1. Students of the second year of Graduate study should, in accordance with the notification of the Department (generally in February of the current academic year), submit the request for approval of the mentor and topic of thesis to the Council of Department. Students need to talk to the potential mentor first, and if the teacher agrees to be their mentor, they submit a request to the Council of the Department of Psychology for approval of the topic and mentor. Topic of the thesis does not have to be precisely operationalized (although it can) and agreed upon with the mentor. If some students do not manage to find a mentor ("capacity overload"), they also submit a request to the Department of Psychology with a topic proposal. In such a case, the mentor will be appointed by the Department.
2. The Council of the Department of Psychology will appoint mentors and members of the Committee for the defence of thesis at its first subsequent session, and inform the students accordingly.
3. Students who want to change the mentor should, after talking to the current mentor, request permission for a new, potential mentor for writing the graduation thesis under their supervision. After that, the students write a request to the Council of Department for approval of changes. The request should include both previous and new mentor and whether they both approve of the change.
4. If a student wants to graduate by the end of the summer semester of the current year, then:
   
   • they should submit the first version of the thesis to the mentor by May 15 of the current year.
   • members of the Committee must receive the work that was already checked and approved by the mentor no later than June 1 of the current year, if there is to be a defence before the end of the summer exam period.
5. If a student wants to graduate before September 30 of the current year, they should submit the first version of the thesis to the mentor no later than July 1.
6. Mentor and the members of the Committee are obliged to provide students with feedback on the work within a maximum of 14 days.

Students are advised to also read the DECISION ON GRADUATION WORKS AND EXAMS ON MASTER'S STUDIES (English translation will be available soon.

Student submits a one page proposal about the topic and methodology to the mentor before they begin the consultations on when to start working on the thesis. After that, the student and mentor discuss the research plan at the consultations. During all stages of the research and writing of thesis, students have the right to consult with the mentor and, if necessary, with other teachers of the Department.

All versions of the work that the student submits to the mentor, including the first, are subject to grading. The mentor is required to point out all errors in the work and help the student reach the final form which is stored in the library. If there are many such mentoring interventions, the thesis necessarily receives a diminished grade. Therefore, in order to get an excellent or very good grade, students are expected to put serious effort in their work and thus avoid substantial interventions to their thesis.

In particular, we draw attention to the uncritical citation of the literature in two ways:

• the student did not understood well what was said in the original so the translation does not make sense;
• not everything that can be found in the literature is widely accepted by most experts in the field, so it is advisable to consult with the mentor about such citations.

Defence of the thesis consists of two parts. First, student presents the thesis, generally with a PP presentation, for 15 to 20 minutes. We recommend it to be composed of approximately 20 informative slides at most, to be used as reminders throughout the presentation and not read word for word, that is, show the most important tables and graphs, and interpret them in terms of trends rather than read all numbers.

In the second part, the Commission asks questions primarily related to methodology. It is therefore necessary to renew the knowledge of basic statistics, psychometrics and methodology of scientific research before the defence. The second part of the questioning relates to the wider area of the thesis. It can be defined as a branch of psychology.

Branches of psychology are:

1. General Psychology
2. Biological Psychology
3. Developmental Psychology
4. Social Psychology
5. Clinical and Health Psychology
6. Work Psychology
7. School Psychology and Educational Psychology
8. Other applied psychologies

If the student's answers to the questions from the Commission are not satisfactory, a continuation of the defence is to be held (in no less than a 3 weeks). The presentation of the work is not done again, the student only replies to a new set of questions.

Before the registration of the graduation exam, (other than passing all the exams) the students must perform and have in their student's transcripts:

1. Participation in research: confirmed by the Deputy Head of Department
2. Practice: confirmed by the Deputy Head of Department
3. Individual work with the mentor: confirmed by the mentor of graduation thesis

Once you have submitted a completed graduation thesis and set a date for its defence, it is necessary to submit the following to the secretariat of the Department in order to open a file for the defence:

1. index
2. application (the exam has to be registered in ISVU)
3. certificate of participation in research
4. approval to conduct the research - confirmation from the mentor or the ethics committee of the Department of Psychology that the conducted research was done in accordance with the ethical principles of the profession (http://psihologija.ffzg.unizg.hr/istrazivanja/eticko-povjerenstvo)
5. students studying under the old ("pre-Bologna) program and students whose student rights have expired must pay 500 kuna to access the graduation exam (for a money order ask at the Student Services) and bring the payment slip.

THE LISTED DOCUMENTS MUST BE BROUGHT AFTER THE DATE OF DEFENCE IS SET, AND NO LATER THAN 8 DAYS BEFORE THE DEFENCE


After the defence:

You need to bring your index, the application form and filled forms that you have downloaded from the Student Services web-page ("The forms required for completion and issuing of diploma for Graduate study"/"Obrasci potrebni za završetak i izdavanje diplome diplomskog studija") to the secretariat of the Department in order to have them verified. After that, you take these forms to the Student Services - no later than 20 days after the defence.

Students must send a copy of the graduation thesis to psy@ffzg.hr (no need to carry a physical copy to the library), and fulfil the Statement on storing the graded thesis in a digital archive of the library of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies - the statement form be found in the secretariat of the Department.

Instructions for writing and formatting of the thesis will be enclosed soon.

Instructions are to be STRICTLY ADHERED TO!