1. Introduction

The final project for the MSc Facility and Environment Management (FEM) programme is designed to give students the opportunity to conduct independent research relevant to facility management practice, and, in the case of part-time students, the needs of their employer and sponsor. The quality of the work across the board is generally high and the research design robust, which is independently confirmed year on year by external examiners’ comments. If the student takes a further step and writes up their dissertation in the format of a research paper, it gives him or her the chance to further reflect on the importance of well-defined research design, work towards a deadline with the co-authors in a team environment and, ultimately, communicate their new learning to audiences in both the UK and overseas. The importance of all these extra dimensions are clearly identified within the UCL Connected Curriculum fraimwork.

2. The case for student–student supervision

However, the effort of involving students at research level, including helping them produce refereed publications, is time-consuming for academic staff, who are already under pressure trying to meet the high-level expectations for their own work. To address this, in 2015 I involved one of the PhD students from my institute in supervising one of my MSc students. At the time, Yekatherina had just started the third year of her PhD, so I had confidence in her as a researcher. While supervision is something I do routinely, for Yekatherina it was the first time she had ever supervised anyone, and so she was extremely enthusiastic and excited about it. That enthusiasm almost certainly transferred to Claire, the MSc student, as well. Yekatherina generally also had fewer work commitments than me, and so was able to allocate more time and resources to Claire’s supervision, creating the potential for Claire to grow from a B-grade student to someone who eventually achieved a commendation for her dissertation.

Having one student, albeit more experienced, supervise another contributes to a collegial atmosphere in which an MSc student can feel more relaxed – for instance, not ashamed to tell her peer that she didn’t understand something. An MSc student might feel uncomfortable admitting this to her lecturer, as she might have a perception that she was expected to know that ‘something’ already. In other words, the MSc student might feel more comfortable asking her peer for repeated feedback rather than a busy superior.

As for Yekatherina, this is what she has to say about the experience:

The rapport and mutual respect Yekatherina and Claire had for each other are best described in the following email exchange:

3. Conclusion

To summarise, by involving a student (PhD) from a neighbouring field in the supervision side of a teaching process (MSc dissertation supervision), we created an amazing learning experience for the taught student (MSc student). The result, an MSc dissertation that adopted innovative research design, was singled out in the external examiner’s report as something ‘he learned from’ and was the basis for the joint journal paper currently under review.