Ultimate assessment criteria of dissertation works

Very often, in dissertation meetings, students ask me questions about dissertation requirements that are administrative in nature: when to submit reports, what should be report format, what is my role, e.g. as an internal consultant or an external consultant, etc? Some students form an impression of the supervisor's competence in terms of ability to answer these questions.  I am sure these issues are relevant to their dissertation project works. But, they are trivial issues and students can figure out what are required if they bother to study the subject handbook themselves.

Well, some students consider that it is reasonable to ask these questions, and that they would expect dissertation supervisors to refine and elaborate on their vague and "poorly" formulated research themes, and subsequently, to assure them that their ideas are proper.

These expectations/ viewpoints from students are reasonable, aren't they? I am fully aware that these are prevailing expectations from students doing dissertation works. But, these students' expectations/ viewpoints are highly problematic.

In my view, students' main concerns should be:

1. Does learning all these research skills improve my intellectual (including theory-driven analysis) ability?
2. How can I convince my supervisor that my dissertation ideas are worth doing and that my dissertation themes and proposal ideas exhibit reasonable intellectual sophistication?
3. How can I make use of the dissertation project experience to learn Research skill as a practical hand-on skill? Such skill will strengthen my ability to explore new issues that will come up in my career from time to time in the future? This can also be considered as the strengthening of the ability to "learn how to learn".

These 3 questions make up the ultimate assessment criteria of dissertation works that I endorse. Some students will object to what I have said: "Your ideas are too idealistic. We are busy people and we cannot do that."  I know these viewpoints from quite many students. Frankly, I am not able to force you to learn but you will not learn much research skills with this study attitude, though you most likely will still pass your dissertation projects.

In short, you will still get what you want - from a defective education system. The whole activity of study, in this case, has little to do with enlightening management education (a concept from my research work known as MPSB research). That is why these students' viewpoints of dissertation projects are problematic.