Disentangling Power Relations in Postgraduate Supervision: A Decolonial Autoethnography of the Supervisor-student Relationship

This piece of work presents reflections of lessons learnt from a postgraduate supervision course, which is considered an educative process that any research supervisor requires. This type of journey can lead to the success of doctoral programs or mismanagement thereof in most universities, nationally or internationally. Looking back at the postgraduate supervision course attended, it can be described as a personal journey that is capable of addressing the challenges any novice research supervisor would encounter in the field of postgraduate research. The supervision course comprised of a group of 13 lecturers from the same institution coming from different specialist fields. The facilitator was from a different university from which this course was offered. This course was voluntary and it was done during own spare time. During the training session, each novice supervisor would detail how they moved through different stages from initial stage of accepting a student to a final stage where a student qualifies with doctoral qualification. Within group discussions, each one of novice supervisors would detail how they moved through the process of advising students, what worked for some and what did not work for others, thus learning in a process. The tensions surfaced in each other’s words, reflections and comprehensions of being thrown at the deep end by institution’s practices. Here follows the discussion on how issues of power relations, scholarly work and project management are crucial in postgraduate supervision project. On completion of the course, there was a realization that there is a need for supervisors to be taught how to supervise in order to do justice, to be ready for the task at hand and be confident in future about postgraduate supervision. In conclusion, the researcher highlights few lessons learnt and recommendations that could help supervisors who are operating in similar contexts to help improve postgraduate supervision in institutions of higher learning.

Although postgraduate supervision relies on effective communication, it has become increasingly challenging due to various factors, including the cultural, ethnic, and educational backgrounds of both the supervisors and supervisees. As a result, institutions of higher learning are struggling to attract and retain these students. In addition, students often feel frustrated by the pressure to balance their academic and social lives during their studies. Therefore, this study explores the impact of effective communication on postgraduate supervision in higher learning institutions in Lesotho and South Africa. The study adopts an interpretive paradigm and uses a qualitative approach rooted in a case study design. Face-to-face interviews were employed as the data collection tool, and latent thematic analysis was used to analyse emergent themes. The findings reveal several factors that hinder effective communication in postgraduate supervision, including cultural dominance, lack of mutual respect, insufficient training, and a lack of professionalism, among others. Based on these findings, the study recommends that experienced supervisors be assigned to students and that there be a focus on two-way communication and training to develop the necessary skills for a respectful supervisor-student relationship.

There is considerable research which supports the view that the student’s ability to complete a doctorate is often fraught with factors relating to the complexity of their professional, personal and community contexts. In increasingly pressured settings, the quality of postgraduate supervision is critical, as is supervisory training.In this article, I argue that some of the contextual difficulties experienced by supervisors and students could be addressed through the use of coaching principles and processes which help to open up conversations around selecting, reshaping and expanding ideas. These are the three aspects of Sternberg’s Triarchical Theory which includes contextual intelligence (Sternberg 1997).I draw on data from postgraduate and supervisor courses I have facilitated at a number of universities in South Africa. I am not attempting a thorough analysis of the data; instead, I am using it as a rationale to show how contextual influences on professional academic development may be more consciously addressed. I first outline some of the pedagogical principles of three coaching models and then give three examples of coaching tools I have used in courses for supervisors.

Research process involves personal and professional relationship between students and supervisors. Successful research can be achieved if sustainable supervisor-student relationship is attained along the research journey. It is supervisors’ role to challenge and extend their students abilities in all areas to ensure their success in research timely. In this case, students’ abilities or progress must be assessed and evaluated. Evaluation and assessment is thus very important for any research and educational process. This paper overview the use of different evaluation as well as assessment systems for postgraduate supervision. Different methods of supervision are also briefly overviewed. Group supervision is probably to be most reliable model practiced by several institutions to conduct research students due to increasing numbers or students as well as demanding from academic environment hold by supervisor including administration commitments.

Postgraduate supervision is most often perceived as a one-to-one relationship between an expert and a novice researcher. Even when working in groups, an instructional approach tends to dominate, where the supervisor(s) prescribe(s) the content and process, with a narrow focus on the outcome of degree completion, rather than a more holistic approach to the development of postgraduate scholars. At a time when curriculum transformation is high on the agenda of Higher Education, we problematise this traditional conceptualisation of postgraduate supervision and argue for a more participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) approach to postgraduate learning and development. PALAR creates a relational and reflective space for dialogical conversations, equalizing traditional power relations and democratising knowledge creation. This opens up the possibility for postgraduate candidates to perceive themselves as self-directed lifelong learners and collaborative action leaders, rather than just “students”. Using a case example of a postgraduate PALAR retreat, we thematically analyse the data generated from participant reflections, presented over three days in visual, oral and other creative forms. Findings reveal that this approach to postgraduate learning and development enhances critical thinking and promotes collaboration rather than competition. Participants are thus able to see themselves as developing scholars and action leaders within their specific fields of influence. Such outcomes are likely to provide a solid foundation for developing future academics or other professionals, able to model a holistic, participatory approach to knowledge creation in their own practice.

This paper focuses on discursive practices of postgraduate research as a crucial element in constructs of international student subjectivities when they undertake postgraduate studies in Australian universities. As such, it focuses on a discursive field emerging within domains of internationalisation, globalisation, and resistance. It examines processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities’ postgraduate divisions’ practices in the conduct of postgraduate supervision, in the context of increasing pressures towards internationalisation within frameworks of globalising influences. It takes issue with Western custom and tradition as privileged within the field of supervision of postgraduate research studies and suggests a model of postgraduate research supervision as intentional and systematic intervention, based on literature deriving from research in postgraduate supervision which acknowledges the problematic natures of cultural relationships as to teaching and learning and knowledge production, and student resistances within these fields. In doing so, it examines issues of discursive practices and the problematic natures of power relationships in supervisor-supervisee protocols and possibilities suggested by alternative models of postgraduate supervision of international students.

Global increases in the numbers of postgraduate students, their growing cultural diversity, and an emphasis on skill development and time to completion are accompanied by an increase in the numbers of supervisors and a professionalization of the training and development processes for both postgraduates and supervisors. Much research on supervision considers variations in practice from the perspective of the traditional functional, dyadic relationship. Other work considers power relations, research communities, and cultural diversity. This research focuses on ‘fields of tensions' in discipline culture, identified by supervisors and facilitators on a supervisor development program on which both authors have taught. The research makes use of data from participant assessment responses, or course papers, and focused interviews with participants. ‘Fields of tension' emerge in the design, actioning, and completion of the research project and in the shape and expression of the thesis, which we argue are inflected by the different disciplinary cultures in which supervisors and students locate research. Disciplinary differences and ‘fields of tension' also emerge in the perceptions of differences in supervision, expectations of roles, relationships, and balances of power in the supervisor-student relationship. This paper examines the cultural differences in academic disciplines and how this is reflected in the supervisory process. We suggest that open sharing and discussion of such disciplinary differences and ‘fields of tension' in supervisor development programs can enable vital, valuable, metacognitive awareness of supervision and research practices for supervisors and their students.