Postgraduate Supervisor Research Articles

Research on the Construction of High-level Postgraduate Tutors Team based on Reform of Scientific and Technological Management System

The postgraduate tutor is the key force of postgraduate training and the first responsible person of postgraduate training. The postgraduate tutor team is the key factor to ensure the quality of postgraduate education. In order to better respond to the challenges brought by the reform of the scientific and technological management system in the new era, grasp the opportunities brought by the new situation, analyze and sort out the current situation and problems of the college's tutor team, and explore the construction mechanism of high-level postgraduate supervisor team under the new situation.

Efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup in treating acute trachea-bronchitis with wind-heat invading lung syndrome: A randomized, double-blind, multicentre, controlled trial.

Children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup is an herbal preparation from a lifetime professor, famous old Chinese doctor, and postgraduate supervisor of medical doctor of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This herbal preparation promotes lung health, relieves cough, reduces phlegm, and benefits pharynx. To verify the clinical efficacy and safety of Zibei Xuanfei syrup for children in treatment of acute trachea bronchitis with wind-heat invading lung syndrome. This was an age-stratified, block randomized, double-blind, extremely low dose parallel control, multi-center clinical trial. A total of 453 pediatric patients diagnosed with acute tracheal bronchitis in Western medicine and cough due to exogenous factors with wind-heat invading lung syndrome in Chinese medicine were enrolled. They were divided into three subgroups based on age 1∼3, 4-7, and 8-14 years old, and randomly assigned to children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup and extremely low doses of children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup (control) in a 3:1 ratio. The primary outcome was the decreased values of cough Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score after 7 days of administration. Secondary outcomes included a decrease in cough VAS score after 3 and 5 days of the administration, and the total score of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) syndrome after 3, 5, and 7 days of treatment. The chest X-ray and blood C-reactive protein were examined during screening. The safety assessment included blood urine, and stool routine, liver and kidney function of laboratory tests, and an electrocardiogram at the screening and the last visit. The subjects of two groups had high administration adherence (completion over 80%) (299/323, 92.6% in children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup group vs 103/107, 96.3% in the control group; p>0.05). The children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup group was significantly better than the control group in the decreased values of cough VAS score after 7 days of administration(6.35±3.45 vs 3.73±3.98, p<0.001). The subgroup analysis of the decreased value of cough VAS scores aged 1-3 years old were 5.80±3.43 vs 3.75±4.38 (P=0.003), 4-7 years old was 6.30±3.69 vs 2.73±3.65 (P<0.001), and 8-14 years old were 6.91±3.12 vs 4.69±3.75(P=0.001)respectively. The secondary outcomes decrease values of cough VAS score of children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup group vs control group after 5 days of administration were 5.88±2.90 vs 3.55±3.41(P<0.001), after 3 days of administration were 3.61±2.53 vs 2.43±2.56 (P<0.001). The effective rate of the TCM symptom total score of children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup group vs control group was 91.38% vs 54.95%after 7 days of the administration, 86.93% vs 50.94% after 5 days of the administration, and 64.78% vs 40.19% after 3 days administration(each p<0.001). There was no significant difference in Adverse Event between the two groups (59/331, 17.82% vs 15/111, 13.51%, P>0.05). The children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup group had 5 Serious Adverse Events (incidence rate 1.21%), all of which were unrelated to the trial drug. Children's Zibei Xuanfei syrup appears to be extremely effective and safe in the treatment of acute trachea bronchitis with wind-heat invading lung syndrome. Future studies with large sample sizes will need to collect more safety data use for children.

The influence of benevolent leadership on knowledge sharing of postgraduate supervisor: A moderated mediating model.

In order to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions of the influence of benevolent leadership on knowledge sharing, we took postgraduate supervisor as participants and constructed a moderated mediating effect model. In this study, a total of 1,083 valid questionnaires were collected by questionnaire method and the confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and Hayes's PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data. The results show that benevolent leadership positively affects knowledge sharing. Creative self-efficacy mediates the relationship between benevolent leadership and knowledge sharing. Professional identity moderates the relationship between benevolent leadership and creative self-efficacy, when the professional identity is (M - 1 SD) and (M + 1 SD), the moderating effect is significant, while when the professional identity is (M), the moderating effect is not significant. Research stress moderates the relationship between creative self-efficacy and knowledge sharing, when research stress is (M - 1 SD), (M), and (M + 1 SD), the moderating effect is significant. Professional identity and research stress jointly moderated the mediating effect of creative self-efficacy. Professional identity moderated the first half path of the mediating model, while research stress moderated the second half path of the mediating model. When the level of professional identity is high and research stress is high, benevolent leadership has the greatest positive influence on knowledge sharing through creative self-efficacy. When the level of professional identity is low and research stress is high, benevolent leadership has the greatest negative influence on knowledge sharing through creative self-efficacy. This study enriches the relevant research on benevolent leadership and knowledge sharing, explores the conditions and factors that enhance or buffer benevolent leadership, and shows that the best effect can be achieved when the leadership behavior is consistent with the situational factors.

Editor’s Note – The Global Pacific: Coastal and Human Habitats

As a lecturer at Waipapa Temata Rau / University of Auckland, my primary purpose is to help students improve their written, spoken, and visual communication in academic and business contexts. This role is informed by my teaching and learning experiences in Tahiti, France, Japan, and New Zealand. I serve a range of communities within academia and am involved in editing Ekistics and the New Habitat, an international peer-reviewed journal presenting research into the problems and solutions of human settlements. Through my research portfolio, I seek to understand the ways that intercultural experience influences the representation of other cultures, and how the experience of writing and art making leads to self-knowledge and identity construction. This research informs my contribution to Asian Studies and Comparative Literature, as a course coordinator, guest lecturer, and postgraduate supervisor.

Illuminating the transitional habitus of the early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisor.

BackgroundEarly career health science professionals often find themselves in a transitional space when moving from a health science professional role to academia. The role of a postgraduate supervisor is especially troublesome. Transitional spaces often bring uncertainty and perceived or real threats, fear, worry, anxiety and stress. Without support, the result could be detrimental to the mental health of the early career as postgraduate supervisors, thereby impacting their professional identity formation.AimTo understand the underlying elements that shaped the early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors’ habitus and how these features play out in their postgraduate supervision practice.SettingThe research study was carried out at an Open and Distance e-Learning University (ODeL) and a residential university.MethodsVisual elicitation methods in the form of seven drawings were used as data. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and hexis were used as a theoretical lens, and structural analysis with analytical memoing was used to interrogate the drawings.ResultsEarly career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors’ bodily habitus presented as fragmented or yet to be formed along with other entanglements, such as emotions, language, power and material arrangements.ConclusionThese features enable policymakers, employee assistance practitioners, educational developers and experienced academics to consider the changes and structural forces that need to be addressed to support early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors.ContributionA creative means of exploring the inner world of the early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors is undertaken. In doing so, the research article potentially illuminates what has up to now been ‘unsaid’.

The Influence of Leaders’ Positive and Implicit Followership Theory of University Scientific Research Teams on Individual Creativity: the Mediating Effect of Individual Self-Cognition and the Moderating Effect of Proactive Personality

Leaders’ positive and implicit followership theory (LPIFT) in a university scientific research team influences innovation in university scientific research. Individual creativity is an important aspect of innovation in university scientific research. However, the influence mechanism of LPIFT of a university scientific research team on individual creativity remains unclear. Based on social cognitive theory and the input–process–output (IPO) theoretical model, we selected a postgraduate supervisor and postgraduates of a university scientific research team as the research objects. We explored the influence between LPIFT of a university scientific research team leader and individual creativity using a questionnaire. A total of 413 valid paired samples were collected from the postgraduate and postgraduate supervisor. We drew the following conclusions: LPIFT of the university scientific research team had a direct positive effect on individual creativity. Individual creative role identity, individual creative self-efficacy, and individual willingness to create knowledge had completely mediating effects on the relationship between LPIFT of the university scientific research team and individual creativity. Proactive personality positively moderated the relationship between LPIFT of the university scientific research team and individual creative role identity, as well as LPIFT of the university scientific research team and individual creative self-efficacy. Proactive personality also positively moderated the mediating effect of individual creative role identity and individual creative self-efficacy. However, the moderating effect of proactive personality between LPIFT of university research teams and individual willingness to create knowledge was not significant. Proactive personality also did not positively moderate the mediating effect of individual willingness to create knowledge.

A multi-level researcher development framework to address contrasting views of student research challenges

Ensuring quality and completion of students’ research places pressure on postgraduate supervisors. Postgraduate students’ primary interest in theoretical and practical knowledge rather than research, influences the completion of qualifications. Student research challenges were explored using an Interactive Qualitative Analysis research design. Through conducting student and supervisor focus groups and individual interviews, issues emerged related to educational input, support and identity development. There were differences in the perspectives of student and supervisor indicating that students are less dependent on supervisors than supervisors thought they were. Supervisors indicated support strategies, such as an awareness of learning styles, adaptive support and strengthening researcher identity. Researcher development needs to take place on multiple levels to enhance quality and relieve pressure on the postgraduate supervisor in changing educational contexts.

Supervisor types: which one is your match?

The relationship with your postgraduate supervisor is one of the most important ones you will have and will be one of the major determinants in the success of your studies.1 It is essential that you both communicate well to build a good relationship to become a successful team.2

The Postgraduate Supervisor Under Scrutiny: An Autoethnographic Inquiry

Effective postgraduate supervision is a critical indicator of individual scholarship and institutional reputation. This paper uses autoethnography to scrutinize critical moments in the author’s enactment of the supervisory role over a lengthy career at a distance education university, where supervision takes place through face-to-face consultation, distance education, or a combination of both modes. Autoethnography, an innovative addition to the compendium of qualitative research methods, is gaining prominence as a means of examining the academic life through the personal and professional histories of individual academics. The author’s aim is to focus both inward on the vulnerable self as expressed in the role of academic supervisor and outward on the social and cultural aspects of this role as it is shaped within the context of the university. This has been done by constructing a text with a high degree of self-reflexivity, which combines evocative and literary elements with some explicit theorizing around generativity theory. Generativity is defined as an adult’s concern for and commitment to promoting the well-being of the next generation, in this case, the intellectual well-being of future cohorts of scholars. Against the framework of generativity, a series of autobiographical vignettes illustrate self-defining moments in the author’s development as supervisor. The role of memory and memory supports in producing an accurate story and measures taken to interact with the characters in the stories to enhance textual credibility are addressed. The vignettes illustrate the desire to conduct supervision as a generative act; cultural demand for generativity; the transmission of a personal aesthetic in supervision; the separation-individuation of the student; the redemption of generative commitment in the face of threats to generativity; and the perpetuation of the generative cycle. I conclude that autoethnography as method presents a useful route to both self-understanding and social understanding of the academic life, with particular reference to the role of postgraduate supervisor.

A Bourdieusian perspective on becoming and being a postgraduate supervisor: the role of capital

The objective of this paper is to map the role of capital in the process of learning to become a postgraduate supervisor. Economic, technological and geopolitical changes in higher education call into question previous assumptions about supervision. Supervision is no longer primarily seen as an intellectual and social enterprise but is increasingly seen as professional work, where one's capital (or lack of) shapes the process of being and becoming a supervisor. It is frequently assumed that the students are the only ones learning in a supervisory relationship. Novice supervisors are, however, often left to their own devices to discover or learn the inherent rules, epistemologies and ontologies in becoming and being supervisors through a process of compromise and negotiation. In this article, we specifically focus on the need for novice supervisors to understand and navigate the field, and plot their career trajectories, as a constant exchange of different aspects of capital. This article is conceptual, rather than empirical. We suggest that it may be helpful to understand the field of supervision in a Bourdieusian sense, with specific reference to the role of (academic) capital in the formative processes of becoming and being a supervisor. We discuss social capital, gender and race, age, values, beliefs and experiences, as well as linguistic abilities, as factors influencing the individual habitus of the supervisor in relation to the doxa of the field.

“I am what I am Not”- Reflections of the Re-Construction of My Identity as a Novice Postgraduate Supervisor At A University Of Technology In South Africa

The overall aim of this paper is to explore my experiences as a novice postgraduate supervisor through the process of reflection. This study adopts a qualitative approach and uses self-reflection as a method of enquiry by reflecting and documenting personal experiences and practices of postgraduate supervision. The findings are analysed so as to give meaning and to make sense of the supervision process. The results reflect that the journey of postgraduate supervision, in part, has not only resulted in the development of the student, but has also resulted in the academic journey of development of myself. This process has entailed the re-establishment of my academic identity of working within a redefined context of a University of Technology (UoT). Whereas, in the past my key role at a Technikon was undergraduate study only, I have had to reconstruct and re-negotiate my identity to integrate the scholarship of research, which has to an extent, contributed positively to my professional development. Based on these findings I suggest that, to add credence to the supervisory process and to the novice supervisors experiences, a postgraduate supervision module is introduced as a core study module for all first-time supervisors before they embark on their journey of supervision. This process could possibly assist the novice researcher to re-negotiate an identity for possible inclusion into the broader academic community and to build supervision capacity at the newly established UoT’s in South Africa. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1360

Supervisory needs of research doctoral students in a university teaching hospital setting

Teaching hospitals affiliated with universities are now common sites for research higher degree supervision. We hypothesised that the hospital environment poses unique challenges to supervision compared with the traditional university research institute setting. This study aimed to identify and rank important supervision issues in a clinical setting from the students' perspective. Using the Delphi method to explore issues and facilitate consensus, small group discussions were conducted with 10 research doctoral students from a tertiary teaching hospital. We identified supervision issues that are unique to the hospital-based context. These include the demands placed on supervisors combining clinical and supervisory roles, the challenges of academic medical/scientific writing and career issues for students who are already established in their professions. Other issues identified, common to all doctoral students, include differing expectations between students and supervisors (with students wanting support for their career plans, training in research skills and increasing autonomy and responsibility), supervisor access, quality and frequency of meetings, lack of training in writing and dealing with conflicts. Our research identified that postgraduate students of supervisors who combine clinical and supervisory roles report significant issues with supervision, some of which are unique to the clinical setting. Clinician researchers who supervise postgraduate students need to balance clinical and supervisory responsibilities, identify and negotiate student expectations early in candidature and provide career counselling to students who are already highly experienced. Furthermore, clinician supervisors should undertake postgraduate supervisor training programme tailored to the hospital setting to better support their students.

Giving thanks: the relational context of gratitude in postgraduate supervision

Successful postgraduate supervision is often dependent upon the quality of the relationship between postgraduates and their supervisors. This article reports on two studies that focus on grateful affect and grateful expression within low‐ and high‐trust postgraduate–supervisor working relationships. In Study 1, a sample of Canadian postgraduates and supervisors was interviewed to explore the consequences of expressed gratitude and identify supervisory behaviors for which postgraduates are grateful. In Study 2, a sample of Australian postgraduates was surveyed. Results showed that perceptions of supervisors’ altruism and the perceived value of supervisors’ behaviors were positively related to the grateful affect felt by postgraduates in low‐trust working relationships. In contrast, perceptions of supervisors’ altruism and the perceived value of supervisors’ behaviors were not related to grateful affect in high‐trust working relationships. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Tips for the Postgraduate Supervisor: Integrating Ethics with Research Supervision

Tips for the Postgraduate Supervisor: Integrating Ethics with Research Supervision

Mentoring and research supervision in music education: Perspectives of Chinese postgraduate students

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that the number of students studying outside their own country would be over 20 million by 2030. Chinese students have increasingly formed a large percentage of international students at universities across the English-speaking world, and the Chinese demand for transnational education is estimated to grow by 15 percent annually (CEDA, 2005). This paper reviews the literature and examines the key issues underpinning good practices in postgraduate supervision. In the context of music education, it emphasizes the importance of mentoring in postgraduate supervision supported by the perspectives of Chinese students surveyed regarding the roles and relationships between postgraduate supervisor and supervisee. The implications for research supervisors of Chinese students are discussed with recommendations for good mentoring practice in the field of music education.

Supervisor and Self-Ratings of Graduates From a Medical School With a Problem-Based Learning and Standard Curriculum Track

Background: Medical schools recognize the importance of following up on graduates to evaluate performance during residency. Such performance is of particular interest for schools with problem-based learning (PBL) and conventional curriculum tracks. Purposes: Our purposes were to determine any differences in ratings of resident performance in 3 competency areas compared across two different curriculum tracks, 1st and 3rd postgraduate years, and self versus supervisor. Methods: Performance ratings by residents and their supervisors for the 9 years during which 2 curriculum tracks were operative were analyzed using t tests. Effect sizes for statistically significant results were calculated. Results: Several comparisons found differences, although effect sizes were almost uniformly small. The exception was the rating of self-directed learning habits, in which graduates from the problem-based track rated themselves higher than graduates from the standard curriculum (both Years 1 and 3) and higher than their supervisors in Year 3. Conclusions: Ratings by supervisors for both groups and both rating times are above average in the rating scale. Supervisors differentiated between the curricula tracks in postgraduate year 3 (PGY-3), rating Standard Curriculum graduates higher than PBL graduates in 5 of 6 noncognitive items and in two of three general ratings. Supervisor ratings increased between PGY-1 and PGY-3 for Standard Curriculum graduates in 9 of the competencies, whereas there were no changes for PBL graduates. In conclusion, performance differences and effect sizes are minimal, and it is possible to conclude that graduates from the 2 curricular tracks achieve at similar levels during their residency programs.

Computer Facilitated Reflective Practice in a Postgraduate Supervisor’s Feedback to Students

Reflective practice has been adopted by many teachers, including dissertation advisors who provide 1:1 teaching of research students. This paper discusses issues arising from our use of qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) for reflective practice and provides an analysis of the thematic coding and word/pattern searches of feedback given to postgraduate research students. We subjected written feedback provided by one dissertation advisor to three different analyses: thematic, text-string and text-pattern search. We found that use of QDAS in a thematic analysis of feedback provides new insights by indicating areas of strength and areas for improvement. Text and pattern searches are more useful in flagging students with specific learning issues.

Making strange with bold moves - what next for student, supervisor and examiner? Or, No Blueprint: Assessing the (creative) exegesis

In this paper I examine creative practice - the act of ‘practical consciousness’ that can ‘take many forms’ (Williams 1977; cited Pope 2005: 11) - when plied by the honours or postgraduate student writing an exegesis to accompany a creative artefact. The exegesis can be seen as a ‘re…creation’ (Pope 2005: 84), a potentially disturbing, unnerving performance culminating in a something re-fashioned, re-made, or newly made, and perhaps madly different. I find students are seeking to take their work (perhaps fictocritical, fictoautobiographical, autopoetic, autoethnographic) into shapes and forms that re…create or make the ‘next work’ (Williams’ term). I ask ‘How do we encourage such work? How do we prepare students for such bold moves as readers and writers?’ The focus in this paper first will be on teaching processes and curriculum design that see reading as creative, and writing as both critical and creative, in which innovation through intervention in a text and ‘making strange’ prompts ‘practices of making, connecting and risking’ (Saunders 1987, cited Pope 2005: 81). However, when the work has the mark of autopoiesis-self-creation, self-discovery - as central to the exegetical work, then as a postgraduate supervisor I ask, ‘How does one supervise, read and assess such work?’ This then is the second area of exploration in the paper. For student and supervisor the writing of the exegesis is a journey as much to do with content as with subjectivities, with working with disciplinary knowledge as with self and life experience, and with presenting the known (what the student has read and absorbed) alongside the newly discovered (and perhaps riskily presented). The possibilities for the exegesis as creative practice are many. How such work is supported and received is worthy of continued discussion.

More than a confessional: postmodern groupwork to support postgraduate supervisors' professional development

Academics are experiencing pressures related to accountability and appraisal, excellence, effectiveness and efficiency. These pressures can intensify when the role of postgraduate supervisor is added to an already crowded professional and personal life. Although support and discussion groups for supervisors have been used in professional development programmes, merely ‘confessing’ concerns and inadequacies has limited value. Supervisors need processes that enable them to explore and analyse the complexity of the postgraduate experience. The postmodern, narrative approach to groupwork outlined in this paper—the story-dialogue approach—invites supervisors to examine the metaphors and myths that surround the postgraduate research experience. Story-dialogue groupwork opens to supervisors the possibility for change in their professional practice through greater depth of understanding of the postgraduate experience and the supervisory relationship in that context. It moves the focus of professional development programmes from training to reflective practice.

Sexual Difference and Collective Identities: The New Global Constellation

L'A. etudie la relation entre identite sexuelle et identite collective dans le contexte actuel de la globalisation. Il decrit de quelle maniere le post-modernisme envisage la notion de sujet. Il compare l'approche narrative de la construction identitaire imaginee par Virginia Woolf dans son roman «Orlando» et celle defendue par Charles Taylor dans son ouvrage «Sources of the Self». Il denonce les limites de la narration en ce domaine. Il propose une approche psychanalytique feministe du moi. Il examine l'influence des facteurs politiques et collectifs sur la formation identitaire et subjective. Il presente la theorie du sujet elaboree par Jessica Benjamin. Il s'interroge quant au role de la perspective feministe face au developpement de l'intolerance et de la xenophobie dans le monde actuel.