GROUP UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SUPERVISION, STUDENT EVALUATIONS, PERFORMANCE AND STAFF RESOURCE EFFICIENCY AT A NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY

Dissertation research is considered a critical part of undergraduate degrees in many countries and in Norway the production of a research based dissertation is considered a benchmark for science based university business degrees. Dissertation research is believed to demonstrate the student’s ability to work independently on research projects, enhance their theoretical understanding and application thereof in business, add realism to theory, improve problem solving skills, establish the student’s expertise in a particular area and enhance interdisciplinary approach to business issues in a global world (Aggarwal, Petrovic, Ryans, & Zong, 2008). The task is to achieve the dissertation research objectives with the resources available (Francis, 2013). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of group based dissertation research supervision on student evaluations, performance and staff resources at a University of Agder Norway. This study reports on two years of experience of the group dissertation research supervision, involving 121 students, organized in 40 groups and supervised by two professors at the School of Business and Law.

The Bachelor's Programme in Marketing and Management was established in 2013 to meet the demand for this type of education in southern part of Norway. The Programme included a bachelor dissertation class structured in line with common practice in business higher education rather than a particular learning theory. An analysis of the structure of the dissertation class demonstrates the inclusion of elements of the action learning (Ravans, 2011; Coghlan & Pedler, 2007; McGill and Brockbank, 2004), collaborative learning (Warschauer, 1997; Smith, & MacGregor, 1992) and experiential learning theories (Kolb, 2014; Kolb, & Kolb, 2005; Hamilton & Klebba, 2011). The main motivation for the selection of the group dissertation supervision approach was cost savings.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of group dissertation supervision in terms of student evaluations, performance and resource efficiency.

The research questions were:
1. how does the group supervision effect students’ performance and completion rates?
2. how does the group supervision effect the student evaluations?
3. how does the group supervision effect resources efficiency?

A case study methodology using mixed approach was used to accomplish the aims of assessing students’ performance, evaluations, and resource efficiency (Yin, 2013). The students were enrolled in the Bachelor’s Programme at the School of Business and Law. Two student cohorts were used for the study. Descriptive- and student performance data were obtained from the University database as well as student evaluation data. Financial data were obtained from public sources.

The findings show the group dissertation research supervision to be a success in terms of students’ performance and evaluations. The group approach to dissertation supervision generated large financial surpluses hence a practical solution to resource strapped institutions. However the social implication of generating large financial surpluses at the plausible expense of quality of the education needs further research.