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This study considered outcomes when 27 academics explicitly developed and assessed student research skills in 28 regular (non-research methods) semesterlength courses. These courses ranged from small (n ¼ 17) to medium-large (n ¼ 222) and included those from first year to masters in business, engineering, health science, humanities and science, across five universities in three Australian cities. The two-year study used three data sets to determine the outcomes of development and assessment initiatives: student pre-(n ¼ 779) and post-questionnaires (n ¼ 601), interviews with students (n ¼ 46) one year after completing a course that developed research skills and interviews with academics (n ¼ 17) involved in developing and assessing student research skills. These multiple sources provided evidence that students developed a variety of discipline-specific research skills and that these skills were useful for subsequent studies and especially for employment. Academics indicated that the process of making explicit the development of student research skills led to enhancement of their teaching, helping the academics to clarify major course purposes as well as enabling them to provide more substantial feedback to students than in the past. Academics also indicated that this teaching process changed their understanding of disciplinary research and, for some, even suggested new directions in their research.

Purpose Many countries are looking for ways to enable students to engage more effectively with PhD study. This paper aims to consider the effects of explicit discipline-specific research skill development embedded in multiple semesters of an undergraduate degree on PhD preparedness. Design/methodology/approach This case study of one Bachelor of Health Science programme determined the effectiveness of the implementation of a conceptual model, the Researcher Skill Development framework, across the undergraduate degree programme. Data were gathered through interviews of 9 academic staff and 14 students in their fourth year of undergraduate study, which is a research-focused year. Findings All students and academics stated the benefits of the use of the Researcher Skill Development framework in undergraduate study including: deepening metacognition of research processes; assisting students toward acting and thinking like researchers; and the research-capacity building of the school. While all academics and all but one student recommended that the framework be used early in the degree programme, a number of interviewees specified problems with the existing implementation of the framework. Research limitations/implications While the results are not generalisable, the approach is worth studying in other degree programme-wide contexts to determine its broader capacity to enable students to be more research ready for PhD study when compared to current practice. Practical implications When adapted to the context, whole-of-degree research skill development may enable developing countries to have more students and developed countries to better prepared students commencing PhD studies. Originality/value No studies currently provide results for explicit research skill development across a degree programme, or of the benefits of this approach for PhD preparation.

This study considers the conceptual space, or extent of autonomy, given to coursework Masters students before, during and after a Business Ethics course that explicitly developed and assessed their research skills. This vocationally oriented and academically challenging course used the Research Skill Development framework as its conceptual model to reshape the learning and assessment environment, articulating to students not only the research skills required, but also clarifying the resulting autonomy in their research-orientated learning. In the study, seven students attended semi-structured interviews and transcript analysis of interviews revealed the level of student-declared autonomy before commencing coursework Masters, while completing the Business Ethics course, and near the end of their Masters degree. All of the students interviewed were studying part-time and working parttime, and so the applicability of the research skills to students' work environment emerged as a major issue of interest. This paper richly represents the students' perceptions, and is the first paper to directly address coursework Masters student autonomy in research in a longitudinal manner; as such it provides a deep and nuanced understanding of the conceptual space that students need for success in study and as preparation for employment.

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