The present study examined the alignment of university, supervisor and student expectations regarding responsibilities in the undergraduate engineering thesis. University expectations, having undergone rigorous review, outline the sound pedagogical practice that should be applied to undergraduate supervision. | Journal of Technology and Science Education JOTSE, 2019 – 9(2): 199-216 – Online ISSN: 2013-6374 – Print ISSN: 2014-5349 STUDENT-SUPERVISOR-UNIVERSITY EXPECTATION ALIGNMENT IN THE UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING THESIS Brad Stappenbelt , Abheek Basu School of Mechanical, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Wollongong (Australia) brads@, abheek@ Received May 2018 Accepted October 2018 Abstract Given the lack of student research experience, the undergraduate thesis is necessarily focussed primarily on development of research skills (. it is process oriented). Since postgraduate supervision is research output focussed, the lessons learnt from this field are not always directly transferable. In contrast to the vast body of work in the field of doctoral research supervision, there exists a dearth of literature on undergraduate dissertation supervision. To address this shortcoming, the present study examined the alignment of university, supervisor and student expectations regarding responsibilities in the undergraduate engineering thesis. University expectations, having undergone rigorous review, outline the sound pedagogical practice that should be applied to undergraduate supervision. Expectations of academic staff supervisors and thesis students were obtained through the use of survey tools and postsurvey discussions. The surveys used in the present study were adapted from the Role Perceptions Rating Scale (RPRS). Alignment between student and university expectations regarding undergraduate thesis responsibilities in the present study was generally poor. The discrepancy between supervisor and university expectations was even greater, with academic staff generally assuming the bulk of the responsibility for many core thesis tasks. Post-survey discussion indicated that the driver for this behaviour were supervisor expectations that undergraduate .
