Dissertations keynote Ifan Shepherd

The (Masters) Dissertation:
Skylark or Albatross?
Prof. Ifan D H Shepherd
Director, Professional Practice Programmes
Middlesex University Business School
Middlesex University
Annual Teaching & Learning Conference
11 July 2013

Next week’s celebrations
© 2013 - Ifan D H Shepherd, Middlesex University Business School

The academic gown tradition

Dissertation: a diverging tradition
Dissertatio (Latin):
“any formal discourse in speech or writing”
Common in the title of 17th
century scientific books
e.g. Jacobi Bernouilli (1685) Dissertatio de Gravitate
Aetheris
19th
century American culture:
"An American cannot converse, but he can discuss,
and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you
as if he was addressing a meeting…"
-- Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

The research-based dissertation
The research PhD emerged in 19th
century German
universities -- e.g. Friedrich Wilhelm University
Traditional dissertation chapters appeared:
‘Methodology’
‘Literature review’
‘Results/Findings’
’Analysis and Interpretation of Findings’
This structure closely linked with scientific experimentation

A persistent tradition – trickled down

Cultural divergence in terminology
UK USA
Dissertation Masters PhD
Thesis PhD Masters

The masters landscape (UK)
MA
MSc
MPhil
MRes
MBA
MProf
Subject
emphasis
Research
emphasis
Academic
emphasis
Vocational/Professional
emphasis

Roles of the masters (then and now)
15th
century: “A licence to practice theology”
-- Hart (2004)
19th
century: “Altogether a teacher’s degree”
-- McLaughlin (1917)
20th
century: “Preparation for a doctorate”
-- ‘Second cycle’ in Bologna Process
21st
century: “A PhD is not enough these days …
You need something more to stand out. Go do an MBA …
or a masters in patent law”
-- Unemployed Australian PhD student (2013)

Roles of the masters dissertation (now)
Gives students an opportunity to:
 shine (i.e. be ‘stretched’)
 enjoy a capstone learning experience
 acquire mastery of research methods through application
 be inducted in the ways of the (academic) researcher
“Your [masters] dissertation is the physical evidence that you
[can] be accredited as a competent researcher” -- Hart (2004)
The PhD dissertation is the “centrepiece of graduate education”
-- Boyer (1990)

So…
Is everything in the garden rosy?

An inquest into our Masters dissertation
Autumn 2008 : Department of Marketing & Enterprise
 Continuing under-performance by a significant
percentage of students submitting a dissertation
Distinction 13%
Merit 18%
Pass 32%
Fail 19% } c.40% failed or
Referred to Registry 18% } referred for plagiarism
[ 2007-2008 academic year, n=39 students ]

An inquest into our Masters dissertation
 Poor lecture & seminar attendance
 Vague and/or confused research proposals
 Late submission of research proposals
 Highly plagiarised literature reviews
 Weak methodology
 Superficial data analysis
 Inability to express ideas coherently
 etc.

A problem of our own making?
 We restrict the period available for mastery of
research methods and their application
-- “Dissertations within masters programmes follow the
completion of taught modules” (MU Learning Framework)
 We atomise the research process, and wonder why
dissertation chapters are disconnected

A problem of our own making?
 We feed students unnecessary jargon
-- e.g. research, paradigm, positivism, ontology
 We adopt categories of dubious value
-- e.g. quantitative vs qualitative data/research
 We nurture expectations of original knowledge
-- “an emphasis on independent and original study” (ITS)

Research competence doesn’t come easily
Many students (especially overseas) do not come from
a western academic research culture
Research methods mastery can’t be achieved within
the one-year masters
Gladwell’s ‘10,000 hours rule’ for mastery/expertise is a
salutary reminder not to have exaggerated expectations

The numbers challenge
Large masters intake (e.g. 100+ per annum)
+
Modest-sized department (e.g. 20+ staff)
=
Supervisory problem
 5-10 students per annum per supervisor
 Frequent demands from needy students
But this is not simply a numbers problem…

The ‘tangential duties’ problem
What do the following have in common? –
 Supervising dissertations
 Attending recruitment events (e.g. open evenings)
 Visiting placement students
 Answering student emails promptly
Evidence of a module-based silo mentality

One person’s honesty
“I would have been a bad don [at Cambridge].
… I would not have been sufficiently interested
in my students ... I’m not humble enough, and
the capacity for ordinary work is not in me.
The necessary sense of duty to my students
would have been missing.”

So … What’s to be done?
Sticking plaster vs radical surgery

Sticking plaster solutions (1)
 Problem: Insisting on a thorough literature review when
students may never have encountered a journal article
Solutions:
-- Support practice in critical reading
-- Bibliography only of read items
-- Appendix of annotated read items
-- Reduce assessment weighting
 Problem: Foisting a full research methods course on
students when < 20% relevant to their research project
Solution:
-- A la carte rather than table d’hôte research methods course

Sticking plaster solutions (2)
 Leaving writing until the end of the process
Solutions:
-- write as a form of thinking (e.g. ‘research journal’)
-- write early to permit supervisory feedback
-- write throughout to avoid the deadline guillotine
-- write often to permit plagiarism checks

Towards more radical solutions
Some awkward questions I’ve asked myself:
 What (exactly) does ‘academic’ mean in a research context?
 What do our employed students do at work that could make
a contribution to knowledge?
 How do you wrap research around professional activities?
 Is the disinterested researcher an outmoded ideal?
 How can knowledge (academic as well as professional)
be generalised?

An alternative perspective on dissertations
The academic researcher is ever on the outside looking in…
…while the professional practitioner is an embedded researcher

The relevance of insider research
The academic style of research dissertation for part-time
(i.e. working) students is of questionable value
-- actionable knowledge is equally valuable
-- action research can be equally rigorous
-- team-based research may be more relevant
Maybe we should replace ‘academic’ by ‘relevant’ as the
criterion of ‘level 7-ness’
We have considered two variants of insider research:
 R & D projects
 Professional practice dissertations
In both cases, there is a bigger role for assessing the research
process itself -- e.g. through students’ critical reflection

We’re moving in the right direction…
e.g. MA marketing dissertations
MA Marketing
Management
MA Marketing
Communications
MA e-Marketing
& Social Media
Research
format
Research
OR
R&D format
R&D format
Marketing is following a well-trodden Business School path
e.g. HRM, Accounting, Finance, MBA, etc.

Old habits die hard…
Research dissertation
 Aims and objectives (10%)
 Literature review (25%)
 Methodology (20%)
 Findings & analysis (20%)
 Conclusions & recommendations (15%)
 Language & presentation (10%)
R&D dissertation
 Client needs (10%
 User needs (10%)
 Clients/user requirements (10%)
 Team R&D process (10%)
 Technical & organisational specifications (20%)
 Implementation (30%)
 Evaluation (10%)

We’re moving in the right direction…
We also have an MProf in Professional Practice for:
Accounting, Business, Economics, Enterprise, Finance,
Human Resources, Management, Marketing
Includes APL/APEL, Review of Learning, and a
practice-
based research project centred on the practitioner’s
organisational activities
No longer based on the mini-PhD template

Research without the dissertation?
The dissertation is not the only tool we have for giving
students an opportunity to undertake research
 Fieldwork and residentials
 Local business consultancies
 ‘Open’ paper
 Mini-projects
 etc.
Submissions encouraged in non-textual media

Research without the dissertation?
Q: If we believe research is so valuable for masters students,
why not distribute it throughout their programmes?
Instead of the dissertation, we could have other kinds of
‘deliverable’:
 reports
 audits
 evaluations
 proposals
 etc.

Martin Luther King’s PhD
-- about half was plagiarised
(After a formal enquiry, Boston University
decided not to strip him posthumously of
his doctorate)
What would we lose without dissertations?
A useful reminder that while there may be shortcuts
to producing a dissertation, there are no shortcuts to
becoming an effective researcher

What would we lose without dissertations?
Simon Pegg’s undergraduate dissertation:
‘Base and Supersucker’
A marxist critique of Star Wars, comparing
the film to the Cold War
Ros Barber’s DPhil thesis:
‘Writing Marlowe as writing Shakespeare’
= blank verse novel + commentary
(70k words + 50k words)

Thanks for listening!
Happy to answer your questions
and hear your own solutions
Ifan1@mdx.ac.uk

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