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only 30-40 percent graduated on time. This phe-
nomenon creates significant questions what are
the underlying reasons that cause the causations.
According to Knight and Sutton (2004), even with
all the resources supports, many postgraduate stu-
dents are still struggling to understand, integrate,
apply the literature, theory, writing and other fac-
tors particularly when thesis is to be written inEng-
lish. With this notion, empirical evidences needs to
be obtained thus this paper empirically investigates
the relationship between reading comprehension,
writing skills and thesis completion among the
hospitality post graduates students by hypothesiz-
ing that;
H1: Lack of reading comprehension and writ-
ing skill significantly delaying postgraduate thesis
project completion.
in completing their research work (Lessing &
Schulze, 2002).
2.2
Reading comprehension and writing skills
In the thesis, writing skills and reading comprehen-
sion seemed to be one of the many attributes that
need to be taken into consideration by most of the
postgraduate students. Kaur (2009) states the abil-
ity of speaking and writing well in English is cru-
cial for the postgraduate students to complete their
thesis. A number of studies reported that there are
high proportions of postgraduate student who
struggle to complete their studies within the spe-
cific time given (Zainal Abiddin & Ismail, 2009).
Burns (2000) states many factors could contribute
to the pressures of undertaking and coping with
the requirements of postgraduate work such as
lack of writing skills using appropriate language,
reading, and comprehending academic texts in a
critical manner. Lack of knowledge in research
skills includes linkages in sentence formation or
redundancy facts in writing construction may also
affect postgraduate thesis achievements (Burns,
2000).
2 LITERATURE
2.1
Post-graduate thesis
Generally, a thesis is referring to a study on an
exacting topic in which innovative research has
been done, presented by students or a proposition
stated for consideration, particularly one to be dis-
cussed and proved or maintained against opposing
views (Clewes, 1996). A thesis or research project
conducted is actually a mission of knowledge and
understanding through experimentation, investiga-
tion and attentive search with the aimed at finding
and interpretation or analysis of new knowledge at
resolving debatable existing knowledge (Knight &
Sutton, 2004). Thesis is normally associated with
higher-level degree of academic pursue involving
postgraduates, master or doctoral students. Clewes
(1996) further asserted that postgraduate thesis is
a piece of academic work using systematic proce-
dures which demand a substantial amount of work
to complete.
Barras (1991), Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh, and
Sorensen (2010) and Shields and Tajalli (2006)
deduced that whatever research projects con-
ducted it requires specific components or struc-
tures. Scholars agreed that the most common and
acceptable components of the thesis consist of the
background of the study or introduction, review
of literatures, methodology, analysis and findings
and conclusion (Ary, et al., 2010; Nyawaranda,
2005; Shields & Tajalli, 2006). Besides all those
components, a good or poor progression of the
thesis project is depending on the research proc-
esses or attributes (Nyawaranda, 2005). In other
word, a research project will not be accomplished
without supporting attributes such as informa-
tion, writing skill and other factors and these
attributes could become obstacles for students
3 METHODOLOGY
A quantitative study through cross-sectional
approach using an individual unit of analysis was
applied in this study. The information requires
were obtained through self-reported and self-ad-
ministered questionnaire survey and the samples
were among graduated postgraduate students from
the Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management,
University Technology MARA, Malaysia. As the
intention also to tap the experiences, the final year
students who were in the process or in the verge of
submitting their thesis were also included.
The closed-ended questions using a summated
rating scale or interval scale were opted in soliciting
respondent feelings and opinion. The instrument
consisted of three sections (A, B and C). Questions
in each section were mostly adapted from the pre-
vious similar studies with slight modification made
to suit the objectives.
Prior to the actual survey, cellular telephone
numbers and electronic mail addresses of the grad-
uates were obtained from the Faculty of Hotel and
Tourism Management office. Sixty graduated stu-
dents were then contacted to acquire their willing-
ness to participate in the study. Subsequently, the
survey questionnaire was e-mailed and one week
was given to them to respond. As some of the
graduates were among the researchers friend, an
overwhelming response with 50 completed ques-
tionnaire received.
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