COLLABORATIVE UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DISSERTATION WRITING IN A LOW RESOURCE UNIVERSITY CONTEXT IN ZAMBIA
Abstract
An undergraduate final year dissertation is one of the mandatory requirements for a
student to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree at the University of Zambia as it
demonstrates the research skills and knowledge the graduate has acquired over the
course of their study. However detailed investigations on the experiences of students
during the dissertation writing process in low resource university settings such as Zambia
have been missing from the current literature. This study explored the experiences of 30
final-year undergraduates drawn from three study programmes (Educational Psychology,
Sociology and Special Education) enrolled at the University of Zambia, School of
Education. Using a qualitative case study approach, the study examined the students’
positive and negative experiences during the dissertation writing process. Although
students benefited from the collaborative work in relation to their dissertation, they also
experienced considerable difficulties specifically in relation to data collection, supervision,
dissertation writing and collaboration work.
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