Master's Thesis
- Familiarity with health care organization, financing, and policy issues.
- Ability to communicate scientific reasoning and argue analytically.
- Awareness of technical, methodological, and other issues relevant to health services research.
- Comprehension of statistical techniques, their proper use, and limitations.
- Knowledge in a substantive area of health services.
The thesis is ordinarily 30–50 pages long, double-spaced, including tables, figures, and references. Each thesis must include a summary Abstract of approximately 400 to 1000 words. The thesis may take one of several forms, such as:
- Original analyses of data, whether collected primarily for the thesis or as secondary data analysis.
- A comprehensive literature review with a meta-analysis of data or a critical reanalysis of data.
- Evaluation of a methodological problem using real or hypothetical data.
- A decision model or cost-effectiveness analysis.
The quality of the master’s thesis should be such that it can be converted into a manuscript for publication or a credible research grant application, and students are strongly encouraged to do so. Students are expected to present their research findings during a session of HRP 283, the Health Services Research Seminar.
Thesis Committee: Each student’s Masters Thesis Committee is composed of at least two faculty members, a core faculty member and a co-reader. The core faculty member is generally the student’s advisor, and the co-reader is typically either the student’s methodology mentor, or clinical domain expert, or the director of the HSR program. The student’s advisor generally serves as the primary supervisor of the thesis research. Students may propose additional members of the Thesis Committee, who are ordinarily members of the Stanford professoriate.
Completion of the master’s thesis involves registration for at least 12 units of master’s thesis research over a period of two or more quarters. A proposal for the thesis must be submitted to thesis readers when the project is early in its conceptual stages, prior to completing a substantial amount of thesis work. The purpose is for the student to obtain guidance from the thesis committee about specific aims, study design features, and analytic methods before commencing on the project.
