Student perspectives on the dissertation process in a masters degree concerned with professional practice

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of taught masters courses, the experiences of masters students in general have received comparatively little attention within the research literature, and the dissertation process in particular has not been investigated extensively. The present article focuses on the findings of detailed interviews with 15 professionals studying part time who had recently completed a masters dissertation in a faculty of education, and is part of a larger study that examined both student and staff perspectives. A central facet of these students’ experiences of researching and writing-up a dissertation was their representation of their own agency and how this was connected to a particular sense of personhood and a strategic approach, whilst being enabled by supervisors and supportive others. The normative order that study participants believed should prevail within the supervisory relationship is delineated and issues concerning the conceptualisation of student agency are addressed.