Assignments

Marketing students are very happy with their last 3 assignments.
"Instead of just copying, we got to do something ourselves, something hands on."
What did they do?
They collected some print advertisements and analyzed them. Then in pairs, they designed their own ad and presented it in the class inviting teacher's terse feedback. Then they conducted a small survey to find out how far some brands were familiar and were liked by people.
In the past, the survey was rather elaborate. It had a rating scale to measure five levels of familiarity and favourability of brands. Most of the students could not handle that complexity. So the rating scales were discarded this year.
Apart from students enjoyment and the fact that no one copied it - everybody did it on his/ her own - it was found that Vicco Vajradanti, Nirma and Tata Nano were known to everybody but not liked. In fact, many respondents said that they were irritated by the incessant promotion of the first two brands.
Quite a finding for a small survey.

Students' project reports

A compulsory part of post-graduation. A student must choose a topic of her liking, develop a plan of research, prepare an outline and chapter scheme and by the end of the last term, produce 2 bound and printed copies of the project report with minimum 50 pages. It must be written as a research report i.e. it must have a methodology section, it must combine primary and secondary data and have some analysis followed by a conclusion. The syllabus also mentions hypotheses formulation and testing!
A tall order for students who have never thought about anything in the syllabus on their own. They have learnt by heart the textbooks which deal with the given syllabus without introducing any additional or new topic/ sentence or even a new word.
Sure, there is a previous paper of research methodology which covers the usual topics but it has never occurred to students that they will have to apply it themselves to their own projects rather than mugging up answers to questions like: What is primary data? What is the difference between open ended and close ended questions in a questionnaire? What is a good hypothesis? etc.
Students are utterly at sea. They approach teachers and ask for topics. When ready-made topics are not forthcoming, they go to the other extreme and start the lookout for completed projects. They are easily available: aplenty on internet and in the form of ready printed copies to be bought from bookshops serving the student community. However, some teachers can spot them a mile off. They open the report, put their finger on a randomly selected page and ask students to explain the meaning. The awkward silence that follows is a straight giveaway.
So students mostly settle for case studies.  A sister or brother or father working in a firm - details are never revealed - is the source of information. Any information available from this source is neatly typed out and shown to the teacher with great reverence. The teacher however, yells at them about research design.
Then some theory is added and some hypotheses are worked out. They are so general that any study has to validate them. The validation takes place qualitatively, never in a rigourous manner.
The teacher is impatient and cannot explain properly as her 0wn knowledge and vocabulary are shockingly limited. Much confusion, shouting, heart-burning and tears follow and somehow the report is cobbled together. specimen of questionnaires, certificates given by outsiders are in great demand because they help in reaching the magic figure of 50 pages.
There must be a certificate by their teacher or project guide at the beginning. It must also be signed by the Head of Department (HoD). Although the students have copied the format from previous years reports, they have forgotten to provide space for HoD signature.
So the HoD writes her name in long hand and signs. Students wince. They treat the handwritten matter as an ugly blot on their neat, printed work. The HoD glances at the Contents page.
Organization structure -- page 30
On page 30, there is neither an organization chart nor any other relevant details. They appear after two pages. The gap between actual page numbers and contents widens. The page numbers must be corrected.
"Now? How when everything is bound? Shall I paste another sheet on the current page?"
"No. Just cancel the present numbers and write the correct ones by their side."
The student is aghast. The whole report will now look shabby.
The HoD's plea that its real worth would go up falls on deaf ears.
Only her warning "Do it or I shall." brings forth a grudging compliance.
And we go on.