Examining the implications of learner and supervisor perceptions of undergraduate dissertation research in Business and Management

Abstract

A concern to ensure that the distinctive quality of teaching and learning in higher education is sustained and recognised has recently reinvigorated debate about the links between research and teaching. Currently, that debate focuses on substantiating research-teaching links and confirming broad frameworks for categorising associated academic practice and outcome. This study adopts a more exploratory approach to describing learner and supervisor experience of the honours dissertation as the capstone undergraduate research activity that integrates academic notions of research as syllabus, pedagogy and assessment. The findings of this qualitative study of the descriptions of dissertation experience contributed by supervisors and supervisees generate a more textured and actionable picture of the experience of research-teaching links, and indicate areas of shared and divergent perception of the nature and value of the dissertation experience, with implications for pedagogic practice in dissertation preparation and supervision.

Keywords:

• undergraduate research
• dissertation
• business and management education
• graduate employability
• research-teaching linkages