Ethical dilemmas associated wih hyper-structured student research
Abstract
The growth in the number of students engaging in research as part of their studies has increased dramatically, and combined with the need to provide adequate research supervision, the exploration and development of alternative modes of conducting research together with students has emerged. One such mode of research can be called the hyper-structured student research project (HSSRP). This mode represents supervision where the research area, as well as the methodology, is specifically defined, and where students are supported and guided through every step of the research process, with the supervisor making most of the important research decisions on behalf of the students. Although the HSSRP has delivered on the institutional requirements of efficiency and throughput, there is a need to critically reflect on these projects to ascertain whether they meet academic and professional requirements. In this paper, the acceptability of HSSRP projects will be analysed from a utilitarian perspective, considering dilemmas that may arise from, but also within, the projects, and focusing on the public worth which follows from such projects. Several new insights arose from these analyses, and it was found that the level of public worth might be less than when more traditional modes of supervision is used. It may be concluded that the higher level outcomes, such as graduateness and professional preparedness, are not achieved through the HSSRP. This paper presents an evaluation of the HSSRP from a multi-dimensional utility perspective and contributes to a debate often driven by biased and limited utilitarianism. It is recommended that the critique expressed in this paper be used to design structured research projects so as to enable a more even distribution of utility and to enable universities to deliver on their societal higher goals.
References
Abrandt Dahlgren, M. A., H. Hult, L. O. Dahlgren, H. H. Segerstad and K. Johansson. 2006. From senior student to novice worker: Learning trajectories in political science, psychology and mechanical engineering. Studies in Higher Education 31(5): 569–586.
Alauddin, M. and A. Ashman. 2014. The changing academic environment and diversity in students’ study philosophy, beliefs and attitudes in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development 33(5): 857–870.
Albertyn, R. M., P. Machika and C. Troskie-de Bruin. 2016. Towards responsible massification: Some pointers for supporting lecturers. African Education Review 13(3&4): 49–64.
Albertyn, R., S. van Coller-Peter, and J Morrison. 2017. A multi-level researcher development framework to address contrasting views of student research challenges. South African Journal of Higher Education, 32(1), 13–30.
Ball, A. 2009. Toward a theory of generative change in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. American Educational Research Journal 46(1): 45‒72.
Basturkmen, H., M. East and J. Bitchener. 2014. Supervisors’ on-script feedback comments on drafts of dissertations: Socialising students into the academic discourse community. Teaching in Higher Education 19(4): 432–445.
Beekun, R. I., Y., Stedham, J. H. Yamamura , and J. A. Barghouti. 2003. Comparing business ethics in Russia and the US. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(8), 1333-1349.
Bentham, J. 1789. Economics and liberty an introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved from http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Philosophers/Bentham/principlesofMoralsAndLegislation.pdf.
Beqiri, M. S., N. M. Chase and A. Bishka. 2010. Online course delivery: An empirical investigation of factors affecting student satisfaction. Journal of Education for Business 85(2): 95–100.
Biesta, G. 2012. Have lifelong learning and emancipation still something to say to each other? Studies in the Education of Adults 44(1): 5–20.
Blum, L. D. 2010. The “all-but-the-dissertation” student and the psychology of the doctoral dissertation. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy 24(2): 74–85.
Boehe, D. M. 2016. Supervisory styles: A contingency framework. Studies in Higher Education 41(3): 399–414.
Bologna Working Group. 2005. A framework for qualifications of the European higher education area. Bredgade: Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Boyd, B. and C. Smith. 2016. The contemporary academic: Orientation towards research work and researcher identity of higher education lecturers in the health professions. Studies in Higher Education 41(4): 678–695.
Brodin, E. M. 2015. Conditions for criticality in doctoral education: A creative concern. In The Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in higher education, eds. M. Davies and R. Barnett, 265–282. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Buissink-Smith, N., S. Hart and J. van der Meer. 2013. “There are other people out there?” Successful postgraduate peer groups and research communities at a New Zealand University. Higher Education Research and Development 32(5): 695–705.
Burke, L. A. and H. M. Hutchins. 2007. Training transfer: An integrative literature review. Human Resource Development Review 6(3): 263–296.
Carlile, P. R. 2004. Transferring, translating and transforming: An integrative framework of managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science 15(5): 555–568.
Cloete, N., J. M. Mouton and C. Sheppard. 2015. The doctorate in South Africa: Discourse, data and policies. Cape Town: African Minds.
Crimmins, J. E. 2018. Jeremy Bentham. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. N. Edward. Retrieved from
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/bentham/
Croussard, B. 2013. Conceptualising doctoral researcher training through Bernstein’s theoretical frameworks. International Journal for Researcher Development 4(2): 72–85.
Driver, J. 2014. The history of utilitarianism. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. N. Edward. Retrieved from
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/utilitarianism-history/
Dysthe, O., A. Samara and K. Westrheim. 2006. Multi-voiced supervision of master’s students: A case study of alternative supervision practices in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 31(3): 299–318.
Edgeworth, F. Y. 1881. Mathematical psychics: An essay on the application of mathematics to the moral sciences. London: Kegan Paul. https://doi.org/10.2307/2223848
Edwards, A. 2011. Building common knowledge at the boundaries between professional practices: Relational agency and relational expertise in systems of distributed expertise. International Journal of Educational Research 50(1): 33–39.
Eneau, J. 2008. From autonomy to reciprocity, or vice versa? French personalism’s contribution to a new perspective on self-directed learning. Adult Education Quarterly 58(3): 229–248.
Engebretson, K., K. Smith, K. McLaughlin, C. Siebold, G. Terret and E. Ryan. 2008. The changing reality of research education in Australia and implications for supervision: A review of the literature. Teaching in Higher Education 13(1): 1–15.
Evans, L. 2011. The scholarship of researcher development: Mapping the terrain and pushing back boundaries. International Journal for Researcher Development 2(2): 75–98.
Evans, L. 2014. What is effective research leadership? A research-informed perspective. Higher Education Research and Development 33(1): 46–58.
Fenge, L-A. 2012. Enhancing the doctoral journey: The role of group supervision in supporting collaborative learning and creativity. Studies in Higher Education 37(4): 401–414.
Hopwood, N. 2010. Doctoral experience and learning from a sociocultural perspective. Studies in Higher Education 35(7): 829–843.
Hofstede, G. 2001. Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hornsby D. J. and R. Osman. (2014). Massification in higher education: Large classes and student learning. Higher Education 67(6): 711–719.
Jansen, J. 2010. The PhD study. Pretoria: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
Lee, A. and B. Green. 2009. Supervision as metaphor. Studies in Higher Education 34(6): 615–630.
Manathunga, C. 2005. The development of research supervision: “Turning the light on a private space”. International Journal for Academic Development 10(1): 17–30.
Mill, J. S. 187). Utilitarianism. Fraser’s Magazine 4(14): 211–229. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-4.14.211
Pata, K. 2009. Modeling spaces for self-directed learning at university courses. Educational Technology & Society 12(3): 23–43.
Peterson, C. 2017. Teaching excellence award goes to Prof Grobler. UNISA, News and Events. Retrieved from http://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/sbl/default/News-&-events/Articles/Teaching-excellence-award-goes-to-Prof-Grobler
Reid, A. and P. Petocz. 2004. The professional entity: Researching the relationship between students’ conceptions of learning and their future profession. In Improving student learning: Theory, research and scholarship, ed. C. Rust, 145–157. Oxford: Oxford Rewley Press.
Samuel, M. and R. Vithal. 2011. Emergent frameworks of research teaching and learning in a cohort- based doctoral programme. Perspectives in Education 29(3): 76–86.
Sinclair, J., R. Barnacle and D. Cuthbert. 2014. How the doctorate contributes to the formation of active researchers: What the research tells us. Studies in Higher Education 39(10): 1972–1986.
South African Qualifications Authority. 2012. The South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). Level Descriptors for the South African National Qualification Framework. Retrieved from http://www.saqa.org.za/docs/misc/2012/level_descriptors.pdf
Tymon, A. and S. Batistic. 2016. Improved academic performance and enhanced employability? The potential double benefit of proactivity for business graduates. Teaching in Higher Education 21(8): 915–932.
Waghid, Y. 2015. Are doctoral studies in South African higher education being put at risk? South African Journal of Higher Education 29(5): 1–7.
Walkington, C. A. 2013. Using adaptive learning technologies to personalize instruction to student interest: The impact of relevant contexts on performance and learning outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology 105(4): 932–945.
Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson-Strydom, M. 2016. Complexities and contradictions of doctoral education in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 112(3), 1–2. https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2016/a0147.
Copyright (c) 2020 Renier Steyn
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
