Postgraduate Supervisors Research Articles

Being the supervisor: A duo-ethnographic exploration of social justice in postgraduate health professions education.

There is growing global awareness of the importance of matters of equity and social justice. In health professions education (HPE), research has focused at undergraduate level and on health sciences curricula. Increasingly, health care professionals engage in HPE Master's and doctoral studies, where they are educated as curriculum designers and 'producers' of knowledge through their research. Considering their role in shaping what (and how it) is taught in health sciences curricula, questions can be asked about the extent to which postgraduate pedagogies are mindful of matters of social justice. As supervisors of postgraduate HPE students and as directors of such programmes, we interrogated and juxtaposed our perspectives on social justice and how these perspectives influence our postgraduate HPE supervisory and directing practices in our respective contexts. Utilising a duo-ethnographic approach, in which we each represented a site of enquiry, we generated data through written reflections and dialogic engagement framed around research questions about (1) our understanding of social justice, (2) how this influenced our practices as postgraduate supervisors and (3) how this influenced our practices and policies as directors of postgraduate studies. We recorded and transcribed our data generation meetings. Based on open coding of the transcriptions and written reflections, we constructed a conversation around our research questions. We integrated our reflexive journals in the conversation. Our conversations were characterised by three sets of ideas involving the terminology around social justice, the complex nature of social justice, and the individual and social justice. These played out differently in our contexts, but they caution both of us against assumptions and encourage us to create time for conversations with our students, to consider what we 'teach' them, how we guide them and how we avoid gatekeeping their entry into the disciplinary space.

Learning Sustainability: Post-Graduate Students’ Perceptions on the Use of Social Media Platforms to Enhance Academic Writing

Academic writing is a vital element in any post-graduate study. Therefore, it is crucial to harness all the tools and capabilities available to serve this purpose. These capabilities include the digital tools that characterize the current era. This paper aims to explore post-graduate students’ perceptions of the use of social media platforms to enhance academic writing during the COVID-19 pandemic who are enrolled in the Master of Educational Technology in our institution, Saudi Arabia. The study followed a qualitative research methodology and used semi-structured interviews with ten students to gather data. Thematic analysis was applied. The results showed that post-graduate students value the role of the use of social media platforms in enhancing their academic writing. The findings also showed the advantages, disadvantages, and obstacles of the use of social media platforms in enhancing their academic writing. The implications of this study can inform post-graduate supervisors to reconsider the benefits of social media platforms as high-value communication tools in enhancing the skills of academic writing. Thus, they may adopt, employ, and blend them with traditional methods of communication in their efforts to develop their students’ academic writing skills. Using social media platforms for learning academic writing during the COVID-19 pandemic may mirror the fourth goal of sustainable development. The implications of the study over post-pandemic postgraduate education have been discussed.

Key factors contributing to postgraduate students’ success: Making a case for Coronavirus-19 and beyond

Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic caused major disruptions to the education sector, with detrimental effects on the supervision of postgraduate students and their success. Higher education institutions (HEIs) shut down to observe COVID-19 protocols and minimise the spread of the virus. University closures forced postgraduate-supervision processes to be conducted online, resulting in students experiencing many challenges, such as, loss of social networks and social interaction, lack of access to university computer laboratories and software, inability to collect face-to-face data, and wellness and mental problems. Whereas abundant research exists on COVID-19, little is known about factors that contributed to postgraduate students’ success during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative case study reports on the factors that promoted student success during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of 23 postgraduate students. Data were collected through an online questionnaire and analysed through colour-coding and thematic categorisation. Results revealed that both students and supervisors contributed to the success of postgraduate students. They also showed that some students possessed certain attributes that enhanced their success, as well as that some postgraduate supervisors employed novel approaches to students’ supervision that promoted students’ success. This article encourages HEIs to leverage these factors to promote postgraduate student success beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

What Was It like to Learn or Teach in the Health Professions during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Sombre and Tough: A Duoethnography

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic proved challenging for people working and teaching in the health professions. What was it like to learn or teach in the health professions during the pandemic? What challenges were experienced, and how were these navigated? We undertook duoethnography to provide answers to these questions. The authors are an endodontist from Chile who undertook her Master of Clinical Education in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic and one of her postgraduate supervisors. A dataset of 40 photo-reflection dyads and duoethnographic text are presented. We experienced this pandemic as isolating, sombre and tough, albeit for different reasons. Managing relationships and family needs from a distance or in the same space in which work was to occur proved difficult. Postgraduate research was slowed. The educator workload was significantly increased, especially for the first six months of the pandemic, whereby she was tasked with rapidly creating a lot of online virtual learning material. We draw on Emotional Labour theory to make sense of these experiences. Support for clinical educators during pandemics should cater to situational contexts. We recommend Communities of Practice, psychological supports, acts of care (including self-care), wellbeing initiatives, and arts-based practice as potential mechanisms to support educators and learners.

The Need For The Development Of Emerging Postgraduate Supervisors

The demand for more doctoral education puts pressure on universities to increase the number of academics with doctoral degrees who can supervise the next generation of researchers. The Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF, 2013) indicates that being able to supervise is one of the outcomes of attaining a doctorate. Still, this study found this to be rarely the case. The study participants often took on the supervision role before they felt that their capacity had been sufficiently developed. Although emerging supervisors have been supervised during their doctoral journey, their new role may still be daunting. This study aims to provide evidence for institutions and academic developers to develop and support emerging supervisors. The qualitative study employs critical realism as an underlabourer and uses Margaret Archer's (1995) social realist framework to account for the interplay between structure, culture, and agency. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 54 participants from 20 South African institutions. The key finding is that supervisors were thrown into the deep end and relied on trial and error. They also had to supervise from experience while faced with high teaching workloads.

The evaluation of online Modified Objective Structured Examination (MOSE) as postgraduate admissions re-examination: A report from Fujian Medical University, China.

This paper aims to explore the successful implementation of online postgraduate admissions re-examination in China, specifically focusing on the Modified Objective Structured Examination (MOSE). It introduced the specific practice of the online postgraduate admissions re-examination in China and investigated the perceptions of applicants, postgraduate supervisors and admissions staffs about the online MOSE re-examination. Surveys were administrated 3 years after the implementation of online MOSE postgraduate admissions re-examination in China. Separate surveys were conducted with applicants, postgraduate supervisors, and admissions staff members to gather their opinions and suggestions regarding the online MOSE re-examination. A total of 65 applicants, 43 postgraduate supervisors and seven admissions staff members completed the surveys. Over 80% of the applicants agreed that the online MOSE comprehensively evaluated their medical humanities, communication, medical knowledge, and overall competence. Furthermore, 89.30% of postgraduate supervisors believed that the students recruited through online MOSE were either "not significantly different," "better," or "much better" compared to those recruited through on-site re-examination. Admissions staff members also expressed a favorable view of online MOSE re-examination. The online MOSE re-examination is an effective, convenient, and affirmative evaluation method for postgraduate admissions re-examination.

Exploring the prospects for professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho

The higher education developments are gradually enabling the re-conceptualisation of postgraduate research supervision as a teaching and learning practice. This re-conceptualisation has also led to the recognition that postgraduate research supervisors need to be appropriately capacitated so that they can master the supervisory craft. This study sought to explore the prospects for professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho, by examining supervisor’s experiences in their trajectories in learning how to become supervisors and to identify their further professional development. Fifteen supervisors took part in the study. Nine (three associate professors and six senior lecturers) were interviewed through semi-structured interviews while six junior lecturers were interviewed through a focus group interview. The findings revealed that while most supervisors relied mainly on the way they were supervised, they also value the experiential learning accrued in their trajectories as supervisors. Hence the study highlights issues for consideration in advancing professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho

Covid-19 as a Catalyst for Strengthening Research Practice in BRICS’ Universities

South Africa’s National Development Plan 2030 (National Planning Commission, 2012) argues that there must be a simultaneous focus on research and teaching for South African universities to advance knowledge and society. However, since the dawn of COVID-19, most research focuses on teaching, leaving unattended research about doing and philosophising about research practice. Therefore, this paper rethinks ways of thinking and researching for postgraduate students who are based in South Africa’s (SA’s) historically disadvantaged institutions of higher learning. It proposes how the COVID-19 should bring about a paradigm shift in research methodologies and research practice, including the necessary supervision support for students. This social constructivist paper draws on the reflections of two postgraduate supervisors, and further reflects on broader paradigmatic issues within research. This paper relies strongly on the experiences of the authors as a primary source and also conceptually harvested from the existing literature. The autobiographic element study allows the researchers to explore the intersection between themselves and the subject they are studying, permitting the reader to understand this intersection and reflect on their own experiences (Given, 2008). There are two main arguments in this paper; 1) A call for re-centring the ethics of care and ethics of social responsibility as premises from which all research should start. This can be done by reflecting and exploring the first-hand experiences of those who are in Historically Disadvantaged Institutions (HDIs). 2) It is a call for equitable distribution of resources across BRICS universities, focusing primarily on the improvement of the HDIs which is consistent with BRICS’ multilateral developmental agenda.

Biblical Languages: Challenges for postgraduate supervision in Old and New Testament Studies

In South Africa and in many other countries in Africa and around the globe, the demand for more Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidates has increased. With such a demand, a number of challenges also arise. In the discipline of Theology, these challenges are becoming apparent in Old and New Testament Studies, where these fields are experiencing a declining number of students enrolling for biblical languages. This problem is enhanced as the current inherent requirement to study for a PhD in Old Testament is that one must have a knowledge of Biblical Hebrew (and Aramaic), and for New Testament, one needs Greek at an advanced level. Supervisors are challenged more and more to defend these requirements that are complicated by the developmental goals of institutions that require that the number of PhD candidates be increased. In this article, the challenges faced by PhD supervisors (and candidates) in respect of students wanting to enrol for PhDs in Old and New Testament without the necessary requirements are considered, and a case is made as to why it is essential that these students have a background in biblical languages. If students do not take the biblical languages as part of their (undergraduate) studies, immediate concerns for the future of Old and New Testament research and biblical translations (and ministry) are raised. The article concludes with possible suggestions for addressing some of these concerns.Contribution: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution based on current challenges experienced in the education and supervision of postgraduate studies in the fields of Old Testament and New Testament and on the development and training of postgraduate supervisors in practical education as to contribute to the relevance and practice of theological education today and the future.

Research on the Mechanism of Training Innovation Ability for Chinese Postgraduates

Training postgraduate students’ innovation ability is an important task of graduate education. The article elaborates on the innovation ability of postgraduate students from three aspects: innovation awareness, innovative thinking and innovative skills. It deeply analyses the problems in the innovation training system of postgraduate students, such as insufficient innovation ability of postgraduates for themselves, insufficient guidance from postgraduate supervisors, incomplete talent training plans, and insufficient scientific research and practical abilities. Finally, a mechanism system for cultivating the innovation ability of Chinese graduate students is established from the aspects of creating a good institutional environment, highlighting the mechanism of postgraduates as the main part, improving the responsibility mechanism of postgraduate supervisors, improving the teaching mechanism of postgraduate education, constructing the evaluation mechanism of postgraduate education, and improving the innovation practice mechanism of postgraduates.

Identifying Improvements in Teaching and Learning via Supervision Support: A Pragmatic Perspective

This article scrutinizes the professional support provided to teachers by supervisors to improve the teaching-learning process within the dimensions of learning behaviours and learning assessment in Ethiopian primary schools. The study employs a mixed-methods research design. The questionnaires were responded to by 382 in-service postgraduate diploma primary school principals and supervisors in the Educational Leadership and Management Department at Hawassa University. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 12 senior principals and supervisors. The results illustrate critical gaps in the supervision support to teachers for the improvement of learning behaviours and learning assessment. The study suggests that support-oriented supervision could play a significant role in assisting and improving the teaching and learning process. Hence, regional and federal governments should work together with development partners to enhance the competency of supervisory staff to provide enabling support to teachers and thus improve the quality of the teaching and learning processes in Ethiopian schools.

Replace, amplify, transform: a qualitative study of how postgraduate trainees and supervisors experience and use telehealth for instruction in ambulatory patient care

BackgroundLittle is known about using telehealth patient visits as an educational mode. Therefore, rapid implementation of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic had to be done without understanding how to optimize telehealth for education. With the likely sustained/post-pandemic use of telehealth in ambulatory patient care, filling gaps in our understanding of how telehealth can be used for instruction in this context is critical. This study sought to understand perceptions of pediatric postgraduate trainees and supervisors on the use of telehealth for instruction in ambulatory settings with the goal of identifying effective ways to enhance learning during telehealth visits.MethodsIn May–June of 2020, the authors purposefully sampled first- and third-year postgraduate trainees and supervising attendings from pediatric fellowship programs at one institution that implemented telehealth for instructional activities. They conducted semi-structured interviews; interviews lasted a median of 51 min (trainees) and 41 min (supervisors). They conducted interviews and data analysis iteratively until reaching saturation. Using thematic analysis, they created codes and constructed themes from coded data. They organized themes using the Replace-Amplify-Transform (RAT) model, which proposes that technology can replace in-person learning and/or amplify and transform learning.ResultsFirst-year trainees (n = 6), third-year trainees (n = 5) and supervisors (n = 6) initially used telehealth to replace in-person learning. However, skills that could be practiced in telehealth visits differed from in-person visits and instructional activities felt rushed or awkward. Trainees and supervisors adapted and used telehealth to amplify learning by enhancing observation and autonomy. They also transformed learning, using telehealth to develop novel skills.ConclusionsTo harness telehealth for instructional activities, our findings indicated that trainees and supervisors should shift from using it as a direct replacement for in-person education to taking advantage of novel opportunities to amplify and transform education in PGME. The authors provide data-driven recommendations to help PGME trainees, supervisors and educators capitalize on the educational advantages of telehealth.

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’.

Relationships, power and accountability: Reflections on transformative postgraduate supervision workshops at a South African University School of Public Health, 2014-2020

ABSTRACT Given South Africa’s colonial and apartheid past, postgraduate supervisors are encouraged to explore decolonial and socially just ways of supervision. I draw on Freire’s adult education theory and Hackman’s tools of social justice education to reflect on transformative supervision workshops held at a South African university School of Public Health. Combining formal and informal evaluation, postgraduate students reported that the workshops facilitated collegiality and supportive relationships; contributed to their personal and professional empowerment; and enhanced individual and peer accountability. The participatory workshops have facilitated the decentring of power from the supervisor. Postgraduate students have realised their own power and that of the collective to inspire, assist or effect change. The workshops have embraced decolonial pedagogy by demonstrating that postgraduate supervision can be done in a collegial and empowering group setting, valorising different forms of knowledge, encouraging diverse approaches to self-reflection, and highlighting the power of mutual and multi-directional learning.

Perceived Postgraduate Research Supervisory Practices and Satisfaction towards Supervision among Supervisees at Faculty of Education

Effective supervision received by postgraduate students boosts their motivation to produce a high quality research. This paper looks at the perceived postgraduate research supervisory practices and satisfaction towards supervision among supervisees at Faculty of Education in a Malaysian public university. Data was collected through a questionnaire on the sample of 45 Part 3 full-time Master’s degree (Coursework) students. However, only 33 sets of questionnaires were returned to the researchers (response rate=94.3%). It was found that most supervisees perceived that their dissertation supervisors have continually applied various supervisory practices during the supervision session and they were very satisfied with the supervision that they have received. Furthermore, there was a positive, strong, and significant relationship between the perceived supervisory practices and supervisees’ satisfaction. Nevertheless, there were no significant differences between perceived supervisory practices and courses, as well as between perceived supervisory practices and frequency of meeting. As for the implications of this study, it contributes to the corpus of knowledge in the area of postgraduate supervision in local higher education institution context and provides empirical data to assist the Ministry of Education in conducting strategic planning to enhance implementation of effective supervisory practices among postgraduate research supervisors.

Students’ Perspectives of Postgraduate Supervision: Desirable and undesirable practices

The current global completion rate for postgraduates stands at 60 per cent, and one of the main problems cited is poor supervisory practices among postgraduate supervisors. Therefore, this qualitative study presents the views of nine PhD scholars on postgraduate supervisory practices from four universities in Malaysia. The thematic qualitative analysis categorized the supervisory practices into three main aspects, namely desirable, undesirable, and appalling practices. The findings of this study though not conclusive do shed some light on current supervisory practices. The findings imply that training and perhaps the call for accreditation of postgraduate supervisors is in order. Keywords: postgraduate study; supervisory practices; feedback; learning community; Supervisor-student interaction. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI3.2555

Chinese MAs’ Evaluation in English Academic Writing: A Student-oriented Perspective

Though it is well acknowledged in the academia that constructing authorial evaluation is important in English academic writing, L2 novice writers’ views of and attitudes towards evaluation, which can help to understand their problematic evaluation demonstration in English academic writing, is generally underexplored. To address this gap, this study aims to investigate Chinese MA students’ views of and attitudes towards evaluation in English academic writing, especially in the subgenre of literature review. To achieve this end, a semi-structured questionnaire survey among 174 Chinese MAs of Applied English Linguistics as well as interviews was conducted. Quantitative and qualitative data analyses show that the majority of the Chinese students have recognized the importance and necessity of evaluation in English academic writing, and their understandings of evaluation are generally accurate and in compliance with the institutionalized nature of academic writing. However, there are still quite many students possessing inadequate knowledge and underestimation of evaluation in English academic writing, which can partly be attributed to the general underplay of evaluation demonstration in the pedagogy of English academic writing and by supervisors as well. Explicit instruction on evaluation in the teaching of English academic writing as well as postgraduate supervisors’ attention to and guidance in students’ constructing authorial evaluation are therefore appealed for by the study.

Containing and harnessing uncertainty during postgraduate research supervision

ABSTRACT Students may experience uncertainties when planning and conducting research. On the one hand, a measure of uncertainty is an inherent part of knowledge creation and represents the positive dimension of uncertainty in research. On the other hand, if uncertainties are not handled well, it could negatively affect the process and quality of research. Uncertainty has been studied within the business environment but not within higher education and specifically in the postgraduate supervision context. This article describes postgraduate students’ experienced uncertainty encountered during their research and identifies ways for supervisors to understand and support students. We report on a collaborative auto-ethnographic study using retrospective meta-level reflections from a postgraduate supervisors’ perspective. We describe the sources and signs of students’ uncertainty so that supervisors can recognize the experienced uncertainty of research students. We found that sources of students’ uncertainty were in the context of the unknown research process and within themselves (mainly self-doubt), resulting in a mostly uncomfortable state of experienced uncertainty. Their uncertainty fostered three different responses: not engaging with the research, adopting approaches to reduce their felt uncertainty, or using their uncertainty as a stimulus to engage with the research process. Students also experienced fluctuations in their uncertainty. We identified and present ways to contain the negative and harness the positive dimensions of uncertainty based on theoretical explanations. Supervisors can support students in normalizing uncertainty, facilitating learning processes and promoting empowerment for researcher identity awareness, development, and affirmation. We argue that the increased understanding of experienced uncertainty and the ways for postgraduate supervisors to support students through facilitating self-directed learning and researcher identity development could contribute to containing and harnessing uncertainty during the course of research.

Making the most of feedback for academic writing development in postgraduate research: Pilot of a combined programme for students and supervisors

ABSTRACT Feedback from supervisors on written work is the primary tool for teaching writing in postgraduate research and is a pedagogical activity for academic writing development. Despite this, little effort is focussed on teaching supervisors to provide effective feedback, or students to understand and use this feedback (feedback literacy). Here we describe development and pilot of a novel, flexible combined programme to teach postgraduate research students and supervisors how to make the most of feedback on student writing. This online-supported programme, constructed using evidence-based educational design principles, significantly improved student and supervisor feedback literacy. Specifically, skills and experience in providing and responding to effective feedback were improved, along with an understanding of how to utilise feedback to achieve expected writing standards. We believe the strong theoretical basis underpinned success of our programme and propose that future expansion, tailored to specific cohort characteristics and needs, has the potential to improve the feedback process.

Online or offline supervision? Postgraduate supervisors state their position at University of South Africa

The demands of postgraduate supervision are huge for supervisors. These demands can however be lessened by taking advantage of the online operated information and communication technology (ICT). Supervising online provides important tools and/or applications which are the 21st century era enablers of supervision especially in an open and distance learning (ODL) institution such as University of South Africa (UNISA). The supervisor-student working relationship, however, presents a human aspect that should take precedence over technology and thus guide how technology can be used in supervision. It is in this light that this reported study inquired into the supervisors’ knowledge of the technological tools and their stance in the use of (online) technology in their supervision given the human aspect. UNISA’s hundred-and-twenty-nine supervisors who are attached to College of Education (CEDU) were investigated in this study with respect to their supervision characteristics and exposure to technology and level of knowledge of the technological tools. That was followed up by face-to-face interviews with seven supervisors to determine their stance about the use of technology given the human aspect of students. The findings showed that the supervisors are knowledgeable in terms of the tools or applications such as MS Word, myUnisa and Discussion Forum. Furthermore, the findings indicated that there is a need for the training of other supervisors with respect to the use of certain online applications and/or tools. The most important finding is that supervisors value the human aspect such that – though supervisors are positive about the role of technology in supervision, the human aspect should enjoy precedence in their supervision of students.