postgraduate students. Meanwhile, many academic activities and events were organized, such as conferences, seminars, forums, and workshops on related research issues. At these universities, both physical and digital libraries offer a comprehensive array of online resources. Additionally, they organize lectures and workshops to ensure students are well-equipped with the necessary skills to effectively utilize cutting-edge research engines and software for retrieving and analyzing existing research.

4.3. Data Collection

Data were collected from two sources: (1) participants’ multiple drafts of the theses with their supervisors’ feedback, which helps us understand the way of interaction between the students and their supervisors and the focus of feedback; and (2) interviews with the participants who had already finished their master’s theses. We carried out audio-recorded interviews with the participants in Mandarin to ensure that they had a better understanding of the interview questions and gave detailed answers accordingly. Each interview lasted between 44 min and 78 min, and the recordings of the interviews were transcribed using Xunfei, an automated transcription tool, and the transcription was double-checked with the original recording to ensure the accuracy of the transcription.

4.4. Data Analysis

As mentioned, Activity Theory [26] was also used as the analytical framework. Specifically, the thematic analysis [37] was conducted using Nvivo 12. First, based on the research questions, bottom-up coding [39] was conducted to find out all the challenges participants faced in thesis writing, and the lines in the transcription where participants mentioned corresponding support were also coded. After repetitive reading and analysis, the challenges and support, which were in line with the primary inner contradiction and support in Activity Theory, were all identified and labeled as the “primary challenge and the corresponding support”. Coding for the other three levels of challenges and support was performed one by one in the same way. As for the quotes from the participants cited for the illustration of the research results, they were translated into English. To ensure coding reliability, inter-rater agreement was conducted. After coding was completed, an experienced rater in qualitative coding recoded the data. The two coders discussed the discrepancies until they were settled. A high inter-rater reliability (0.87) was achieved [40].

5. Research Results and Discussion

Thematic analysis of interview data revealed four levels of contradictions in the activity system of thesis writing, which led to four kinds of corresponding challenges. The results of the data analysis are described below.

5.1. Primary Challenges and Corresponding Support

The primary contradiction arose when the new motive (“object”) of completing a degree thesis entered the activity system towards getting a master’s degree in the final phase of the master’s program. The tension between the postgraduate students’ goal to complete qualified academic writing and their limited abilities led to the primary contradiction, which brought out the primary challenge.

The thematic analysis of the data reveals that the primary challenge for postgraduate students is their limited ability to deal with research topic selection (see

Table 3. Primary challenges and corresponding support.

Theme	Codes
Primary challenges	Selecting a research topic
Corresponding support	Suggestions from supervisors Feedback from the thesis proposal defense committee Inspiration from research conferences

). The related support includes suggestions from supervisors, feedback from the thesis proposal defense committee, and inspiration from research conferences. The selection of the research topic here is meant in a broad sense, including selecting the theoretical framework.

The participants were highly motivated to choose a research topic worth studying that not only had academic significance and was feasible for a master’s thesis but also matched their interests. However, they were unable to reach this goal by themselves due to their limited academic abilities. Thus, it brought out the primary challenge.

Candy, for example, had a strong desire to conduct “creative research” because she came back to campus as a postgraduate student after gaining 11 years of teaching experience. However, she found it hard to select a research topic that was both significant academically and met her interest. Thus, the process was especially time-consuming and challenging.

Candy recalled that she and her fellow students were required to submit a literature review on a self-chosen research topic in the second semester. When she submitted her written work on cognitive grammar to her supervisor, the latter thought her research topic was infeasible. Thus, Candy began a “long journey” of selecting a research topic, especially a related theoretical framework, which forced her to shift into the study of cognitive semantics. She said,

The process was rather painful. If you wanted to have a better understanding of these theories put forward by linguists, you had to spend some time reading their books.

Jessie encountered similar challenges. Her problem was selecting a suitable theory for studying news discourse. Among several theories, she felt it was difficult to choose “the suitable one”. She dismissed some theories herself, while her supervisor eliminated others. She explained that the reason she kept working on it so hard was because she planned to further her education in a PhD program. So, she insisted on doing a better job for the master’s thesis.

Michele also thought that selecting a research topic was the hardest thing. Although her supervisor had suggested Michele select a research topic based on her research group’s project, which actually reduced the level of difficulty, Michele still encountered a lot of problems. The most salient one was the selection of a proper theory. She looked for the theory for several months and eventually found a cognitive theory, which was applied to the translation of ancient Chinese administrative terms.

While dealing with those primary inner struggles, these participants received three kinds of support, i.e., support from supervisors, committee members of the thesis proposal defense, and research conferences.

Both Michele and Candy said the most helpful support was from their supervisors, as mentioned previously. Just as Michele said,

If my supervisor had not let us do research based on her research project, we (Michele and her fellow students) would not have known what kind of research to do. We really had no idea.

Thesis proposal defense committee members were also sources of support. For instance, Emily’s original research topic was “Cognitive difficulties, cognitive strategies, and creativity for EFL learners in multimodal writing”. Committee members in the thesis proposal defense pointed out that “creativity” was hard to measure, and she revised her proposal with the agreement of her supervisor. She said,

Creativity was really difficult to measure. There was no authoritative or convincing questionnaire. About half of the content in my thesis proposal did not appear in my final thesis.

Attending research conferences was another source of support. All the participants attended academic events or activities. Candy said, “If you attend research conferences, you will see many novel and interesting research topics”.

The above findings echo Bargar’s conclusion [19] that topic selection was a challenge for postgraduate students, and supervisors played an important role in providing support. Although these postgraduate students had experience writing an undergraduate thesis before they were enrolled in master’s programs, they still encountered many more challenges in selecting a master’s thesis topic by shifting from one topic to another [12]. On one hand, these challenges were due to participants’ high expectations of themselves, as they wanted to balance the standard of a master’s degree with the requirements of the academic program and their own research interests. On the other hand, postgraduate students still had limited ability to handle the challenges independently. Most of the courses offered to them mainly provided an overview of the trends and issues in applied linguistics instead of an in-depth and detailed study in a specific area. As a result, the students had to mainly rely on their supervisors’ expertise when selecting their thesis topic [8]. However, different from a previous study [19], it was found that committee members of the thesis proposal defense and research conferences also provided useful support for postgraduate students as they faced the primary challenge.

5.2. Secondary Challenges and Corresponding Support

As the thesis writing process progressed, elements in the activity system collided with one another. This collision brought about a secondary contradiction. These secondary challenges were caused by the high standard of a master’s thesis (rules), the need to use new research tools (tools), and the need to express themselves in academic language (tools), which were in contrast with students’ limited ability (subject). Our data showed postgraduate students experienced more challenges due to the secondary contradiction, which is related to technical–operational aspects [26].

The data revealed three kinds of secondary challenges, including the higher requirements of a master’s thesis compared to a bachelor’s thesis, linguistic barriers, and the use of new research tools. “Higher requirements” are “rules” that postgraduate students had to obey in the activity system of getting a master’s degree. Postgraduate students had to meet institutional and academic conventions and maintain effective communication with supervisors, which was not an easy job. Meanwhile, they also faced linguistic barriers in academic writing and had to update their knowledge and skills in using research tools, such as new analytical software.

However, these postgraduate students managed to overcome the challenges by interacting with the environment where they could receive support, such as consulting their supervisors, taking academic writing courses, and participating in workshops (see

Table 4. Secondary challenges and corresponding support.

Theme	Codes
Secondary challenges	Meeting the high requirements of a master’s thesis
	Linguistic barriers in academic writing
	Using new research tools
Corresponding support	Supervisors’ instruction; theses and research articles as references; peer feedback; thesis defense; academic writing courses
	Electronic dictionary/corpus; supervisors’ feedback; journal articles as references; peer proofreading
	Research methodology courses; supervisors’ instruction; workshops; library lectures

).

5.2.1. Challenges from the High Requirements of an MA Thesis and Corresponding Support

The first type of secondary challenge was to meet the high requirements of a master’s thesis, including academic standards, institutional regulations, and supervisors’ expectations to ensure the quality of master programs. Although all the participants had written their bachelor theses, it was still challenging for them [41] in many aspects. Candy said,

Whether it is the academic conventions or construction of a theoretical framework or research method, accuracy of data, depth and breadth of discussion, as well as formats and the duplicate rate, the standard for postgraduate students is much higher than for undergraduates.

Supervisors were more demanding to make sure that students completed the thesis as expected. If the thesis was based on a research project of the supervisor, the students felt more challenged. Michele’s thesis, for example, was based on her supervisor’s research project, and her supervisor had higher requirements.

Another challenge was caused by the participants’ lack of proficiency regarding academic writing. A master’s thesis, as a special type of academic writing, should follow academic writing conventions both in content and form. Jessie shared her experiences with thesis writing:

Maybe the creativity of our research is comparatively low, but we can go through the whole process of doing research. Then, we transform the research into a written discourse that obeys the conventions of academic writing.

Similar to overcoming the primary challenge, these participants managed to overcome secondary challenges by exploring the types of support available. Five kinds of support were often and widely used, according to these participants.

The first one was the instruction and feedback from their supervisors. Candy completed her bachelor thesis over ten years ago, and she encountered difficulties in properly generating a thesis title. Her supervisor gave her some detailed suggestions. She said,

My supervisor suggested that the title should contain at least three elements, such as research perspective, research subjects, and research method.

In addition, her supervisor also taught her how to cite properly to avoid plagiarism.

Michele’s supervisor would give suggestions and feedback on her thesis structure, such as reorganizing the structure or making some omissions. Her supervisor also pointed out the format problems; for instance, “the book title should be translated into English and typed in italics”.

Another important source of support was theses written by former postgraduate students and research articles as references retrieved from CNKI, which is an online database of theses, dissertations, and journal articles in China. When Candy was working on her thesis, she downloaded master students’ theses as references, including font size for the chapter title, citation, bibliography, etc. Candy said,

I always referred to theses written by former postgraduate students who had already graduated and who used to be in my supervisor’s research group.

Bob used research articles as references for rhetorical structure and citation.

The third type of support was peer feedback. Emily recalled that her supervisor organized group meetings regularly, during which all her supervisor’s postgraduate students shared how they wrote different sections of the thesis, such as the introduction and the literature review. Each student presented each chapter or section they wrote and would receive peer feedback. Emily revised and rewrote based on peer feedback, which increased Emily’s genre awareness and helped her learn how to organize each section of the thesis more clearly.

Jessie also benefited from peer feedback on the thesis format. She and her classmate would exchange their drafts to check for errors in format.

The fourth effective support was attending the thesis defense. Jessie mentioned she gained knowledge by attending other students’ thesis defenses, which was helpful. She became clearer about the requirements of the institution and the norms of academic writing. She said,

When the committee members of the thesis defense pointed out the problems of other defenders, I would take notes. When I wrote my own thesis, I would pay attention to these points.

The fifth kind of support was the academic writing course the participants attended. All the research-oriented Master’s programs in this study offered courses on academic writing, which mainly taught students genre knowledge by introducing the steps in each section with some related exercises and how to make proper citations. However, most of the participants did not think the academic writing course was helpful enough to deal with specific writing problems that they encountered in the process of writing their own theses.

The above findings of this study show that the challenges of meeting the higher requirements of a master’s thesis are found in many aspects, including the format, structure, duplicate rate, steps in each section, citation, etc. Compared with previous studies [1], our study investigates the sources of the higher requirements of a master’s thesis, including those of academia, institutions, and supervisors.

For the types of support, the research findings are similar to those of previous studies on the scaffolding role of supervisors in the process of thesis writing through feedback [2,12,42]. Supervisors helped make clear the requirements of institutions [6] and of academic literacy, including genre, format, citation, etc., along with their own expectations. Supervisors could provide tailored support for students’ sustainable development in thesis writing to meet the higher requirements of a master’s thesis [12]. The role of peer feedback in group mentoring was also an important source of support [2]. For the supportive role of the academic writing course, the result is consistent with Odena and Burgess’ study [18]. Courses on academic writing helped raise genre awareness and prepare students for independent thesis writing [20], but they could not fully address the difficulties students faced in thesis writing. It might be due to their lack of ability to adapt and apply their prior knowledge or skills. Different from previous studies, we also found that some academic community members (e.g., former postgraduate students in the supervisor’s group, authors of journal articles) provided indirect support; students used theses mainly as references for format and structure, while they used journal articles mainly as references for genre knowledge or citation of academic writing.

5.2.2. Challenges from Pragmatic Use of Language and Corresponding Support

The data revealed linguistic barriers as another secondary challenge in academic writing. Language is a tool used to express authors’ ideas and thoughts. However, the participants had limited proficiency in academic writing. All interviewees felt it was hard to express themselves formally and appropriately in academic writing.

Michele mentioned that she always read again and again after writing some paragraphs, but she still felt that there was a discrepancy between her expressions or wording and academic language. In particular, her thesis topic was about ancient Chinese administrative terms, and it was a great challenge for her to translate the contents related to Chinese culture clearly and accurately.

Jessie encountered the challenge of academic expression as well. She believed it was due to her lack of experience in academic writing, so her writing style in the first several drafts was rather informal and colloquial.

Bob deemed the appropriate wording or expression of academic writing a challenge for both native speakers and EFL speakers. Bob said that completing a research paper or thesis in Chinese was also challenging because academic writing is difficult in all languages.

These participants mentioned they managed to overcome the challenges of academic wording or expressions with four kinds of support, including an electronic dictionary or academic writing corpus, supervisor’s feedback, journal articles, and peer proofreading.

An electronic dictionary and academic writing corpus, for example, helped Michele with academic writing. Particularly, she used COCA to check her word choices. She said,

If I did not know the usage or the collocation of the word, I would check in COCA to see whether the expression could be used in this way. If I found a similar expression, I would use it.

Bob preferred using an electronic dictionary as support to deal with the language problems. He would check the meaning in a dictionary to decide which expression to use. He called his writing “self-regulated writing”, as he always revised his writing again and again. Bob said,

I always considered whether the selection of the word was accurate, whether the expression was negative, whether the prosody was proper, and whether the collocation was accurate.

The second and third kinds of support were from supervisors and journal articles. Jessie received support from her supervisor, and she also resorted to journal papers as support to overcome linguistic challenges. She mentioned she would submit a print-out copy of her drafts to her supervisor. The latter would underline the expression that was colloquial, plus some comments, and then she would revise her thesis drafts accordingly and double-check with the published journal articles.

The fourth source of support was peer proofreading. Candy received peer feedback in language. She and her three fellow students would exchange their theses to do the proofreading. She believed peer feedback could help a lot with the correction of language errors. She recalled,

Among all the four students in the same group, two students have studied abroad for one year, so they have a high level of language proficiency. The other one has an even higher level of language proficiency, even though she has not gone abroad.

The above findings are consistent with Casanave and Hubbard’s survey [3]. EFL postgraduate students felt greatly challenged in academic expression, especially in accuracy and appropriateness of grammar and vocabulary, and writing tone. For support, our results concur with Singh’s study [41] in that students explored support from the electronic dictionary. The reason why students prefer using an electronic dictionary might be that it can solve language problems directly by providing example sentences [22]. In agreement with Dong’s study [1], supervisors also provided support on language expression by giving feedback. In line with Yu and Lee’s study [36], peer feedback was an important support. However, our results revealed that an academic writing corpus and journal articles were also important sources of support that postgraduate students used as references for academic expressions.

5.2.3. Challenges from Using Research Instruments and Corresponding Support

The third type of secondary challenge was due to students’ inadequate knowledge and skills in using research tools. Seemingly, these students had seldom used any research tools until their MA thesis projects. However, the challenge was easily overcome with the help of four major kinds of support, including the research methodology course, the supervisor’s instruction, workshops, and library lectures.

Bob, for example, used Antconc, but he was not familiar with it. He learned how to use it by attending a course on corpus linguistics offered by his department. The course was timely support for him. He said,

At first, I was not familiar with Antconc. While I attended the course, I followed step-by-step what the instructor taught in class. Finally, I found it was not hard to handle.

Likewise, Jessie also used Antconc in her thesis to analyze news discourse based on knowledge learned in the course on research methodology.

Their supervisors’ guidance was also helpful. Bob’s supervisor, an expert in corpus analysis, knows numerous useful research instruments and corpus tools. Thus, Bob would appeal to his supervisor directly when he was looking for some useful tools to deal with his problems. He said,

I would always resort to my supervisor when I encountered difficulties. My supervisor always recommended to me some useful tools, websites, and platforms that he often used and told me to try. My supervisor is very smart and good at finding some useful tools, so I always asked my supervisor for help.

Although the support provided by his institution and other resources was available, Bob said his supervisor had provided more direct and tailored support, which helped him solve his problems efficiently and effectively.

The third source of support was workshops. Both Candy and Jessie mentioned that they attended several workshops when they wanted to update their knowledge of some new tools, either for their research projects or simply out of curiosity for those recently updated research tools.

The fourth kind of support was the library’s lectures. Students who had trouble retrieving and classifying the existing literature went to the library. Both Candy and Emily received help from university libraries, which hosted lectures on literature retrieval in each semester, teaching the students how to use Web of Science to search for related literature effectively and how to use databases purchased by the university library. Candy recalled,

The faculty member who taught literature retrieval was a doctoral degree student, so he would also teach us how to write a literature review and how to operate some related tools, such as CiteSpace.

The above findings show that the challenge of using research tools has not received much attention in previous studies. Our study found postgraduate students had little knowledge about research tools before they studied in the Master’s program. It was the courses on research methodology and corpus linguistics offered by their departments that were the major sources of support, which were supplemented by the supervisor’s instruction. Different from Harwood and Petrić’s study [43], participants in our research did not mention that they would seek help from their friends in technical aspects. It might be that the support available provides them with adequate help to overcome most of the problems in their thesis writing. In addition, they also actively explored support by attending relevant workshops available both online and offline.

5.3. Tertiary Challenges and Corresponding Support

After postgraduate students had gone through the secondary contradiction, they already acquired the new knowledge of thesis writing, which marked the ongoing establishment of a new activity system and another round of conflicts with their previous writing habits, and thus came to the tertiary contradiction.

Thematic data analysis showed the tertiary challenge of how to write a logical, critical, and comprehensive review of the literature (see

Table 5. Tertiary challenges and corresponding support.

Theme	Codes
Tertiary challenges	Writing the literature review logically, critically, and comprehensively
Corresponding support	Supervisors’ instruction Group meetings hosted by the supervisor Literature analytical tools

). Although postgraduate students had gained the necessary knowledge and skills to write a good review of literature, they were often affected by their previous or traditional ways of thinking.

Bob, for example, pointed out why writing the literature review was a challenge by saying,

It is not easy to form a big map for related literature. I always negated the way I reviewed literature. You should read a lot of literature so that you can tell the whole story of the specific field.

Thus, Bob believed master’s theses should have a comprehensive review of the literature with logical classification. Postgraduate students had to read plenty of related literature to write a good literature review.

Emily thought it difficult to sort the literature and put forward research questions based on critically synthesizing the existing research. Candy’s difficulty was finding the research gap based on the relevant literature.

To deal with these challenges in writing the literature review, the participants mainly received three kinds of support, including supervisors’ instruction, support from group meetings organized by supervisors, and literature analytical tools.

Bob, for example, obtained support from his supervisor. His thesis was to analyze academic discourse’s metadiscourse, and his supervisor, an expert in this field, recommended plenty of related literature to him, especially two key review papers in the field, one in English and one in Chinese, which were of great help. He said,

I explored and excavated more related literature from these two articles, especially from the citations and references. I downloaded and collected all these cited and referenced articles. The process was just like a snowball rolling, from one article to plenty of articles.

With his supervisor’s support, Bob collected most of the important research papers, and he added the latest published papers to his reference list. Afterward, he completed his literature review smoothly by using the chronological approach. Jessie also received her supervisor’s support when writing the literature review. As she had acquired adequate knowledge and skills for reviewing literature from the related courses and seminars she had attended, she classified the existing research in her research area. However, her supervisor found a problem of overlapping in her writing, and then she revised her writing according to her supervisor’s suggestion.

The second type of support was group meetings, which Candy found useful. When her supervisor pointed out the problems of her fellow students, she would check whether she had the same problem. Meanwhile, she would further explore different resources to solve the problems.

I would consult previous notes taken in courses, courseware, or online resources, or imitate others’ literature reviews.

Literature analytical tools were also helpful. Candy mentioned that the relevant literature for her thesis was so huge that she used CitaSpace to identify the general research trends and major research issues in the field.

The above findings echo Komba’s survey [44], which found that most postgraduate students were challenged on how to synthesize and write a logical literature review. As for the support in this aspect, our results are consistent with Zhang and Hyland’s [6], that supervisors provided help and support. In contrast to Wegener et al.’s study [21], our study did not find the supportive role of peers in writing a critical literature review because the participants in Wegener et al.’s study were doctoral students, who might have a higher level of critical thinking. Different from previous studies, our results showed group meetings were also important sources of support, where students could find inspiration from their supervisor’s instructions for other students.

5.4. Quaternary Challenges and Corresponding Support

All the previous challenges were the results of conflicts between elements within the activity system of master’s thesis writing, while the quaternary challenge was more complicated, involving conflicts with its neighboring activity systems. Comparing and contrasting the results of related studies brings about interaction between the master’s thesis activity system and nearby activity systems. The neighboring activity systems here mean the systems of published existing research in the field, such as journal articles or perhaps doctoral dissertations.

Thematic analysis reveals how the quaternary challenge interacts with other related studies based on the thesis’ results in the discussion. When discussing their research results, postgraduate students felt it was difficult as they were not sure how to interact with those studies in references. To overcome this challenge, students received support from supervisors, panels of assessment, academic seminars, and published research articles (see

Table 6. Quaternary challenges and corresponding support.

Theme	Codes
Quaternary challenges	Interacting with related studies in the discussion
Corresponding support	Feedback from supervisors Panels of assessment Academic seminars Published empirical research articles as references

).

Emily mentioned that she came across difficulties and challenges in writing the discussion section. As she remembered that her supervisor had emphasized how to write a good discussion, she felt vaguely that she was supposed to interact with previous studies. However, she was at a loss, not knowing how to do it.

Candy’s thesis was about cognition in language production. It was full of challenges, especially writing the discussion. She said,

It was challenging for postgraduate students (master’s students), for the discussion could not be too shallow, and we had to interact with previous studies.

To overcome the challenge of writing an in-depth discussion along with interaction with previous studies, postgraduate students received support from four sources, including their supervisors, panels of assessment, academic seminars, and research articles as references.

The first source of support was from supervisors. Candy received more support from her supervisor as the latter emphasized the importance of the discussion section. She said,

I spent much time writing and revising the results and the discussion and deleting much of the content. My supervisor gave me a lot of detailed instructions on the results and the discussion.

Emily also received the supervisor’s suggestion to make her discussion more in-depth. Her thesis was about multimodal writing, and initially she just summarized the location of a picture or chart and relevant paragraphs in the discussion section. She found her discussion was too shallow for self-reflection, so she asked her supervisor for help. Her supervisor suggested she use the conception of “multimodal orchestration”, which was an important inspiration for her. She compared and contrasted existing studies with her own research findings in her discussion section.

The second source of support was panels of assessment. Michele regarded the feedback and comments from the internal and external assessments as support. The internal examiner was a faculty member in her department who studied tea culture translation, which had a close relationship to Michele’s study. Michele said,

The suggestion the reviewer gave was pertinent. I agreed with his comments. In the discussion section, I repeated my opinion with different kinds of expression. I did not know how to make it deep. I feel I lacked the ability. I know I have to write a more in-depth discussion, but it is hard.

The third kind of support was academic seminars. Bob, for example, attended a seminar that left him with a deep impression on how to write the discussion. He recalled,

I attended one of my supervisor’s academic seminars. He said the discussion was not about talking to yourself. The result was a faceless report, so you had to interact with other literature.

The fourth source of support was research articles. Jessie would resort to research articles when she had no idea how to interact with related studies.

The above findings, concerning the quaternary challenge and corresponding supports, are consistent with Shen et al.’s results [9]. Postgraduate students had difficulties with in-depth discussion, which is different from the description of the results. Unlike the study of Bitchner and Basturkmen [4], we found the students faced challenges in comparing and contrasting the results of related studies due to a lack of ability to practice, not a lack of perception. Feedback from the supervisor was valuable support, which helped postgraduate students develop audience awareness and learn to negotiate and interact with the academic community. Supervisors helped students socialize with the disciplinary community [14]. Additionally, we also found that panel members of the assessment were important sources of support.

In sum, postgraduate students encountered different kinds of challenges that were intertwined, interrelated, and interacted with one another. The causes of problems are various, including the individual students’ lack of enough experience in academic writing, their need to learn newly developed research tools, and their lack of proficiency when using a second language to write an MA thesis. Thesis writing is a learning process for these postgraduate students that requires training, during which challenges motivate them to expand their learning and sustain their academic growth. Without support, they could not complete their thesis well.

Among many sources of support, such as their fellow students, panel members of the thesis proposal defense, and other assessments, their supervisors played an important role due to their tailored and timely instruction [12]. They scaffolded the sustainable development of their students [45] by advancing the novice’s expertise and knowledge on the conventions of discourse communities through dynamic interaction [6]. Institutional support also mattered, such as the courses on academic writing and research methodology provided by MA programs, conferences, seminars, and workshops organized by the departments, and the online resources (Web of Science/CNKI) purchased by the universities’ libraries.

By overcoming challenges with corresponding support, the five participants graduated with their master’s degree, which paved the way for the subsequent doctoral study, especially in dissertation writing.

6. Conclusions

The study reveals four kinds of challenges as a result of four levels of inner contradictions throughout the whole process of thesis writing, from selecting the research topic to using new research tools, from meeting MA program requirements to following academic writing conventions, and from reporting one’s own results to interacting with the existing research. As for support, sources available are various, such as from supervisors, peers, panels of assessment, former postgraduate students, and published journal articles. In coping with the challenges, these postgraduate students are not passive learners. They would sometimes proactively explore more sources of support [46] instead of merely relying on supervisors’ instructions or feedback.

This study shed light on the research on L2 master’s thesis writing, mainly in three aspects. First, Activity Theory does help to understand the challenges that L2 advanced learners have encountered and the support available for them, while none of the previous research used it as the theoretical framework [4,10,24]. Second, in addition to revealing the challenges and difficulties of L2 postgraduate students, the present study also further analyzes the causes of the problems and illustrates how these students managed to interact with community members [47], which were rarely touched upon by the previous research [4,24]. Third, we explored the whole process of thesis writing instead of just focusing on a particular section of the thesis [4,9].

Pedagogically, our study provides some implications and insights for thesis writing supervision and related postgraduate programs. Supervisors may invite their MA students to join doctoral students’ group meetings to maximize the supportive role. Institutions may reform and upgrade the curriculum of the MA program to meet the needs of postgraduate students by providing them with substantial help and support, such as a series of academic writing workshops. Thus, sustainable academic development is ensured for both individual learners and institutional programs.

The present study has limitations due to its small number of participants, even though they have reflected the real situation in the context. In the future, more participants will be recruited to expand the research scope by adopting a quantitative approach or a mixed-method approach to further investigate the issues.