Dissertations can open up opportunities for graduate employment and create research material which can be built on by academics. Reflective practice, as outlined by Schön, encourages the framing and re-framing of questions, with the aim of gaining new insight into an issue.

A dissertation or project, where students address a real-life problem and set out to produce an independent piece of analysis of that problem, is an essential part of many degree programmes. It offers students an opportunity to practise their analytical skills and write at significant length on a subject that interests them. Dissertations can open up opportunities for graduate employment and create research material which can be built on by academics. Reflective practice, as outlined by Schön, encourages the framing and re-framing of questions, with the aim of gaining new insight into an issue. It is a particularly apt model for the dissertation process because it offers a way to look beyond the most obvious questions and generate original insights. Also a student typically undertakes a dissertation with a single academic staff supervisor, and the paper discusses the implications of this and the need to balance one-to-one learning with students' membership of a community. This paper draws on experience on undergraduate business and management degrees at a British university. Four students' dissertations are reviewed in some detail, as case studies, and the implications for reflective learning are discussed.