A discussion of student research evaluators in ‘student as producer’ activity at the University of Lincoln

Abstract

During the first months of 2012 a mentoring scheme was introduced at the University of Lincoln in the School of Social Sciences. This scheme brought second-year undergraduate students into first-year students’ research skills seminars to aid them with their studies. This project was led and conducted by a group of third-year undergraduate students, who acted as student research evaluators; they chose to take part because they saw the research as an opportunity to practise key employability skills, to lead a project and to apply methods and knowledge learnt during their three years of study. Focus groups, a World Café event and an interactive blog for the mentors to post on were used to examine the effects of this mentoring scheme for all students involved. This paper is written by two of the student research evaluators. It discusses the methodology adopted and the perceived benefits for all the students involved, and offers suggestions for improvements which may be applied to future mentoring schemes. It examines the findings from the use of an interactive blog, focus groups and World Café event, For a more detailed discussion of the use of the blogs in this project and the data gathered, as well as the impacts on the second-year mentors, see ‘How mentoring can benefit second-year students’ by Burton, Lill and Keen (this issue).