Supporting parttime distance learning students in dissertation projects

1
Supporting part-time distance learning students
in dissertation projects

• Christine Urquhart
• University of Wales Aberystwyth
• HEA-ICS workshop Managing and Assessing Final
  Year Projects
• Univ Warwick 6 January 2005
• APU, Cambridge 24 February 2005

2
Introduction

• Dealing with the workplace - with the students as
  intermediaries
• Distance learning undergraduates
• mature students, usually female, older on average
  than PG cohort
• student aim - professional qualification
• HE aim - reflective professional practitioners?

3
Topics

• Student (UG) views on dissertation projects
• What the Department thinks about management and
  assessment of projects
• Ethical concerns - at UG and PG level
• Implications for the future

4
Students views on benefits

• Immediate environmental quick wins
• It gave me the opportunity to combine my
  everyday work and my studies. I did not have to
  do much travelling for my research. I was able to
  use my findings to benefit my own work and to
  benefit the workplace in general
• Tackling an area of uncertainty - I wonder if?
• Enormous. I feel now I understand my role much
  better. Reading up around my subject confirmed a
  lot of facts which were just notional before I
  undertook the research. It really firmed up
  what I had known previously

5
Does their workplace benefit?

• Saves time and money on consultancy?
• Working in a very specialist environment means
  there is not a lot of knowledge and skills on the
  ground.
• Saves on employing outside consultants to carry
  out such research
• Insider problems - personal
• I felt I never got a break from it and my work
  day spilled over into my private time
• Insider problems - research objectivity
• Some people may be hesitant in providing
  accurate information, for example, they may say
  what they think you want to hear

6
Any organisational drawbacks?

• Assuming support is in place?
• In my case I can see no drawbacks as the library
  has benefited greatly from my work
• For the independent learner - self-funding,
  support may be more limited?
• course viewed as a private course of study
• some support to go to a relevant conference but
  little interest from workplace colleagues in the
  project - or findings

7
Departmental perspective

• Change in focus of dissertation
• more empirical research encouraged
• Supervision process of guidance for UG
• informal proposal discussion, study school
  session
• proposal submission, supervisor allocated
• outline, with literature review
• and thendepends on supervisor/student until
  final draft milestone after nearly 6 months in
  total
• Only 20 credit at UG module - not a thesis!

8
External examiner views

• Comments that students (UG) tend to reflect
  mostly on the needs of their workplace in their
  assignments?
• For the dissertation - implication for the
  supervisor is that students need encouragement
  to
• appraise other relevant research when deciding on
  their research approach
• discuss how their findings relate to work
  previously published - to see the bigger picture
• discuss the generalisability of their findings

9
Ethical aspects (UG)

• Increasing emphasis - NHS related projects
  requiring ethical approval unless purely audit
• Have new guidelines in place for students on the
  Masters programmes, policy in UG and PG handbooks
• Implications for project management (UG)
• time scale - ethical approval procedures need to
  go ahead as the outline proposal being approved
• assumptions that students are routinely asking
  permission to use workplace data in previous
  assignments

10
Ethical aspects (PG)

• Developing new procedures - new proposal form
  deliberately asks students to consider the
  ethical aspects
• Ethics checklist to be completed by staff (to
  approve, send on to higher level committee etc.)
• Longer process than UG but even so
• NHS research ethics committees require research
  instruments at the proposal stage - not ideal
  from the departmental perspective
• Much more discussion between supervisor and
  student at an earlier stage required - more
  difficult with distance learning students?

11
Implications for UG dissertation management
CURRENT
Staff
Student
Student
PASS THE PARCEL
IDEAL
Discussion of plans for workplace project,
gaining permissions, and some interest from
employer!
Student
Staff
Active intervention at discussion stage
12
Implications for PG dissertation management

• Dissertation tracking database
• with milestones - essentially given the longer
  timescales for completion, number of students per
  supervisor, continuous throughout the year
• Ethical approval procedures
• need to take account of parallel ethics approval
  procedures in the workplace
• Ideal outcome - something that is publishable
  (some UG dissertations also)
• more incentive for supervisor to guide student in
  the right direction?

13
Conclusions

• Undergraduates
• Staff wish students to reflect on, but also
  BEYOND the workplace
• Students concern - to do something useful that
  will be recognised, and valuable in career
  progression
• Therefore need more active intervention in the
  planning and discussion stages
• Postgraduates
• once ethical hurdles over - getting them to stay
  on course - tracking system essential