Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supporting
Students doing
Projects &
Dissertations
2013/4
A course handout produced by Dr Kate Exley with amendments by Dr Marita
Grimwood
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supporting Students Doing Projects and Dissertations
on Taught Programmes
The Purpose of Project and Dissertation work
From ‘The Assessment Handbook’ produced by Robert Gordon University
http://www.rgu.ac.uk/academicaffairs/assessment/page.cfm?pge=2291
There are many differing definitions and conceptions relating to the student project
- it is a piece of work seen as the culmination of the
student's experience;
- it is the main integrating activity of the various
taught and learned aspects of the course;
- it allows the student to develop initiative and
specialist interests;
- it involves the student in investigative tasks and
requires the student to draw upon knowledge and
experience gained in the preceding years of the course;
- it tests a student's ability to plan and carry out a
sustained piece of work by integrating and extending
previous studies;
- it gives the student an opportunity to develop and
demonstrate skill in identifying, carrying out and
writing up a discrete piece of research using academic
concepts, theoretical insights and practical abilities
acquired on the course;
- it provides a training in research methods;
- it provides the student with the opportunity to
undertake sustained, independent, high-level work,
which has intellectual credibility.
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Your purposes
Having looked over this list what do you think are the main purposes of students carrying out
project or dissertations work in your discipline?
Please consider potential student learning and development in different areas, e.g.
Academic Knowledge, Subject specific skills, Generic or transferable skills
What is the scope of your role in relation to a project student?
Please compare your views with colleagues Current Practice
1. With what kinds of dissertation / projects are you supporting?
(Aims, Outcomes, Time-scale, Scope, Level, Individual v Group, % Assessed etc)
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Case Study
The experience of supervision: A Project Student's Perspective
Background ...
I came into higher education as an 18 year old school leaver. I had been a 2.1 student
through most of my first and second year modules. I had registered to do Engineering
Business Management and was delighted when I got my first choice in the final year project
topics with a supervisor who had taught me in a second year course.
Early Stages of the project ...
I had a meeting with my supervisor to agree a project proposal. This actually didn't happen
until week two as my supervisor was away at a conference. We discussed ideas and I then
went off to do some reading. I felt bemused and somewhat overwhelmed. I found the
papers my supervisor suggested very difficult to read, they took me ages. At our second
meeting I felt very unsure of myself and found it difficult to say what I wanted to do - it
seemed easier to say what I wasn't interested in and I worried that I sounded really
negative.
At the end of this meeting we agreed that I would compare two different approaches to
systems engineering used in two small Engineering companies.
Carrying out the work ...
I tried cold calling and was very disappointed in the response I got from the people I spoke
to at the companies - I asked my supervisor for help - he wrote an introductory letter for me
and suggested that I write rather than call first. At last I managed to get a set of interviews
organised and arranged to meet with representatives at the companies.
The Engineers and company employees I spoke to were very helpful and I found I really
enjoyed interviewing them. I realised that there were some questions I should have asked
later in the interview round but overall I was pleased with the transcripts I collected.
When I went to see my supervisor, sometime later as he was on some kind of sabbatical
and a bit difficult to track down, he asked me about analysis of the data. He raised a
number of things that I hadn't thought of and I realised that I wouldn't be able to analyse
some of the data I had collected. I felt angry that I had wasted time and my supervisor
seemed to think I was a bit of a jerk because he said the analysis was covered in the papers
he had given me at the start of the project. Still it wasn't all wasted and I managed to
salvage enough to be able to write-up reasonably well.
Finishing the Project. ...
I wrote up the project and gave it to my supervisor for comments. He only had the project for
a couple of days but managed to totally cover it in red ink. I must say I was a bit shocked
when I got it back from him and found how nit picky he had been. He had even corrected
the grammar and spelling mistakes. But I was grateful that he had been so thorough.
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
I don't see my future as a researcher but I do think I learnt a lot from the project. I enjoyed
bits of it very much but was disappointed at how little you can actually achieve in the time
you have.
TASKS
1 Tease out the different issues in project supervision raised in this case study
2 Using this, prepare a poster with bullet points showing both of the following:


what you think students have a right to expect of their supervision,
ways in which you could contribute to meeting these expectations. (NB: On
your poster it will be helpful to differentiate which points apply to PhD
students, which to Research Associates etc.)
A project supervision agreement?
Many aspects of project supervision can be formalised in a supervision agreement.
Negotiating one of these is a great way to clarify expectations; writing them down and using
them is a great way to agree these expectations and then ensure that they are met.
A supervision agreement might specify:
*
Number, frequency, length, date, time and place of supervision meetings
*
Meetings status -- which are voluntary and which compulsory - who will organise
these?
*
What should be recorded, by whom?
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
*
Will you give feedback on drafts of reports? How many? What turnaround will you
offer?
*
What kinds of help will and won’t you give, for example, literature searches, outside
contacts?
*
How should the student contact you in between meetings?
*
What are the project supervision deadlines and what are the consequences of not
meeting them?
Undertaking and Managing Project work
Individual research projects may vary enormously however, the processes which
constitute successful completion of a Project remain very much the same. These
processes reflect a systematic approach to investigation.
They are described by Howard and Sharp (1983)
1. Identify a broad area of study
Planning phase
2. Select the research topic
3. Decide the approach
4. Formulate the plan / get approval (ethics?)
5. Collect data/information
Implementation phase
6. Analyze and interpret data
7. Present the findings
Initially to supervisor – later to assessors
Newcastle University
Presentation phase
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
The ideal project
For your discipline - please note below the characteristics of the perfect student project:-
*
*
*
*
Please compare your views with a colleague and consider what criteria you think are
important when designing an undergraduate project
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
The Perfect Brief !
Straightforward
Data / outcome generating
Confidence building
+
Complex / Difficult
Risky / Unknown
Exciting
How does this model fit for your discipline?
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
What other factors affect students’ choices?
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Safety and supervision of Student Projects
You need to have a clear understanding of your role in health and safety relating to students
working alongside you.
From the On-line Health and Safety Manual from Sheffield Hallam University
Effective or adequate supervision does not necessarily mean constant attendance. Also,
where attendance is necessary, this can be carried out by the supervisor or an authorised
nominee. This authorised nominee can be a member of academic staff or technical staff but
must be suitably qualified and competent. Where direct supervision is carried out by a
nominee, it should be remembered that the responsibility for ensuring adequate supervision
remains with the student’s supervisor.
There are no hard and fast rules on what constitutes adequate supervision but there are
fundamental elements upon which supervisors must satisfy themselves. It is the
responsibility of the supervisor to ensure that:
*
The class work/project has been properly assessed to identify risks to health and
safety and to ensure compliance with University/local procedures.
*
Necessary precautions are agreed between the supervisor and student. In all but the
most elementary of circumstances these precautions shall be recorded. Where work
involves the use of specialist facilities (e.g. laboratories, workshops, etc.) the facility
manager and/or technical support staff should also be consulted and be party to the
agreed precautions.
*
Regular checks are carried out to ensure that the student is following the agreed
procedures.
*
Students fully understand that alterations to the procedures must not be made without
the supervisor’s formal agreement and appropriate modification to the risk
assessment.

Students fully understand that they have a legal responsibility to not endanger
themselves or others by their actions.
http://healthandsafety.shu.ac.uk/UniversitySafetyManual/6.2pol.htm#2.2
Discussion question: What are the health and safety principles for postgraduate
researchers supporting student projects?
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supporting the Project or the Dissertation
What are the key issues that need to be addressed by you and the student at the following
stages of the work?
You
Students
Before the Project
begins
During the first week
1/4 way in
1/2 the way in
3/4 the way in
At the end of the
Project
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supervisory meetings
The reasons to meet regularly with students during project work are many but may also vary from
department to department and project to project.
e.g.
-
To give feedback
To motivate
To guide
To help plan future work
To check quality of work
To suggest readings and references
To monitor progress
To monitor safe working
To develop student skills (e.g. report writing?)
To assess
How is this best achieved?
How regularly do you meet?
Who arranges meetings?
How formally are these organised? (Do you have agenda for meetings?)
How is their effectiveness measured?
Keeping a record
It is very important that a record of meetings and outcomes is kept.
Why?
•
•
•
Who should be responsible for producing the record?
What should the record contain?
•
•
What form can it take?
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supervisory Problem scenarios
1.
You have a project student who began her project well, appeared to be very
organised and enthusiastic and was full of ideas. Now some weeks into the project
you are beginning to worry that the student in not producing work/results. You feel
she has begun to avoid you, a feeling strengthened when she sent late apologies for
the last meeting you had arranged. You realise that although the student promised a
lot you have actually seen little evidence of achievement. What do you do next?
2.
Students working on an UG group project have fallen out. They are half way through
their project work and have split into two camps over a minor argument about
workload and direction of the project. What do you do?
3.
A mature Masters student has come to you with a project proposal that he is very
keen to work on and has researched well. However this does involve him working
away (abroad) for several weeks in the summer. What are your concerns and how
might you address them?
4.
You have an overseas student who clearly finds it very difficult to express his views to
you and apparently would prefer to follow your directions. He is very quiet /shy and
avoids eye contact. How would you approach this situation?
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Adapted from :First Words guidance on supervising projects, from Oxford Centre for Staff and
Educational Development
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/firstwords/fw19.html
The quality of project supervision has a major effect on how far projects achieve the
educational and personal learning which is possible.
Your role in the project
What will be your role in the project? It’s important to understand this at a very early stage.
Planning a project
A worthwhile project should:
1.
have a useful end-product or comprise a problem which is worth solving (this should
increase student commitment)
2.
involve discovery by the student(s) (rather than simple recycling of their current
knowledge)
be in some measure unpredictable in process and outcome (to increase the
opportunities for learning and creativity)
involve integration and presentation of skills and knowledge (integration and
presentation being value skills to develop)
3.
4.
5.
offer flexibility in terms of both direction and pacing of work (to cope with the
unpredictability mentioned above)
6.
instruct the student in her / his own abilities (so that they learn about themselves as
well as about the subject of the project)
7.
display the student’s abilities on a broad spectrum (so that they can develop and
demonstrate a wide range of abilities).
The project brief
Whether you or someone else wrote the brief, it should, together with the course document,
explain:
*
*
the purpose of the project in the module or course
the intended learning outcomes
*
the project timescale
*
how much say the student has in determining the project
*
*
what students are supposed to produce and when
what resources are available, and what resources the students need to provide
themselves.
*
how the project will be assessed.
Newcastle University
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Supervision meetings
The agenda Half an hour can flash by in enjoyable, even relevant, conversation; but have
the students' needs for support, guidance, problem clarification or solving, been met? And
what about your needs to monitor their progress, or anticipate future difficulties or resource
requirements?
Good use of your and their time needs an agenda and timescale for the meeting. This should
be agreed at the start -- you and they should both bring agenda items. Then you should stick
to it, or, if necessary, diverge explicitly and with everyone's consent.
Listen well Students won’t always tell you what's bothering them most about the project.
Listen carefully. Ask questions to try to tease out hidden issues. Check your hunches. Check
that you've heard accurately what they're saying.
Action planning Near the end of the meeting, agree clear action plans. The plan should say
who will do what and by when. (Make sure most of the action points are for the student(s),
not for you!) You could note these action points and write them up for the students, or you
could write them on a flip-chart and they could copy them all down it is. Much better if a
student makes the action notes and gives you a copy.
Review the meeting At the end, check that the meeting was useful; that the students got out
of it more or less what they wanted (apart, of course, from the money for that research visit to
Florida); that the way the meeting was conducted was appropriate; get their views on how
the next meeting should differ.
A project supervision agreement?
You can formalise many aspects of project supervision in a supervision agreement.
Negotiating one of these is a great way to clarify expectations; writing them down and using
them is a great way to agree these expectations and then ensure that they are met.
A supervision agreement might specify:
*
*
number, frequency, length, date, time and place of supervision meetings
meetings status -- which are voluntary and which compulsory
*
what should be recorded, by whom?
*
will you give feedback on drafts of reports? How many? What turnaround will you
offer?
*
what kinds of help will and won’t you give ‹ for example, literature searches, outside
contacts?
*
what are the project supervision deadlines and what are the consequences of not
meeting them?
Newcastle University
15
CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Project problems
The most common problem in any project is of course to fall behind schedule. At the start
you can help the students to construct realistic project schedules, and to anticipate the most
likely sources of difficulty and have a contingency plan.
On the way through the project you can help them to revise their work plan, and to find ways
around as well as through problems.
Monitoring project progress
Meetings are a good if expensive way to monitor students progress, although meeting can do
lots of other useful things as well.
How about a weekly or fortnightly project report, in paper or by email, from the student to
you? Keep it short. It might include (as well, of course, as project title / identities of
participants):
*
things done (and not done)
*
*
goals accomplished (and not)
problems met and solved (and not)
*
revisions to schedule
*
*
requests to you
space for comments or answers from you back to them.
This will give you and them a good idea of their progress. It will also help them write their
project report as well as monitor their progress.
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Assessing students doing projects
Marking Projects
(extract from p12 – 13, ‘Practice Guide 5. Supervising’ CeHEP, H851 PG5 Teaching in
Higher Education Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University).
‘While most postgraduate dissertations and theses are marked on a pass/fail
basis …undergraduate projects are usually marked with a full grading system corresponding
to degree classifications.
Customarily, a second marker is involved who may not be familiar with the student or even
the specific subject of the project. You may find yourself acting as a second marker of
projects outside your area of expertise. Project marking raises a number of specific issues :1.
As students spend much more time on projects than on other assignments, and gain
more help along the way , should your marking standards be much higher than for
other assignments?
2.
Is your grade expected to take into account the extent of your support for the student
– the extent to which it is really their project or yours?
3.
Should the second marker be aware of the amount and quality of your supervision, or
should they only mark the product in front of them?
4.
As students will probably have undertaken projects of different scale and complexity,
should you be taking into account the difficulty of the project?
5.
As each project may be on a different topic will you need to apply mainly generic
criteria (for example, concerning the quality of report writing or use of appropriate
methodology) rather than criteria concerned with understanding of specific content?
6.
Should you be giving feedback to support as much learning as possible, feedback
which could guide a resubmission, or no feedback al all ? As projects are usually
much longer than other assignments, how much feedback should you give?
What are your personal thoughts and what is your departmental policy and/or practice?
Notes :-
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Assessing Group Work and Group Projects
Some approaches that can be employed :•
Group task, individual products marked separately
Entire product assessed
•
Group task, one product. Same mark for all group members
Entirely product assessed
•
Group task, one product, one mark multiplied by the number of group
Group determines the distribution of marks amongst its
members.
members.
This method can allow students to adjust a product based mark in the light of
contributions to the process (i.e. team working).
To do this either:Pre-set criteria yourself and explain them to the students
Get the student group to develop and agree criteria at the outset
Ensure that criteria are clear, (are students expected to fulfil all roles and therefore
satisfy all criteria, or is there to be a division of labour with students taking different roles?)
•
Group task, one product, one mark. In addition individuals submit a
brief piece of work for an individual mark.
separate
For example a learning log recording the group activities and the individualís
contributions to them.
This allows you to assess product and process
You can obtain group and individual marks
Beware: in assessing the learning log you may be mixing student self
assessment for formative purposes with summative assessment by the
Ensure that criteria are clear.
•
lecturer.
Group task, one product, one mark. Peer assessment of contribution to group used to
modify individual marks.
Issue each student with a rating sheet with pre-set criteria which each person
complets for each group member and hands to lecturer. In the example, marks are
deducted for unsatisfactory contributions, but this could be modified to allow
additional marks for high contributions.
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CASAP Programme
Learning, Teaching and Engaging Students
Supporting students on projects and dissertations
Some further reading suggestions
1.
Working One-to-one with Students: Supervising, Coaching, Mentoring, and
Personal Tutoring (Key Guides for Effective Teaching in Higher Education)
by Gina Wisker, Kate Exley, Maria Antoniou, and Pauline Ridley (2007)
Routledge Press, London
2.
The Management of a Student Research Project
By Howard, K. and Sharp, J.A. (1983)
Gower Publishing Company Limited, Great Britain
3.
The Good Supervisor: Supervising Postgraduate and Undergraduate Research
for Doctoral Theses and Dissertations.
By Wisker, G. (2005)
Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan
Some interesting articles –
Anderson, C., Day, K. & McLaughlin, P. (2006) Mastering the Dissertation: Lecturers’
Representation of the Purposes and Processes of Master’s Level Dissertation Supervision.
Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp.149-168
Armstrong, S. (1997) Dissertation supervision: managing the student experience. In Brown,
S. (ed.) Facing up to radical changes in universities and colleges, London: Kogan Page,
108–118.
Barak, M. (2004) Issues involved in attempting to develop independent learning in pupils
working on technological projects. Research in Science & Technological Education, 22 (2),
171-183.
Cook, M. C. F.(1980) The role of the academic supervisor for undergraduate dissertations in
science and science-related subjects. Studies in Higher Education, 5 (2),173-185.
Popov, A. (2003) Final undergraduate project in engineering: towards more efficient and
effective tutorials. European Journal of Engineering Education, 28 (1), 17–26.
Todd, M., Bannister, P. and Clegg, S. (2004) Independent Inquiry and the Undergrad.
Dissertation: Perceptions and Experiences of Final-year Social Science Students.
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education,Vol. 29.No. 3, pp 332-355
And for your students
Denis Reardon (2006) Doing your Undergraduate Project
Sage Publication
Useful Web resources
Guide to undergraduate dissertations in the social sciences, Sheffield Hallam
University / HEA
http://www.socscidiss.bham.ac.uk/
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