Arts & Humanities’ Undergraduate Dissertations: Regenerating Early Researcher Socialization for Diverse Futures (UK Perspectives)

In this discursive chapter, an argument is established for revisiting how the undergraduate dissertation in the Arts & Humanities is placed within the whole of a program in the light of changes to the nature of being an early career researcher. Directed at academics, graduate teaching assistants and students, it provides the starting point for a discussion about how to redesign dissertation processes in such a way that students are enabled to play to their strongest researcher orientations. It does this by reviewing the situation of the dissertation in the light of the research-teaching nexus, changes to early career researcher discourses and experiences, and employability. It establishes as a key concept the importance of researcher orientations (towards: the theoretical, civic engagement, problem-solving policy, or anticipatory action and innovation) in student learning within a research intensive environment, and reviews the efficacy of the dissertation as an assessment type that materializes research-teaching linkages. The chapter suggests ways for reconsidering the dissertation within a set of pathways through the degree which plays to the researcher strengths of undergraduate students.

Keywords: Arts & Humanities, assessment, civic engagement, discourse, employability, orientations, research-teaching linkages, researcher orientations, pathways, student as producer.