September 2009 — Volume 3, Issue 5

Practical strategies for higher degree by research students

After taking up the challenge in 2001 to create a research strategies course that would address high drop-out rates and student dissatisfaction, RMIT University’s Professor Pavla Miller has been recognised for her innovation with a 2009 ALTC Citation.

“Writing a thesis is demanding and quite lonely and there are all sorts of ways that individual supervisors try to make the journey satisfactory for students. What students really appreciate is a dual emphasis on the emotional demands of their journey as well as the technical aspects,” says Professor Miller.

In several parts of RMIT, a research course is compulsory for everyone who writes any sort of thesis. The research strategies course now caters for more than 200 students per year. It brings together honours,
coursework masters and PhD students from several academic units. This, according to Professor Miller, allows students to see that “even the most erudite and accomplished people writing PhDs have parallel
problems to people who are just beginning”.

The diverse cohort also poses challenges. Amongst her students is an accomplished North African journalist with no prior university training learning alongside local students with outstanding academic results but little practical experience, social theorists who struggle with applying theory to practical situations and practical people who have difficulty with theory. The challenge is how to engage them all without any student
feeling that they are out of their depth or that the content is too basic.

There are 10 one-day workshops led by experts in distinct methodologies, each a combination of hands-on experience and some formal instruction accompanied by a resource booklet.

“Students are supposed to select two modules but some students see this as a wonderful opportunity to get all sorts of stuff free and turn up to multiple sessions. Students get life membership [to the classes] while they are writing their thesis so many PhD students turn up later in their candidature.”

In addition, Professor Miller has developed a 200-page plain language study guide with web and CD resources, interdisciplinary weekly seminars, and learning groups for off-campus students.

One of Professor Miller’s reasons for producing a large set of materials was that students mightn’t appreciate
what skills they would need until a few years down the track and would have them as a reference collection.

Another component of the course is a series of public lectures showcasing the work of prominent RMIT scholars. The lecture series was devised by Professor Miller as a way for students to observe how different academics deal with common research problems.

Professor Miller is now looking at developing a companion course for international research students that will allow them to enhance their English for academic purposes while also workshopping core parts of their theses.

“We have long been searching for some way to keep those who are academically qualified but don’t have sufficient English. All universities run general purpose English courses but they
are often not quite enough for writing a PhD thesis. So we will experiment with a bridging course. Hopefully it will be running sometime next year.”