The failure of dissertation advice books : toward alternative pedagogies for doctoral writing

Anxious doctoral researchers can now call on a proliferation of advice books telling them how to produce their dissertations. This article analyzes some characteristics of this self-help genre, including the ways it produces an expert–novice relationship with readers, reduces dissertation writing to a series of linear steps, reveals hidden rules, and asserts a mix of certainty and fear to position readers "correctly." The authors argue for a more complex view of doctoral writing both as text work/identity work and as a discursive social practice. They reject transmission pedagogies that normalize the power-saturated relations of protégé and master and point to alternate pedagogical approaches that position doctoral researchers as colleagues engaged in a shared, unequal, and changing practice

Delivering the link : using student feedback studies to improve student learning in dissertation studies

Student feedback is essential to enable lecturers to understand whether attempts to improve learning and education experience lead to improvement (George and Cowan, 1999; Gibbs, 1993). Current UK practice relies largely on end of module questionnaires to feedback levels of student satisfaction (Cowan, 2002), however there are inherent weaknesses in this approach; it seldom leads to change for that particular cohort; it relies on uncorroborated opinion, and finally, it may derive from superficial feedback from a minority of students with the remainder suffering from questionnaire fatigue.

This research project involved a cohort of final year building surveying students at Sheffield Hallam University, in England, who were undertaking a dissertation in two modules. During 2002/3 the use of Blackboard software had also been adopted by the module leader as an educational tool to support student learning in the module. The lecturer wanted to identify how students used Blackboard and what they thought about the most appropriate use of the medium. The research methodology sought to redress some of the issues identified above with student feedback, regarding timing of feedback, implementation of change during the teaching period and the lack of depth in the data. Using principles adopted by Angelo and Cross (1993), this research formatively evaluated student perceptions and levels of satisfaction with the dissertation module, the teaching materials, the workshops, the supervisory arrangements and relationships. This paper presents the findings of the research and illustrates the changes that were made during the year and the student’s views of these changes. The paper demonstrates how linking teaching with research has been delivered at Sheffield Hallam.

Improving student learning in dissertation research through feedback studies. The Sheffield Hallam Building surveying experience

According to George and Cowan (1999) student feedback is essential to enable lecturers to understand whether attempts to improve learning and educational experience lead to improvement. Current UK practice uses end of module questionnaires to feedback levels of satisfaction (Cowan, 2002). There are inherent weaknesses, namely that it seldom leads to a change for that particular cohort of students, secondly it relies on uncorroborated opinion, and may derive from superficial feedback from a minority of students with the remainder suffering from questionnaire fatigue. Finally the data may not be especially relevant to a particular module, a particular weakness (Heywood, 2000).

Using principles identified by Angelo and Cross (1993), this research adopted a methodology to formatively evaluate student perceptions and levels of satisfaction with the dissertation module. Using a cohort of Building Surveying students at Sheffield Hallam University, in England, views on course materials, the use of Blackboard software, the workshops and the relationships with supervisors were gathered and analysed.

A number of measures were identified as a result of this study, that may, if implemented, improve student learning. Examples are the use of checklists for student for each research / dissertation stage to ensure nothing is forgotten. Provision of additional ‘drop in’ workshops where students could see the module leader with specific issues. Additional optional workshops for questionnaire coding and review of previous theses for example.

It will not be possible to measure whether this student cohort’s learning and performance improves until the summer of 2003 and the final dissertations are assessed. A statistical analysis, comparing their dissertation marks against marks for other topics will show whether there is improvement in marks as a result of this student feedback study. The 2002/3 cohort result can also be analysed against previous cohorts to establish whether any improvement is evident.

A cross-disciplinary analysis of thematic structure of dissertation abstracts

The ways by which the academic texts are investigated differ from time to time with legacies of each tradition influencing the subsequent approaches. One of the approaches that has not lost its favor ever since it was established is the Australian Systemic Functional tradition. Based on the descriptions provided by this tradition, in this study, the thematic structure (Halliday, 1994) of the gap indication move and the Introduction section (Swales, 2004) of 120 dissertation abstracts from six disciplines was investigated at two levels, i.e. choice of theme type and thematic progression. The simple topical theme was recognized as the typical theme of the rhetorical units in focus across the six disciplines. With respect to the thematic progression, the theme-reiteration and zig-zag patterns were found to be the characteristic patterns. These results indicate that the language of abstracts is remarkably factual and far from abstraction.

A cross-disciplinary analysis of rhetorical structure of dissertation abstracts

The teaching rhetorical structure of various academic genres has been recognized as a practical, pedagogical tool in both ESL and EFL academic settings. However, assigning a unitary structure for different fields of study might poses problems for novice writers. In this study, the rhetorical structure of 120 abstracts (ninety ‘masters’ theses and thirty ‘doctoral’ dissertations) from six disciplines were investigated. In this exploratory study, four rhetorical structures were found: IMRC/D, CARS, Mixed, and None (which means the texts lack any rhetorical structure). The conclusion is that nonnative speakers require more than grammatical knowledge at the clause level. They need to be familiarized with the discourse grammar with the functional tokens attached to it in order to be successful in their academic writing.