BACHELOR STUDENTS IN RESEARCH PROJECTS - BOOSTING WIL AND UNIVERSITY-SOCIETY COLLABORATION

Drawing from the experiences of student projects organized and developed in accordance with work-integrated learning, this paper contributes to the understanding of conditions necessary for successful implementation and sharing of knowledge in such projects as well as perceived benefits of university-society collaboration. A case study was carried out focusing on student research projects on two parallel business administration courses on Bachelor level. Students applied their skills in information literacy searching for and critically interpreting current research as well use of digital tools and social media platforms for data collection in their studies. The projects were initiated and presented by an external organization, which both supported the students in various ways during their work and received the completed results by the end of the courses. Students focused on themes such as the challenges of internal and external organizational communication, digital divides, inter-organizational collaboration, youth perspectives and sustainability. The empirical material of this study was collected from sources such as course syllabi and instructions, observations, student reports and reflections, presentations, meetings, conversations and interviews members of the principal organization. The results show that the students perceived their tasks as stimulating and important due to the interaction and feedback received from the external principal, utilization of their course assignments as well as the opportunity to relate theory to practice. The external organization in turn received reports that may be used for decision-making purposes at a low cost, however what was perceived as most rewarding was the interaction and dialogue with students to get their perspectives on contemporary issues. Furthermore, collaboration with students was also viewed as means for future recruitment. In can thus be concluded that students, if allowed to interact and work with external organizations, play an important part in disseminating both results from and understanding for academic research in society. However, to realize successful student research projects this paper also discusses the need of legitimacy, access to external networks and organizations willing and able to deliver relevant topics for student research as well as student support along the way.