Role of Guest Lecturer in Research Proposal Writing: Students’ Perception

Abstract

The present research focuses on the experience of undergraduate students in a Middle Eastern college on attending guest lectures at the initial stage of preparing their dissertation. Here an attempt to apply the constructivist approach (Kirshner et al., 2006; Westwood, 2008) to teaching the subject of English Research Methods (ERM) is made by using a technique of multiple guest lecturer sessions by the department working in different areas of linguistics to familiarize the students with research interests of their tutors. This paper is an attempt to find out students' attitude to the sessions, their (sessions) benefits and drawbacks. Students' feedback was collected at the end of each session to identify advantages/disadvantages and extent of helpfulness of the practice through a questionnaire. The data was analysed with the help of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The results of the survey demonstrated the importance of guest speaker presentations for project writing as well as their (guest speakers') positive impact on students' motivation. Moreover, they helped to identify both the preferred and dispreferred approaches to conducting the sessions that are related to students' personal attributes. See the comments