The methodological design of the investigation has four basic steps:

First of all, the essence of evaluation is the contrast of the real data with an ideal model.To accomplish that, it was necessary to construct a theoretical model composed by quantitative indicators organized in four quality components: theoretical, logical, semantical and methodological axes, which measure the specific quality of the most important factors of scientific method. The evaluation model was formulated considering the most important quality standards defined by a large number of authors and academic institutions, but with some adaptation to the specific reality of the country and the institution subject to analysis.

Second, it is necessary to evaluate representative and random samples of theses in the levels of Master and PHD (or Doctorate) degrees, during a time period long enough to assure reliability. The evaluation proceed by measuring, in each thesis, all the quality criteria established by the model, by which is possible to obtain two main results: (a) the adjustment and improvement of the evaluation model, and (b) the diagnosis of theses in each of the quality components and academic level, in the following aspects:

The sample design is based in representative and random sample of all the theses approved and accepted by the university, by which the first step is to define all of them as the research universe. In the case to apply the model to different academic levels, is necessary to obtain a sample for each one.

The second step is to precise the existing proportion between quantitative and qualitative theses in the study universe, by which it is necessary to obtain random samples with not less of 30 cases, in order to apply the Statistic Central Limit Theorem. With these samples, it is possible to calculate the quatitative - qualitative proportion of theses.

In each quantitative universe of theses, it is necessary to apply the statistic standard formula to obtain representative samples, but first it is important to know the standard deviation of data, through the application of the questionnaire to a subsample of the theses in each academic level.

With the standard deviation data it is possible to apply the formula and to obtain the sample number, which can't be lesser than 30 cases.

In the quality evaluation of theses, the instrument for data recolection is a documentary guide, composed by Lickert scales, which permit a statistical analysis based in the arithmetic mean and its deviation, mainly because the Lickert scales could be considered as a interval scales, for two main reasons:

a) By the fact that they have an addictive nature, by which each individual punctuation is added to a category total which evaluate the studied factor.

b) By the fact that in the scale elaboration it is necessary to define a real zero, associated to the absence of the object characteristic.

The data is analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistic. It is defined a central tendency of the data, which is considered as the empirical norm, and which is contrasted with the theoretical norm of the model in each variable and indicator of theses quality. The statistical comparison of both data series permit to establish the evaluation results.

It is necessary to apply statistical models as the ANOVA and the Kruskal Wallis Test, which is a Non Parametric ANOVA, and the Pearson and Spearman Models for statistical correlation.

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