La investigación en el pregrado: evaluación de su calidad a través de las tesis

Objective. The quality of the theses in the Information Sciences career at the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas was evaluated. Design/Methodology/Approach. Bibliometric techniques were combined with the documentary analysis. Two criteria were used to evaluate the quality of the theses: (1) the way of executing the research and (2) the topic investigated. A group of 8 indicators was defined, some of bibliometric nature and others of content, referring to the methodologies used in the theses. Results/ Discussion. Regarding the way of executing the research, regular results were obtained given the difficulties in the methodological design of the analyzed theses, the lack of definition of specific techniques in the methods used, and the low co-mentoring of professors from the department. With respect to the topic investigated, the results were regular as well. The main difficulties were concentrated in the parameters of the Price index and the half-life period, where the relevance of the references was not adequate in the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 courses. The most referenced authors of the top 10 belonged to the national context (70%). Conclusions. The total quality of the theses was evaluated of regular, given that of the 13 indicators, 6 were evaluated as regular and bad. The way of executing the research, as an evaluative criterion, presented greater difficulties than the topic investigated. Originality/Value. First approach to the quality of undergraduate research in the Information Sciences career where quantitative and qualitative indicators are combined. The main value lies in the use of the results for future research on quality criteria of research in the academic environment