How personal coaching on dissertation projects works
In the following case of dissertation project, I illustrate how personal coaching works and why it is useful:
Student A attends a dissertation project meeting, having a very vague idea that he wants to evaluate a potential Information System project for a company. The main characterisic for this project is that, the student wants to spare some effort on why certain software standard is relevant for the Information System software evaluation in his company's case. Other than that, this Master Degree student has no idea on how to formulate a proper dissertation proposal. Now is July and the student needs to submit his final report in November.
The supervisor suggests that the student could consider theories and concepts from the literature on (a) standardization in the IT field, (b) Information systems project evaluation, (c) IT infrastructure planning, (d) Soft systems methodology, and, finally, (e) case study research method. The project supervisor some academic resources with the supervisee and provide a rough idea on the dissertation proposal to the student (supervisee) to consider. After some time, the student meets the project supervisor again, saying that he has much difficulties to understand the academic literature, and has largely forgot what he has learned on all these theories. Now, the student does not know what to do and appear helpless. At this point, the supervisor suggests the student to find a personal coach on dissertation project work for the following support:
a. Explain all the relevant academic theories to the the student so as to enable the student how to use thesse theories in his dissertation project.
b. Explain the specific research method, in this case, Case Study research method, to enable the student to formulate his specific research design and conduct his research activities in an informed way.
c. Subsequently, to examine the student's dissertation work and make some comments/ suggested improvement on how the student's project report content can be improved.
Personal coaches, in this case, do not do the final year project for the student concerned; they teach the student on the relevant theories and concepts so that the student is able to perform in an informed way in his dissertation project, based on his own ideas. Such coaching support accelerates the student's intellectual learning so that he is able to conduct a dissertation project and write a dissertation report that meets the academic requirements of the University within the dissertation submission deadline. Without this kind of coaching support, very likely, the student will be helpless and will most likely give up doing the dissertation project.
From my experience, personal coaching is valuable to students who are intellectually weak and need a lot of support in order to be able to their dissertation projects. If the student only start to find a personal coach when he/ she is running out of time, (e.g. two months are left for doing the dissertation projects). then personal coaching will not work - personal coaches cannot perform miracles. Personal coaches support students; they do not do the dissertation projects on behalf of the students. Thus, students still need to work very hard on their dissertation projects even with the support of highly competent personal coaches.
Student A attends a dissertation project meeting, having a very vague idea that he wants to evaluate a potential Information System project for a company. The main characterisic for this project is that, the student wants to spare some effort on why certain software standard is relevant for the Information System software evaluation in his company's case. Other than that, this Master Degree student has no idea on how to formulate a proper dissertation proposal. Now is July and the student needs to submit his final report in November.
The supervisor suggests that the student could consider theories and concepts from the literature on (a) standardization in the IT field, (b) Information systems project evaluation, (c) IT infrastructure planning, (d) Soft systems methodology, and, finally, (e) case study research method. The project supervisor some academic resources with the supervisee and provide a rough idea on the dissertation proposal to the student (supervisee) to consider. After some time, the student meets the project supervisor again, saying that he has much difficulties to understand the academic literature, and has largely forgot what he has learned on all these theories. Now, the student does not know what to do and appear helpless. At this point, the supervisor suggests the student to find a personal coach on dissertation project work for the following support:
a. Explain all the relevant academic theories to the the student so as to enable the student how to use thesse theories in his dissertation project.
b. Explain the specific research method, in this case, Case Study research method, to enable the student to formulate his specific research design and conduct his research activities in an informed way.
c. Subsequently, to examine the student's dissertation work and make some comments/ suggested improvement on how the student's project report content can be improved.
Personal coaches, in this case, do not do the final year project for the student concerned; they teach the student on the relevant theories and concepts so that the student is able to perform in an informed way in his dissertation project, based on his own ideas. Such coaching support accelerates the student's intellectual learning so that he is able to conduct a dissertation project and write a dissertation report that meets the academic requirements of the University within the dissertation submission deadline. Without this kind of coaching support, very likely, the student will be helpless and will most likely give up doing the dissertation project.
From my experience, personal coaching is valuable to students who are intellectually weak and need a lot of support in order to be able to their dissertation projects. If the student only start to find a personal coach when he/ she is running out of time, (e.g. two months are left for doing the dissertation projects). then personal coaching will not work - personal coaches cannot perform miracles. Personal coaches support students; they do not do the dissertation projects on behalf of the students. Thus, students still need to work very hard on their dissertation projects even with the support of highly competent personal coaches.
Comments
Post a Comment