Master's students' perceptions of final year project supervision

Abstract

Despite existing supervisory training programmes, inappropriate supervisor behaviour is still being reported in the literature, indicating that supervision is a process that involves a complex interpersonal relationship between the supervisor and the supervisee. Literature on the experiences and perspectives of masters students on supervision is lagging. During the pandemic lockdown in 2020, the work condition of all academics and students changed considerably with a sudden move to online teaching and learning, including project supervision. This paper presents a study that compared on-campus face-to-face (summer 2019) and online (summer 2020) students’ (n=133) perceptions of the supervision they received during their final master project. An independent-samples t-test result showed that there was a statistically significant difference in their perceptions. Online students had more positive perceptions than on-campus face-to-face students. They appreciated the academic support they received the most while on-campus students mainly referred to the pastoral aspect of supervision. Future work should investigate supervisors’ perceptions of online supervision.