Perspectives of the degree project: Small-scale action research in Swedish higher education

Abstract

The degree project in educational sciences constitutes the pre-service teacher students' final academic achievement in the Bridging Teacher Education Programme at a university in Sweden. The degree project is complicated or a possibility because this university thesis constitutes only one part of the professional degree. The other part of the thesis project, a BA/BSc or MA/MSc, has been acknowledged as previous academic achievement, a required academic qualification for enrolment in the programme. A further difficulty or opportunity is that students' previous theses were achieved in academic disciplines not typically related to teacher education, sometimes several decades ago. This study aimed to visualise the notion of degree project in bridging teacher education. Our initial questions were: Could the transition between academic disciplines be facilitated? Could knowledge of degree project genres be visualised to enhance academic achievement? What is professional development for student teachers? In the actual study, the scope was limited to perspectives of the degree project and suggestions for improvement of degree project design. Thus, in participatory inquiry conversations, small groups of students and lecturers shared their perspectives of the degree project, and provided suggestions for improvement of the project design. Findings from qualitative analysis of the audio recorded data revealed students’ difficulties in conceptualising the writing assignment, mainly due to unpreparedness. Means of addressing the unpreparedness emerged as task-sequencing throughout the study programme, applying an academic literacies approach. Implications for further action research and teaching are participatory inquiry conversations as continual components in the study programme. A further area of potential investigation is application of instructional design theory to degree project supervision.