Feedback as a balancing act: Qualitative insights from an experienced multi-cultural sample of doctoral supervisors in nursing

Abstract

AimTo better understand the views and experiences of experienced doctoral supervisors in nursing when providing feedback and critique to nursing doctoral students. Background: Feedback refers to information from a provider, intended to inform a receiver about the quality of their work in order for them to be able to see where improvements might occur and to signpost issues to be carried into future work. Feedback, particularly on student writing is central to successful doctoral supervision and is time consuming and labour-intensive for supervisors. Design: Qualitative. Methods: Following ethics approval and informed consent procedures, we gathered 962 min of interview data over a six-week period from 21 participants in four countries. During conversational-style interviews, participants shared their experiences of supervisionand elucidated on their experiences of providing feedback to doctoral students. Data were thematically analysed. Findings: Participants had more than 400 combined doctoral completions. As supervisors, participants aimed to strike a balance between helpful and empowering comments that motivated students to approach their work with renewed vigour and enthusiasm; and those that had the opposite effect of crushing and demoralising the student. ‘Feedback as a balancing act’ comprised four contributing themes with sub-themes. Findings reveal that feedback on student writing can remain a challenge for the duration of candidature. However, writing is an essential aspect of doctoral studies. It is through supervision that new nursing scholars are tutored and coached into the practices essential to creating disciplinary knowledge through writing. Our sample was drawn from multiple countries and included perspectives from various cultures. Despite the variation in countries and cultures, there was little variation in issues around feedback with all participants striving to provide clear, respectful feedback aimed at developing students and enhancing their skills. Conclusions: Supervision of doctoral student frequently involves working internationally and what while our sample was drawn from multiple countries and cultural perspectives, there was little variation in issues around provision of feedback to doctoral students. When considering feedback, our findings emphasise the importance of recognising feedback as a crucial educative process and one that is central to the production of a doctoral thesis. We argue that there is a need for nursing to move to developing and articulating meaningful and inclusive pedagogies of writing and doctoral supervision. We recommend universities support the development of such pedagogies and ensure that academic staff engaging in supervision are supported with the appropriate knowledge and skills to be optimally effective.