Students' experiences of undergraduate business research and supervision at the National University of Lesotho

Abstract

The research dissertation and its supervision have been described by researchers as the most advanced levels of learning and teaching respectively. In spite of the intrinsic value of research and its supervision, there are few studies that document the lived experiences of undergraduate students in these areas. Existing studies are dominated by the opinions and experiences of academic staff, and are primarily limited to the issues of research assessment. To our knowledge, there is paucity of research on the lived experiences of undergraduate students in Lesotho. The aim of this paper is to explicate the students’ lived experiences of undergraduate dissertation and its supervision at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). We used interpretive qualitative research to give ‘voice’ to the participants, and identified and interpreted key themes from interviews conducted over a period of two academic years. We specifically used data collected from 17 interviewees in six focus groups, 11 interviewees a year later, documentary analysis and observation over a period of two academic years. The interviews were unstructured, and took between 60 and 120 minutes. We ended the interviews once we realised that no new experiences were related by participants. The analysis of data resulted in nine themes. In general, students expressed positive views about dissertation as an important mode of learning and assessment; acknowledged the important role of research methodology course in undertaking research; found challenges in undertaking some parts of dissertation; and complained about supervisors who were not available, approachable, nurturing, organised, and did not communicate constructive feedback on timely basis using modern communication channels. While qualitative research findings cannot be generalised, we submit that understanding learner experiences can respectively benefit and inform undergraduate learning and supervision at universities.