This paper researched the effects of the Scrum Master role being performed by a student. The researchers found that most previous research assigned this role to teachers or other mentors (and the single study not in this category was unclear regarding who performed this role). They found evidence that a student Scrum master is better.
My primary takeaway is that my original plan might be the best option. As all the earlier research listed non-students in the Scrum Master role, I questioned my assumption over who should be in this role. My personal experience and my discussion with professors at other universities all indicated students fill this role and I had not questioned this.
Many of these studies assign the role of the Scrum master to a lecturer or a mentor. This may have unintended consequences on the students’ team, including making them feeling micro-managed and also not allowing the agile team self-organization which is a key requirement in Scrum.
Students are known of waiting until the last moment before working on a project [2] [3] and this certainly is most likely one of the contributing factors to poor quality of their projects
Emphasis mine:
For example, students’ performance on the project may be enhanced because a lecturer plays a facilitator’s role on the project – students may perform just because of the active role that a lecturer plays on the project. This view resonates with the findings that some team members view Scrum as micro-management [5] which may result in project outcomes which are not true reflections of team members’ work ethics if it was not ‘micromanaged’.