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Article
Publication date: 18 September 2020

Nomanesi Madikizela-Madiya and John Mushomi Atwebembeire

In this paper we contribute knowledge to the postgraduate supervision discourses by reflecting on our socio-spatial experiences of being supervised by colleagues, a process that…

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper we contribute knowledge to the postgraduate supervision discourses by reflecting on our socio-spatial experiences of being supervised by colleagues, a process that we refer to as colleague postgraduate supervision (CPS).

Design/methodology/approach

We followed a duoethnographic research design by dialogically presenting and exploring our lived experiences of CPS and critiquing and questioning the meanings we give to those experiences. The experiences shared arose from two different contexts: a contact university and an open distance learning university.

Findings

The reflection suggests that social values of trust, compassion and care in CPS can outrun the spatial constraints for the benefit of the supervisees in the relationship. However, the colleagues in the CPS can also experience some subtle power dynamics and tensions that produce a constraining space, if the CPS process is not well communicated.

Originality/value

While CPS is a common practice in some universities, there is limited research that pays attention to its socio-spatiality, that is, the interaction between the social and the spatial aspects of this practice.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 August 2014

Simon Stephens

The relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors impacts on degree completion rates; faculty research performance; and postgraduate satisfaction with their alma…

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Abstract

Purpose

The relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors impacts on degree completion rates; faculty research performance; and postgraduate satisfaction with their alma mater. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the experience of supervision and subsequent supervision practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Totally, 40 supervisors who are doctoral students/graduates were approached to participate in the study, and 32 agreed. For each participant, data were collected to explore their development as a supervisor.

Findings

Supervisors seek guidance from textbooks, workshops, peers, colleagues and their doctoral supervisor to develop as a supervisor. Their supervision style emerges as a reaction to both positive and negative experiences of supervision. A recurring theme in the data is that if there is something missing in the supervision experience, the student will emphasise this element in their approach to supervision.

Practical implications

The changing nature of doctoral provision is changing the role of the supervisor. This paper explores the relationship between a student and their supervisor. The outcome is that insights are provided into how the experience of doctoral supervision is reflected in the supervisory practices of the supervised.

Originality/value

The impact of the supervisor on the doctoral student's/graduate's subsequent approach to supervision can be mapped against previous research. Additional research is needed to identify the different styles of supervision practised, and how each style is valued within the academic community.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 56 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 June 2020

Habsah Muda, Zaharah Salwati Baba, Zainudin Awang, Natasha Shazleen Badrul, Nanthakumar Loganathan and Mass Hareeza Ali

The rationale for the postgraduate supervision measures for higher education by the call for universities to adopt a systematic practice in postgraduate supervision through new…

Abstract

Purpose

The rationale for the postgraduate supervision measures for higher education by the call for universities to adopt a systematic practice in postgraduate supervision through new supervisors' exposure to creative ways of monitoring. This paper aims at understanding, improving and validating the content of behavioral supervision measures using the expert review and pretesting analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors developed, modified and operationalized the items based on the developmental supervision theoretical concept by Glickman (1980) to measure the behavioral supervision of postgraduate in higher education. The authors obtain comments and verification from experts for content validity and criterion validity. Later, the authors do pretesting of face validity.

Findings

The result of the expert review and pretesting, analysis, provides measures (items) for the following seven stages (components) of postgraduate behavioral supervision: listening/clarifying; encouraging; presenting/demonstrating; negotiating/problem-solving; directing; standardizing and reinforcing.

Practical implications

The findings contribute to the rational development of supervision measures and functional transformation in the postgraduate supervision process in higher education at national and international contexts.

Social implications

These supervision measures, if practiced by the supervisors and postgraduates' students, will accelerate and achieve the aspiration initiative of the Ministry of Higher Education. In general, based on the needs identified, the positive impact of this study can improve national and international postgraduate program educational outcomes.

Originality/value

There is limited number of empirical research which resulted in postgraduate behavioral supervision measures in the context of higher education.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2005

Ernest Alan Buttery, Ewa Maria Richter and Walter Leal Filho

Purpose – To outline the role of the group supervision model in postgraduate training, especially its advantages in respect of research involving industry sponsors.

2724

Abstract

Purpose – To outline the role of the group supervision model in postgraduate training, especially its advantages in respect of research involving industry sponsors. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers the various categories of supervision and the pivotal role played by the supervisor. It analyses indicators of supervisor effectiveness in four major categories including supervisory style, the supervisor competence and supervisor characteristics and attitudes. Finally, it discusses how universities have worked on student attitudinal and skill problems through the provision of postgraduate training courses and changes to the supervisory system. A number of group supervisory practice models are described and the role and function of a supervisor are considered. Findings – The quality of postgraduate study is not purely a question of supervision methodology and motivation but hinges also, but not exclusively, on institutional admission procedures and policies, faculty/school administration policies as well as assistance and infra structure that is provided by faculty/school to supervisors and students, including financial assistance, access to child care, pastoral care, computing, library, office space, phone access, access to secretarial support, provision of research seminars and presentations, funding for library searches, conferences, travel, fieldwork, photocopying, and opportunities for casual work within the school. Research limitations/implications – The paper acknowledges that current supervision of postgraduate research students is deficient in many cases, but cannot provide, for ethical reasons, examples of bad practice. It does acknowledge that problems exist manifesting themselves in inadequate supervision, emotional and psychological problems in the student body, communication problems between supervisors and supervisees, knowledge deficiencies in the student body with the ultimate effect of late completions and low retention rates. Practical implications – The paper shows that universities must work towards improved linkages to ensure that they can take advantage of partnership opportunities. Originality/value – The paper has identified approaches to panel supervision and outlines the role of the industry partnership model. It is helpful to both students and supervisors trying should to determine under what research arrangement they conduct their research.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 May 2017

Amanda French and Alex Kendall

This paper aims to offer an innovative approach to reflecting on research and practice around doctoral study and supervision. In the opening section of the paper, the authors…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to offer an innovative approach to reflecting on research and practice around doctoral study and supervision. In the opening section of the paper, the authors discuss the idea that academic development as a doctoral candidate is concerned with how researchers write themselves into being as certain kinds of researchers, and how, in doing so, they become a character, like their supervisors, in the “figured world” of their research. This process of “becoming” can, the authors argue, be nurtured or hindered by different kinds of supervision practices.

Design/methodology/approach

With regard to the authors’ own experiences of doctoral supervision, the paper explores how their use of post-qualitative practices and methodologies encouraged new forms of intersubjectivity and academic development as their supervisory relationship advanced alongside the thesis itself.

Findings

The authors present the script of an ethnodrama (Saldana, 2111) which they wrote and performed on a number of occasions, as an alternative way of expressing their experiences of being in a relationship as doctoral supervisor and supervisor.

Research limitations/implications

This choice of ethnodrama emerged out of a frustration with what the authors felt were increasingly predictable ways of discussing and reflecting upon the philosophy, content and assessment methods of postgraduate research and supervision across the educational disciplines.

Originality/value

The authors hope that their exploration of the imaginative spaces created through doctoral supervision will encourage other postgraduates and their supervisors to experiment with working creatively across interdisciplinary spaces and creating radical and even risky ways of mediating and sharing postgraduate teaching and learning relationships.

Details

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-4686

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 January 2012

Margaret Zeegers and Deirdre Barron

The purpose of this paper is to focus on pedagogy as a crucial element in postgraduate research undertakings, implying active involvement of both student and supervisor in process…

1980

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to focus on pedagogy as a crucial element in postgraduate research undertakings, implying active involvement of both student and supervisor in process of teaching and learning.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on Australian higher degree research supervision practice to illustrate their argument, the authors take issue with reliance on traditional Oxbridge conventions as informing dominant practices of supervision of postgraduate research studies and suggest pedagogy as intentional and systematic intervention that acknowledges the problematic natures of relationships between teaching, learning, and knowledge production as integral to supervision and research studies.

Findings

The authors examine issues of discursive practice and the problematic nature of power differentials in supervisor‐supervisee relationships, and the taken‐for‐grantedness of discursive practice of such relationships. The authors do this from the perspective of the student involved in higher degree research programs, a departure from the bulk of the literature that has as its focus the perspective of the supervisor and/or the institution.

Originality/value

The paper examines the perspective of the student involved in higher degree research programs, a departure from the bulk of the literature that has as its focus the perspective of the supervisor and/or the institution.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1998

Zezhong Xiao and Venancio Tauringana

This paper reports the findings of a study of how new universities train research students in accounting and finance from a student perspective. The purpose is to provide evidence…

1167

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study of how new universities train research students in accounting and finance from a student perspective. The purpose is to provide evidence of the problems faced by the new universities in offering research degrees in accounting and finance, and how these problems are addressed. It was found that the new universities have made a major commitment to research students’ training since 1992. Financial incentives were offered to attract research students. Experienced supervisors were borrowed from other subject areas and established universities to make up for the internal shortage. Despite these efforts, students might suffer from a lack of an appropriate research culture and environment. Nearly half the students could not obtain advice from persons other than their supervisors, and more than half the number of students responding to the questionnaire did not take any formal research method course. The majority of the students found it relatively hard to surprise their supervisors by progress, to make their relationship with their supervisors amicable and enjoyable, to make a workable time schedule, and hard to obtain advice from non‐supervisors. They also expressed their wish for their supervisors to treat supervision as a higher priority, and be more knowledgeable and more available when needed.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2003

Pat Cryer and Peter Mertens

Two linked schemes have been developed to provide greater support for academics involved in the supervision of postgraduate students. One, the Training and Accreditation Programme…

1723

Abstract

Two linked schemes have been developed to provide greater support for academics involved in the supervision of postgraduate students. One, the Training and Accreditation Programme for Postgraduate Supervisors (TAPPS), was originally designed and developed at the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) in collaboration with BBSRC. The other is a Web gateway on research supervision. The schemes provide advice, a forum for peer group discussion, training in specific aspects of supervision, recognition (accreditation) for the role and contribution of the supervisor and annotated links to relevant information sources via the Web. Details are available on www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/TAPPS and www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/supervisor‐training. This paper explores the rationale for the existence of the schemes; considers their operation – first generally and then with respect to the PhD examination; presents evidence of benefits to academics and students; and concludes with an outlook on the futures of the schemes.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2003

Kuang‐Hsu Chiang

This paper compares the learning experiences of full‐time PhD students in 28 Education Departments and 31 Chemistry Departments in British universities. A questionnaire composed…

1579

Abstract

This paper compares the learning experiences of full‐time PhD students in 28 Education Departments and 31 Chemistry Departments in British universities. A questionnaire composed of two major dimensions of the learning experiences, supervision and research environment for doctoral students, was distributed to about 2,200 students. It is found that Chemistry departments are seen as offering better doctoral education as perceived by students than Education departments on most counts, especially regarding academic culture of facilitation, intercultural facilitation of research for foreign students and research facilities in research environment for doctoral students. Supervision is perceived to be more satisfactory in Chemistry than in Education especially in aspects of supervisor’s knowledge, supervisor’s research workload, supervisor’s student‐load and supervisor’s helpfulness in finding funding. A theoretical framework of the Teamwork and Individualist research training structures to discuss the possible causes of these findings is offered. It is proposed that disciplinary diversity in effectiveness of doctoral education is engendered by the two distinct research training structures.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 23 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Supervising Doctoral Candidates
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-051-3

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