To think that a university student should be doing their own research for a dissertation?

[ivykaty44]

Not your parent?

This parent is telephoning relevant places on behalf the student to ask whether they have the material needed - surely the student should be using a telephone and calling these places.

AIBU

I still don't think it's a particularly good habit to be in. You don't go to university to have your mum do your work for you, IMO.

I just hope my dad will be around when I get cracking on mine

OP what field is it in?

at laptop. I get why - but at least with a PhD you know he isn't going to be saying anything significant. It's more for reassurance isn't it?

Though mind you my dad demanded to see a chapter then started in on why it was all wrong, could be much better structured ... DH and I had to laugh at him, as if he'd have the foggiest! The thing is, it's not fair on students trying to be adults if their parents keep crossing the line into interfering. It is different from chatting to your peers or asking a teacher for more help - it's a different relationship.

But if you have a friend/relative who can provide guidance in a certain area (not do the work but support/point in the right direction) what's wrong with that? Surely in any walk of life that is a sensible approach?

My dad is pretty top in the field I plan to do it in so it will help :)

Yeah, I could've done with one of them assistants myself.

I think reading and discussing work with others is normal and salutary - if the student has the sense to be able to reject advice when it's no good. I'd always encourage my students to get as many readers as possible of their work, but to be very critical of what advice they are given. The final product is their own responsibility.

That is, after all, how real academic research is produced: I show my stuff to colleagues before sending it to a journal, then when it goes off to the journal it gets formally peer-reviewed and often changes are suggested - so proper papers have been through several pairs of eyes before they see the light. That's not 'cheating', it's making sure the highest quality product is published.

But doing actual research for someone else is a different ballgame.

hard - IMO the problem is that it does not work. It is very obvious when a student has been offered help on content and structure. It is possible some parents genuinely can offer helpful teaching - if so, great. But if they don't, if they proofread and say 'here's a problem, you need to do x here', then the essay be a patchwork effort. The student may not learn to spot his or her own mistakes or to solve them in a way that fits with his or her way of thinking.

And often the parent must be wrong - even if they did, say, a History degree 30 years previously and their DS is doing History, the whole subject and methodology will have moved on. Sheffield won't teach it the same way as Leeds. A good argument in English is not like a good argument in Sociology. And so on.

laptop - fair enough, if you say so. As I say, mate doing a PhD has a mum who's an academic in the subject who thought it didn't work, but it varies I am sure.

well I asked a couple of questions back - as I needed to know to be able to give the correct information and the parent then couldn't answer as they didn't know the answer. So the parent told me to repeat the questions and then they would get back to me once they had spoken to their student offspring.

It isn't the first time I have been asked questions for students - but always before it has been A'level student parents or GSCE.

We are contacted by students themselves in a large proportion of emails or telephone calls of this nature, so it is not usual for a parent to be doing the enquiry and possibly this was why I found the situation a little odd.

It does seem odd ivy.

It's not possible it was something very simple, like student losing his/her voice? Or possibly if she/he is dyslexic it'd be hard to write and listen at the same time?

I hope so anyhow.

One of my housemates in my last year at uni was doing research for the uni and she had help from assistants, so I just assumed that was the case for everyone.

Ella but surely rininging up a few places isn't going to cause those kind of problems. I was saying that helping with arguments is worse imo

hard - yes, I think you're right. I think if this is just data-gathering, it's not really 'research' as such, just getting the raw materials for research. TBH I was just getting sidetracked into the 'should parents help' debate as it's, ahem, something I have ishoos about. Which is to say it drives me up the wall.

I can dream of an assistant ... I think if I ask I'll get someone to do the spelling and grammar but the crappy thing is, to be honest it's my baby and I don't trust anyone else anyhow!

I do think there is something really good about knowing you did the work by yourself, it's a shame to lose that in a (probably pointless) attempt to bump up marks. I don't know if it's the same at other universities, but everywhere I've heard about, you can't drop a student a grade boundary for poor SPAG, but content, structure and research do matter and they ought to be your own really.

Elladee, I don't agree that data gathering isn't research. The quality and relevance of the data gathered (ie the raw materials) is a central element of the research process and will clearly influence the results.

I see what you're saying.

I think data gathering can be research, but isn't necessarily - depends which bit of it we're talking about. If the whole process is delegated, yes, that's not on. But surely if a student set out a questionnaire and worked out how it needed to be presented but then needed 500 tick-box responses, it'd be ok to get others to act as assistants by ticking boxes? It really depends IMO on whether that's the sort of thing this student was asking her mum to do, or not. But I would think the university would have guidelines about this anyway?

When I was doing my Masters I rang up the British Library to get books from the bowels of the earth and ready to collect in the Reading Room. That way when I was there I had less hanging around and used my time effectively.

I used a phone box, I was on hold a while and the call would have cost a fortune from my PAYG mobile. If someone with a landline had offered to make the call for me I would have jumped at it. I certainly wouldn't have thought they had done my research for me.

I don't think that phoning up and asking if somewhere has certain material constitutes an intellectual part of data collection. If it did, then all students know who use university provided academic internet search functions would be cheating if compared to students 20 years ago who would have to do those searches themselves.

The intellectual part of data collection is looking at the data available, and deciding on which parts to include according to which appropriate methodology.

All students now

Not all students Know.

I can't see why parents need to know or care what their children's assignments are or how they do them. Once you go to university you should be responsible for your own studies. Obviously it's nice to show an interest in the marks when they come back.

I suspect all this parental input is down to the over protective parenting that goes on and that parents now feel they're buying a service and want to monitor it.

It's quite hard to judge without knowing what 'material' is in this context.

I suppose it depends what kind of a parent you are. It is like those threads where parents want adult children who live at home to pay rent even though the parents are not in financial hardship. Different people have different perspectives on how independent 18 year olds should be.

I think there has definitely been a change, as we have had two (or maybe three) generations where the teen years were meant to be one of rebellion and there were generation gaps. My eldest is only 13, but from what I have seen of friends with older teens, a lot of the generation gap has closed. So I am not surprised that teens and people in their early twenties are close to their families and rely on them in ways that they would have been close to and relied on friends and lovers more a generation or so ago.

Im seriously wondering if this is my student now.

ImperialBlether would tell her daughter if an argument was developed thoroughly. Presumably her daughter would then act on that and change things, thus gaining her more marks. Pluse there are mark for spelling and grammar.

When you are writing a 10,000 word essay, it can literally drive you crazy, because you are so close to it. I don't think there's any harm in someone reading through it and saying, "I didn't really understand that bit - perhaps you need to expand on it?" We used to do that for each other at university and nobody called it cheating.

When an author writes a book (textbook or novel) then there's an editor involved who will suggest changes. Are the authors cheating?

I didn't 'help' my daughter in the sense of making suggestions to her regarding her work, because they were subjects I knew nothing about. However, I did find them interesting and the suggestions I made were to do with further explaining. So shoot me!

I can remember in high school us reading & proofing each other's essays (homework). So that was early 1980s and not considered cheating.
Agree with EllaDee, really.
Also, I helped a lot with a friend's PhD (actually, I was his research assistant doing paid work); it was the same as work being contracted out, and I got full credit in his dissertation for my contributions (others did parts, too).
Mind, his PhD was written up over 2 massive volumes. He was a Prof by 40, I think.

It's helicopter parenting at its worst.

Someone on MN was a uni admissions officer and was appauled at the amount of parents who turned up and demanded to sit in on uni interviews