dissertation supervision practice

Supervising Dissertations

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• Katharina Rietig 2  

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This chapter discusses central elements and steps in the research supervision process. The chapter proceeds to explore the key steps in the supervision process such as finding and specifying/narrowing down the topic, identifying the research question and contribution, discussing the research strategy and methods, the literature review and finding the path through the literature forest, identifying and selecting theoretical frameworks and theories, and subsequently proceeding to the case study/empirical part of the dissertation. It discusses the difference between primary/secondary literature-based dissertations (e.g., in philosophy or history) and case study-based dissertations that include the collection and/or analysis of primary/secondary empirical data. It reflects on different approaches and strategies around primary data collection through interviews, field work, and participant observation, as well as complying with risk assessment and research ethics in the process, and then proceeds to the analysis of quantitative/qualitative data. It closes with key considerations around writing the central discussion chapter that links the theoretical framework/theory to the empirical findings and discusses how they fit within the broader academic literature on the topic, before moving to the conclusion chapter that summarizes the contribution and offers broader implications for theory and policy/practice.

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The reflections offered in this chapter are based on supervising over 50 undergraduate and Master dissertations across environmental studies, political science, and international relations with a focus on empirical or case-study based dissertations.

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Rietig, K. (2023). Supervising Dissertations. In: Innovative Social Sciences Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41452-7_8

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Characteristics of good supervision: a multi-perspective qualitative exploration of the Masters in Public Health dissertation

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Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, Jacqueline Reilly, Characteristics of good supervision: a multi-perspective qualitative exploration of the Masters in Public Health dissertation, Journal of Public Health , Volume 39, Issue 3, September 2017, Pages 625–632, https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdw107

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A dissertation is often a core component of the Masters in Public Health (MPH) qualification. This study aims to explore its purpose, from the perspective of both students and supervisors, and identify practices viewed as constituting good supervision.

A multi-perspective qualitative study drawing on in-depth one-to-one interviews with MPH supervisors ( n = 8) and students ( n = 10), with data thematically analysed.

The MPH dissertation was viewed as providing generic as well as discipline-specific knowledge and skills. It provided an opportunity for in-depth study on a chosen topic but different perspectives were evident as to whether the project should be grounded in public health practice rather than academia. Good supervision practice was thought to require topic knowledge, generic supervision skills (including clear communication of expectations and timely feedback) and adaptation of supervision to meet student needs.

Two ideal types of the MPH dissertation process were identified. Supervisor-led projects focus on achieving a clearly defined output based on a supervisor-identified research question and aspire to harmonize research and teaching practice, but often have a narrower focus. Student-led projects may facilitate greater learning opportunities and better develop skills for public health practice but could be at greater risk of course failure.

The Masters in Public Health (MPH) was historically the first opportunity to gain the core knowledge and expertise demanded of the discipline, 1 with a dissertation commonly required. Despite this, there is a lack of clarity about the purpose of the MPH dissertation and its necessity long questioned. 2

The modern MPH reaches a range of students with varied disciplines and backgrounds—more so than was historically the case in the UK. This echoes the growing diversity within the public health workforce. 3 – 6 The prior disciplines of students, therefore, now span the breadth of the arts, humanities, sciences as well as the world of healthcare. 3 This increased diversity has allowed a genuinely inter-disciplinary and increasingly international approach which is a necessity for future public health practice and research. 7 – 9

Despite the broad use of the MPH dissertation in many universities, there is limited research on the views of students and supervisors. 10 – 13 Research is necessary since the higher education literature highlights the importance of subject and qualification level in influencing supervision and research–teaching linkages, 14 – 16 with the Master's dissertation particularly regarded as an ill-defined ‘chameleon’. 17 The pedagogical literature draws attention to the benefits of making the processes of postgraduate degree supervision explicit for both supervisors and students. 18 Given the growing diversity of students served by the MPH, and the large number of supervisors, there is a risk that a shared understanding may be lacking. We explored the purpose of the MPH dissertation from the perspective of both students and supervisors, and identify practices viewed as constituting good supervision.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the range of views, a multi-perspective qualitative interview study 19 was undertaken with staff and students. This design explicitly allows diversity in participants’ views to be sought (including comparisons between staff and students). The stated purpose of the MPH dissertation at this institution is to provide an opportunity ‘to carry out an original piece of work’ and projects run from January to August annually. It could involve primary research, analysis of secondary data or a (semi-systematic) literature review.

Potential staff participants were chosen on the basis of their University website profiles, supplemented by snowball sampling. A purposive sample aiming for diversity of supervisor experience (senior staff and junior staff), parent discipline (clinical, social sciences and statistics) and methodological expertise (quantitative and qualitative) was sought. Potential participants were initially sent an information leaflet by e-mail and invited to participate, with a maximum of three e-mails in the case of non-response.

Purposive sampling of students sought diversity of disciplinary background (healthcare related, non-healthcare related), country of origin (UK, international student) and dissertation methodology (quantitative and qualitative). Students supervised by J.R. were ineligible for interview.

Informed consent was obtained at the interview and recorded in writing. Topic guides, informed by existing literature and advice from an expert in pedagogical research (see Acknowledgements), were created to help structure interviews, with coverage of core topics included in both staff and student interviews, but further questions tailored for each set of participants (see Supplementary Appendix ). Staff interviews were carried out by S.V.K. (at the time, a public health specialist registrar who had not supervised MPH dissertations) and student interviews by J.R. (an MPH course university teacher who has supervised many students). All data were collected approximately midway through the dissertation period, so students were still accessible for interviews. Interviews were audio recorded and typically lasted 30–45 min.

Following verbatim transcription, interview data were read repeatedly and analysis proceeded in keeping with the principles of grounded theory. 20 , 21 Inductive thematic coding was conducted by S.V.K. and J.R., with initial descriptive codes created and subsequently recoded to characterize emergent themes. The principle of the constant-comparative method was used to help identify explanations for patterns within the data while also paying attention to contradictory data.

The study was approved by the University of Glasgow College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine research ethics committee.

Of the 10 staff approached, all agreed to be interviewed but a suitable time could not be arranged with 2, resulting in 8 staff participants (and good sample diversity achieved). Seventeen students were invited to participate and 10 interviewed, with the intended diversity achieved. No further descriptive details or disaggregation of quotations beyond ‘Supervisor’ or ‘Student’ are provided, to ensure anonymity.

Below, we present key emergent themes: first, briefly outlining interviewees’ views on reasons for undertaking the MPH; second, more detailed consideration of the MPH dissertation's purpose in particular; third, perspectives on dissertation supervision and finally, identified tensions that impact on the supervision process. In the Discussion, we build on these findings to develop two putative ideal types to describe alternative dissertation supervision approaches.

The purpose of the MPH

Supervisor: And I know that some of the students come because it's part of their career progression. I think some of them are just really interested in it [public health] and it's a chance to be really interested in something for a year. I guess they're all looking to attain a recognisable qualification which marks them out as having a certain level of knowledge and perhaps some skill, some research skill. […] some of them are looking to get that then to get into public health.

Supervisor: Well I think traditionally it's [the MPH has] been a kind of broad-based preparation for the world of Public Health, for people to take up the types of jobs that they do in fact tend to take up once they graduate from here. So, while it's a fairly academic programme a lot of the posts in Public Health do tend to be fairly academic.

The purpose of the dissertation

While respondents acknowledged that most students would not conduct comparable future research, some saw striking similarity between public health practice and research (Table 1 d). Others also saw the insight experienced from carrying out research as a way to foster improved long-term communication between academia and practice. An alternative view highlighted tailoring the dissertation to the practice environment (Table 1 e) but other respondents cautioned that projects originating from public health practice were often ill-suited, tending to be too broad and not adequately rigorous. The risk that students may be expected to carry out too large a project, as a result of unrealistic employer pressure, was expressed but tempered by an appreciation that employers may reasonably expect some benefits if they have funded students.

Another much debated purpose, and less so students, was the potential for dissertation research to result in academic publications. At best, this was seen as helping align research and teaching responsibilities for supervisors while benefiting students by helping improve their skills and CV (Table 1 f). However, potential benefits to science and the supervisor's career were not accepted uncritically with one supervisor commenting: ‘the reality is—I don't need extra low-grade publications’ . While there was an acknowledgement that publication may constitute a ‘win-win’ , some interviewees felt it might be impossible to achieve as students (and supervisors) may not have the requisite time and patience to follow-up on dissertation work (Table 1 g).

Others expressed concerns about encouraging students to publish or seeing it as a goal to be pursued. If a publication was being considered by the supervisor, it was felt this may limit the student's potential for learning as a narrow project predefined by the supervisor is more likely (Table 1 h). In addition, it was felt to be a more amenable model for dissertations using already collected data; hence, of more relevance for some (primarily quantitative) research. Students may, therefore, be less likely to learn and gain experience in primary data collection, a skill perceived as valuable by some.

Good supervision practice

Supervisors and students broadly agreed on a number of key elements for good supervision. First, it was felt necessary for supervisors to have good knowledge about what constitutes a dissertation and therefore be able to guide students through the process (Table 2 b). Furthermore, having expert knowledge of the topic they were supervising and technical expertise on the research methods were viewed as important. While prior topic knowledge was not always considered essential, supervisors indicated that they would endeavour to learn about it so they could guide the student appropriately. Supervisors were expected to have several skills, including being organized (with accurate note-taking commonly recommended), clear communicators and able to provide pastoral support and encouragement if required (e.g. Table 2 c). More specific suggestions about the conduct of supervision sessions included setting ground rules, providing timely and meaningful feedback and being available to students.

Supervision practice was often viewed as requiring a tailored approach which developed over time, based on student ability, with more directive feedback needed for less well-performing students and more high-level feedback required for students aiming for a distinction. It was acknowledged that this meant not treating students equally, but instead hopefully equitably (Table 2 d). There was general agreement amongst supervisors that flexible supervision was important and strict rules on contact hours per student (as occurs in some MPH degrees) seen as unhelpful. However, the system of varied contact time was deemed potentially problematic by some students (Table 2 e).

Supervisors’ reflections led to some advice for new supervisors. Amongst these was the need to remember that the project is the student's dissertation and not the supervisor's. It was also highlighted that supervisors would inevitably get better with experience but the budding supervisor should accept this as part of the process and forgive themselves for early mistakes.

Pressures on the dissertation process

A tension was identified between students developing their own research topic and the need for supervisors to have some knowledge of the dissertation topic. Some supervisors felt it was preferable for students to play an integral part in conceiving the research question (Table 3 b), while others felt this was unrealistic at the MPH level and within the dissertation timescale (Table 3 c). Other priorities, especially research, were often seen as competing with dissertation supervision but some supervisors attempted to align these two priorities—exemplified by aiming for academic papers resulting from dissertations (Table 3 d).

Tensions were identified between the dissertation as a credentialising tool and as a learning process. The former favours a standardized process which is amenable to clear marking guidelines. Within the department, attempts have been made to accommodate diversity in disciplinary approaches by having specific marking guidelines for different methodologies (such as systematic reviews and qualitative research). However, there was some criticism of this on at least two fronts (Table 3 e). First, the validity of such guidelines and their ability to allow comparison of different forms of research was questioned. Second, the focus on the end product as a piece of research was felt to potentially limit opportunities for conducting more practice-orientated work (as carried out within government departments or elsewhere), which might be more relevant to a student's learning requirements but less easily definable as a specific form of research (Table 3 f).

Main finding of this study

Students and supervisors generally agreed that the MPH dissertation serves several purposes, including providing an opportunity to develop skills, apply learning from taught courses and help prepare for future work. Supervision is often tailored to students’ evolving needs and while a number of behaviours facilitate basic competence, good supervision is to some extent learnt from experience. However, we identified tensions in the supervision process, with two ideal types discernible (see Fig. 1 ). Supervisor-led dissertations tend to be narrowly defined by the supervisor and well suited to the credentialising purpose of the dissertation. In contrast, a student-led dissertation is more tailored to public health practice and some students’ learning requirements. The latter may require greater supervisor effort and put the student at greater risk of failure when the end product is assessed against criteria for a research product. In reality, a broad continuum exists between these ideal types and they represent a negotiated process that unfolds over time, rather than equating to supervisors (who may tend to operate more in one mode than another but switch their practice depending on the project and student).

A representation of two ‘ideal types’ of the MPH dissertation process.

What is already known?

Existing pedagogical literature supports some of the themes we identify including what constitutes good supervision practice (such as subject expertise and guidance on time management and writing) and having a student focus. 22 , 23 A recent Dutch qualitative study of pedagogy identified the importance of Master's supervisors adapting to students’ needs, but not their expectations. 24 Similar diversity in Master's in Medical Education projects has been previously found, as have tensions between service commitments for NHS staff and their postgraduate supervision roles, prompting the authors to call for less reliance on service staff. 25

Views on the benefits of a research perspective for students appear mixed. Struthers et al . sought views from medical, veterinary and dental schools, finding that many academic staff felt research thinking and skills were important in informing professional practice. 26 In contrast, Gabbay highlighted a perceived gulf between public health research and practice some time ago, arguing for experiential learning grounded in the real world. 27 Much of the higher education research has focussed on whether research improves teaching quality but a meta-analysis found little relationship between the two. 28 In contrast, qualitative research suggested that a complex interplay exists between research and teaching which varies by each individual academic. 16

Achieving synergies across research and teaching is an academic priority in many institutions, with the publication of students’ research projects noted to be a potentially important way to encourage future researchers. 26 In addition, public health academic departments have long had close relationships with practice—a strength which could be diminished as a result. 29

What this study adds?

By identifying the diverse expectations and needs of students, we hope supervisors are better able to match their supervision style to deliver the best possible learning experience and that our model assists in achieving this. Our study also suggests that a linkage between research and teaching is not without risk since academics may focus on one over the other. 14 A research emphasis may result in public health practice skills being neglected. 3 Our study goes beyond viewing research and teaching as in opposition or synergy. Instead, it points to a potential parallel to the posited ‘squeeze on intellectual spaces’—occurring when researchers have their academic freedom limited by the increasing focus on producing applied knowledge. 30 Our findings raise the possibility that a comparable ‘squeeze on learning spaces’ may be occurring, where students’ freedom to explore and learn during the dissertation is curtailed—echoing a perceived decline in the intellectual environment experienced by postgraduate nursing students. 31 This may result in MPH graduates finding it more difficult to bring together disparate research approaches in the manner often required for practice.

Limitations of this study

This study investigated the topic of MPH dissertation supervision using qualitative interviews with supervisors and students, but several limitations exist. First, this is a small-scale study at a single institution. Further work is needed to establish the extent that these themes are evident elsewhere, including within more practice-oriented MPHs. That said, many respondents had experience of teaching elsewhere and supervisors felt dissertation supervision did not differ markedly between universities but more by supervisor. Second, while the interviewers’ institutional positions assisted in accessing interviewees, data obtained are influenced by our working relationships. For example, students may have been less open to voicing criticisms, particularly since the dissertation was ongoing. Lastly, while we have introduced a continuum of dissertation supervision types, this interpretation should be considered preliminary and further longitudinal studies to explore the evolving nature of supervision over time is needed.

We report several findings worthy of reflection by new and experienced MPH dissertation supervisors alike. An awareness of the different purposes may assist supervisors to tailor their own and their department's supervision. Tensions identified in supervision raise questions about how academic public health departments could best respond to students’ changing needs. We hope such critical reflection of current pedagogical practice will assist in improving training for future generations of public health professionals. 32

The authors would like to thank the study participants and the supervisor of their Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice qualification, Dr Catherine Bovill.

Supplementary data are available at the Journal of Public Health online .

This study received no specific funding; S.V.K. was funded by the Chief Scientist's Office of the Scottish Government (SCAF/15/02 and SPHSU15), Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12017/15) and NHS Research Scotland.

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• public health practice
• public health medicine
• professional supervision

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Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, 6 (4)

Zanele Masuku

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.

Supervising and Writing a Good Undergraduate Dissertation

Ziene Mottiar

Joseph Luca

This is a resource book to assist supervisors of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students to develop the quality of their supervisory practice. It is also a useful resource for anyone, who is associated with supporting HDR students and seeking to better understand the supervision role. Supervisor training in Australian universities has tended to focus on compliance and ensuring that all supervisors understand the policies, forms, resources and support services that underpin best practice research supervision. This resource book aims to go beyond compliance by providing a range of components and tools developed collaboratively in five Australian universities through interviews and workshops with HDR supervisors. The materials in this resource book thus distill the experiences and reflections of many experienced supervisors to provide tools and learning materials for all HDR supervisors. This resource book was developed to provide the knowledge that has been gained from diverse experi...

Marian Fitzmaurice

Nigel Harwood

Teaching in Higher Education

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There is a lot of guidance out there about how to provide academic supervision to students writing dissertations (see References). Much of the advice relates to studying for, or supervising, the PhD degree. Clearly a dissertation being prepared as part of a third-year undergraduate course is a more modest affair, but even here, a "contract" exists between the student and the supervisor which needs to be understood. Little that follows is original; it is gleaned from the various sources listed, with a small amount of added personal experience.

Reasonable expectations

Supervisions can be conducted in person or online - which format is used will depend on how comfortable each of the participants is with the proposed format as well as the need to adhere to requirements to maintain the safety of both parties.

A supervisor can expect a student preparing a third-year undergraduate dissertation to: 1. Turn up to appointments, prepared for them. 2. Write regularly, and share the draft material - but not too often! 3. Tell the truth about work done and not done. 4. Keep in touch - practically (holidays, sickness, change of address etc.) and academically. 5. Most importantly, do the [research] tasks that have been mutually agreed and scheduled.

In return, students can expect from their supervisors : 1. Regular supervision: a student can reasonably expect to see his or her dissertation supervisor up to four times (and at least twice), for a private one-to-one discussion of the dissertation. 2. Written feedback: a student can expect to have draft material read, and returned with written comments within two weeks.

Recommendations from one source, with annotations

Students expect to be supervised A truism, but it important that you are clear and explicit about stating that it is you, and nobody else, who is responsible for providing the student with supervision for his/her dissertation. Clearly, if there are colleagues to whom the student can be referred for further specialist advice - well and good - but ultimately, if you are the named supervisor, you (and the student, of course) are where the buck stops.

Students expect supervisors to read their work well in advance You must establish an agreed programme - making clear what you will read (and reading that promptly), but not raising expectations that you will promptly read innumerable different drafts.

Students expect their supervisors to be available when needed These days, e-mail is the preferred mode of contact for most students and most supervisors. Respond reasonably promptly to messages from students, and make yourself available reasonably promptly if a student wants to see you. If you plan an absence from Cambridge of any length, tell the student whose dissertation you are supervising about your plans.

Students expect their supervisors to be friendly, open and supportive. Students may feel quite uncertain and vulnerable when presenting their work; beware of confidence-sapping measures.

Students expect their supervisors to be constructively critical. Presented in the right spirit, criticism is much more welcome than bland uninformed approval. Discussions about dissertations can be an opportunity for real dialogue.

Students expect their supervisors to have a good knowledge of the research area. This is true of a PhD supervisor, but need not be so much the case for the supervisor of a third-year dissertation. If a student is really keen to follow up some particular enthusiasm - on which there may be no great expert locally available - that's OK - just as long as the student is left in no doubt about the kind of support that the supervisor can provide. Writing a dissertation is as much about presentation and organisation as it is about getting all the facts and their interpretation "right"; if you don't know a lot about the topic, say so, and focus on helping the student to find out how to find out.

Students expect their supervisors to structure the tutorial so that it is relatively easy to exchange ideas. Again a truism - the student should reach a stage quite early on the process when he/she knows more about the topic than the supervisor. So let the interaction be two-way.

What the student needs to write a good dissertation

• The most authoritative sources. Read around the field, and don't rely on the first source you find. Find out which authors' work is referred to most commonly by other leading authors in the field. Remember not to regard photocopying as a substitute for reading.
• The most up to date references. Searches using computers can help you to find if the prominent people in the field have written things which may not yet have appeared in libraries - or are in fairly new copies of journals which are "at the binders" (a regular bugbear!).
• Accurate references. It is amazing how often references are incorrectly cited by other authors. Write out the reference in full when you find them. Refer to references accurately, and in the correct way.
• Confidence that you have covered all the necessary work in your chosen field, and have not failed to refer to some important contribution that the person assessing your work may know about. If you have an external examiner, it's worth discovering what their area of expertise is, and knowing what they have done in it.

Stages of the process

The initial stage

My starting point for students is to say "What is it in four (or however many) months' time you'd like to give to me, because it's something that interests you?" There's a question there that you don't know the answer to and you want to spend time answering, so that you can give me something written which, if I asked you that question, you could confidently say "Read my dissertation".

The first stage involves the student preparing a rough draft that sets out "This is what I think, and what I want to explore". There can be no reason, these days, for most of the work on a dissertation not to be performed electronically. Reinforce the importance of keeping enough up-to-date backup copies of computer files. A dissertation may be chosen from a menu of titles offered by the course organiser, or the title/topic may be one of the student's own choosing. This preliminary planning is a very important stage. The scope of the dissertation, given the word limit, will need to be narrow in focus. If it is broad, it could turn out simply as a re-hash of an article in a Trends journal, New Scientist or Scientific American. It should normally draw mainly on original scientific papers, and should not be synthesis of secondary sources (books, review articles and the like).

The structure

There needs to be a clear "setting out of the stall" in the dissertation, making clear what is to be discussed, why it is important, and broadly how the dissertation is to be structured. In a research-based scientific subject there needs to be space left for a reasonably full section in which "future research" should be discussed. Students can be encouraged to think themselves into the position of someone preparing a Wellcome Project Grant Application, setting out a feasible programme of work over the coming five years - setting out what needs to be done, how and why, and the insights that might be expected to emerge.

Locating and reading the literature

One can search Pub Med, Medline or whatever using keywords, progressively refined - clearly a necessary step. Adding the word "REVIEW" to the search terms can be helpful. It may well be possible to identify a paper written within the last 10 to 15 years which has been absolutely critical to the development of the chosen field - so much so that anyone writing in the area since then is virtually bound to have cited that earlier paper in their reference list. This is where citation searching is particularly useful. Identify that early key paper, and see who has cited it subsequently; this feature is available using BIDS.

The rough draft

After the student has become acquainted with the literature (and should by now be more expert on it than the supervisor), the student should construct rough draft with topic heading, and some summary of what each section will consist of. A meeting should be arranged to discuss the rough draft. This will be an important session. The plan of the dissertation will need to be discussed, and joint decisions taken about what should be attempted, and how long it should take.

The major effort of assimilating and writing

It is between the rough draft and the penultimate draft that the student can be expected to make the greatest strides in terms of becoming an authority on the subject matter, and developing independent ideas about how to interpret what has been achieved in the area, and what further work is needed. The penultimate draft should be a polished piece of work - with a proper summary, bibliography (set out in accordance with proper publishing rules). Such disciplines should not be left to the final draft. Decide on a "house style" - from an appropriate established Journal, and encourage the student to stick to it. Make sure that cited works are given full references. Students may need to be reminded of the adage: "The excellent is the enemy of the good." There will always be improvements that can be made to a dissertation, but remember the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Reading the penultimate draft

Supervisors are not expected to read and comment on more than one draft of any student's dissertation. Students should be expected to produce a penultimate draft of a reasonably high standard. This draft should:

• be free of spelling mistakes
• include appropriate diagrams (diagrams can be reproduced from published work with appropriate acknowledgement of their source)
• be within the number limit, explaining the chosen topic in a way that does not require a very highly specialised reader
• include, if need be, a glossary of terms when specialist language is being used

At this stage, the supervisor should point out examples of sloppy work, but should not feel obliged to correct all errors of spelling, grammar etc. After all, it is the student whose work is being assessed, not the supervisor.

The dissertation must be handed in to the Examiners by the first week of the Easter Term. The supervisor should, therefore, aim to have read and provided written and verbal feedback on the penultimate draft, by the time the student leaves Cambridge for the Easter vacation - or by one week after the end of Full Lent term, whichever is the earlier.  The supervisor must stress to the student that the dissertation is marked by an examiner and not the supervisor, and therefore cannot provide an estimated final grade/mark for the dissertation.

The final draft

It is helpful to students, if possible, to offer them Departmental facilities for binding their work; expensive "posh" methods of binding are not necessary and should not be encouraged.

Administrative matters

The notification form

Each student in NST Part II Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) is individually responsible for submitting their Dissertation Notification of Title form via the Moodle site by the Division of the Michaelmas term. This title should be agreed with the supervisor.  The Faculty Office will then contact the supervisor to confirm their approval.

Payment for supervision

The Senior Tutors' Committee have indicated the importance of Colleges continuing to receive reports on the progress of students in their third and/or final years of study. Such reports are essential for monitoring the progress and wellbeing of those students and also for use in any appeals that may be made to the Applications Committee. There are already arrangements for project supervision in some subjects, such as Engineering and certain of the Arts and Humanities. It is not intended to change these existing arrangements. There are certain science subjects in which dissertation and project work is supervised within the department and for which, currently, no report is issued to the Colleges. The Committee have agreed that, in these subjects, Colleges will pay for a nominal one hour of supervision, in a group of one, for a report on the dissertation or project work of students. Such reports should be submitted through CamCORS to the Colleges and payment will be approved in the normal way.  For NST II BBS the Committee have agreed to pay for up to four supervisions for the dissertation element.

1. Supervising the PhD: a guide to success by Sara Delamont, Paul Atkinson and Odette Parry (1997) (The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham).

2. Chapter 11 ( How to supervise ) from How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors by Estelle M. Phillips and D.S. Pugh (2nd ed., 1994), Open University Press, Buckingham.

3. Chapter 3 ( Going for gold in assessed coursework ) from How to get a good degree: making the most of your time at university by Phil Race (1999), Open University Press.

4. Chapters 8 ( Dissertations (I): starting ) and Chapter 9 ( Dissertations (II): analysing and writing ) from Successful study for degrees by Rob Barnes (2nd ed., 1995), Routledge.

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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 22 August 2019

The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study

• Leila Bazrafkan 1 ,
• Alireza Yousefy 2 ,
• Mitra Amini 1 &
• Nikoo Yamani 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  19 , Article number:  320 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Supervision is a well-defined interpersonal relationship between the thesis supervisors and their students. The purpose of this study was to identify the patterns which can explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors. We aimed at developing a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

We have conducted a qualitative grounded theory study in 20 universities of medical sciences in Iran since 2017 by using purposive, snowball sampling, and theoretical sampling and enrolled 84 participants. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Based on the encoding approach of Strauss and Corbin (1998), the data underwent open, axial, and selective coding by constant comparative analysis. Then, the core variables were selected, and a model was developed.

We could obtain three themes and seven related subthemes, the central variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the subthemes, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions during expertise process which generated the supervisors’ competence development in research supervision consisted maturation; also, seven subthemes as curious observation, evaluation of the reality, poorly structured rules, lack of time, reflection in action, reflection on action, and interactive accountability emerged which explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors.

Conclusions

As the core variable in the expertise process, accountability must be considered in expertise development program planning and decision- making. In other words, efforts must be made to improve responsibility and responsiveness.

Peer Review reports

Supervision is a well-defined term in the interpersonal relationship between thesis supervisors and students. A supervisor is designated to assist the student’s development in terms of their research project [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Faculty members supervise the students because qualified supervision leads to success on the part of the student, and it has moral, reputational, and financial outcomes for the institution. Supervisors are expected to train students to gain competence in areas such as specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills [ 4 ]. Expertise is derived from the three essential elements of knowledge, experience, and the ability to solve problems in society [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. .According to Dreyfus, acquisition of expertise or practical wisdom represents a higher level of “self-actualization.” At this point, one reaches a level in which they can flourish in their talents and abilities. This enables the teachers to function in scientific communities and multicultural environments [ 7 ].

Wiscer has identified three stages in the thesis supervision process and describes the duties of the supervisors in each of them [ 8 ]. Pearson and Brew state that maturation in specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills are the major areas that need to be promoted in the student. Moreover, these are the generic processes in which the supervisors should be involved for efficacious supervision if they aim to help the students develop in various institutional, disciplinary and professional settings; acquire appropriate expertise and features needed for employment; and make an outline of what might form a flexible professional development program for supervisors in this setting [ 3 ]. Vereijken et al. emphasized novice supervisors’ approaches to reach expertise in supervision and explained the relationship between practice and dilemmas among novice supervisors [ 9 ].

.Despite the importance of expertise in higher education and particularly research supervision, research abilities are not considered as one of the priorities in the employment of the academic staff. Furthermore, the newly employed faculty members are often involved in teaching, administrative tasks, and services in health care; this inhibits them from expertise attainment in other aspects such as research supervision [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. In this regard, Malekafzali believes that in the area of research activities, the faculty members have serious weaknesses in defining the problem, choosing the appropriate method for research, analyzing the data, interpreting the results, and publishing scientific articles. Besides, there is a lack of coherent and compiled training programs which can enhance their research capabilities [ 13 ].

One of the most important factors contributing to the thesis and research quality is the process of developing expertise in supervisors’ research supervision. Most studies in our country have focused on research abilities during the research, and fewer studies have focused on the process of expertise acquisition in thesis supervision, and no actual model has been proposed for this [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The quantitative researches could not explain exactly how and through which process the faculty members, as thesis supervisors, become experts in thesis supervision since the expertise process is multi-factorial and has many unknown aspects. Considering the effective role of qualitative research in clarifying ambiguous and unknown aspects, we chose the grounded theory approach for this study [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. This theory will be used when the investigator intends to determine the patterns of actions and social interactions needed for the development of expertise by specific groups of people in a specific setting [ 17 , 18 ].

In this study, we aimed to identify the themes that explain the expertise development process among thesis supervisors in Iran, and also to develop a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

This study was carried out in 20 universities of medical sciences with different ranks in Iran because universities are the places where supervisors and students interact purposefully to discourse the needs of experts on specific occasions and in specific conditions. In these universities, different students study with various disciplines. There are three types of universities in Iran. Type 1 universities are the ones with the most facilities, faculties, research presentations, international collaborations, and scientific outcomes. The second rank belongs to type 2, and the one with the least mentioned qualities is type 3 universities. All three types of universities were included in this study. In all these courses, writing a thesis is one of the requirements with the same role and regulation. The majority of the students in this research project were in the late stages of both undergraduate and postgraduate educational programs within the same function and regulation.

Study design

We conducted this qualitative study based on a grounded theory approach in a systematic form [ 17 , 18 ]. Grounded theory is a symbolic interaction which is derived from systematic data collection during the research process. In this strategy, collecting and analyzing data and the theory derived from the data have a close association [ 17 , 19 ]. The investigator’s purpose in using grounded theory is to describe and clarify a phenomenon in the social condition and to identify the essential processes working within [ 17 ].

Participants

In this study, 84 subjects including 56 faculty members of medical sciences, 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students (medical students, MS of Science, Ph.D. and residents), and eight managers in the field of research supervision participated. Using purposive sampling, snowball sampling with maximum variation, we selected the participants from a variety of academic ranks with different work experiences, as the key informants in thesis supervisors. Then, to continue the sampling, we used theoretical sampling and data saturation. The inclusion criterion was 5 years of work experience in thesis supervision, and the exclusion criterion was the unwillingness to participate in the study. Firstly, we collected data in Shiraz University with the help of a research supervisor who is known for his high quality of supervision and then data gathering was initiated in the university of Isfahan. There were 34 key informants from the two universities and 22 individuals from other universities. Students were selected based on their willingness to participate.

Theoretical sampling was used next to develop the tentative theory. The basis for theoretical sampling was the queries that emerged during data analysis. At this stage, the researcher interviewed the supervisor, administrators, and students. Theoretical sampling facilitated in verifying the supervisors’ responses and credibility of categories and resulted in more conceptual density. Data saturation was obtained when no new data emerged in the last five interviews. Therefore, data gathering by interviews was terminated.

Data collection

We collected the data primarily by semi-structured interviews from September 2017 to September 2018. The participants were recognized with unknown codes based on their field of work and setting, and each participant was interviewed in one or two sessions. Having obtained the participants’ informed consent, we recorded the interviews and they were transcribed verbatim immediately. The interviews began with open-ended general questions such as, “What did you experience during research supervision?” and then the participants were asked to describe their perceptions regarding their expertise process. Leading questions were also used to deeply explore the conditions, processes, and other factors that participants recognized as significant issues. The interview was based mostly on the questions which came up during the interview. On average, each interview lasted for an hour, during which field notes and memos were taken. At the end of each session, the participants were asked to give an opinion on other important topics which did not come up during the interview, followed by data collection and analysis which are simultaneously done in grounded theory; analytic thought and queries that arose from one interview were carried to the next one [ 20 ].

The data were also collected by unstructured observations of the educational atmosphere in the laboratory, and the faculty member and students’ counseling offices. These observations lasted 5 weeks, during which the faculties and students’ interactions and the manner of supervision were closely monitored. The observation was arranged to sample the maximum variety of research supervisor activity for some faculty member who is known to be a good or poor supervisor and detailed organized field notes were kept.

Also, we used the field notes to reflect emergent analytic concepts as a source of three angulations of data, frequently reconsidering the data, and referring to field notes in the context of each participant’s explanation. Analysis of the field notes facilitated in shaping contextual conditions and clarifying variations in the supervisors’ responses in each context. This led to the arrangement of several assumptions in the effect of contexts.

Data analysis

We simultaneously performed data collection and analysis. We read the scripts carefully several times and then entered them into MAXQDA (version10). We collected and analyzed the data practically and simultaneously by using a constant comparative method. Data were analyzed based on the 3-stage coding approach, including open, axial, and selective coding by Strauss and Corbin In the open coding stage, we extracted the basic concepts or meaning units from the gathered information. Then, more general concepts were formed by grouping similar concepts into one theme. The themes became clearer throughout the interviews. Then, the constructs of them were compared with each other to form tentative categories. After that, we conducted axial coding by using the guidelines given in Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) Paradigm Model [ 21 ]. The extracted themes (codes) in the previous (open coding) stage were summarized in 3 main themes during the axial coding stage, and then the core variables were selected in the selective coding stage [ 20 ]. To generate a reasonable theory to the community, a grounded theorist needs to condense the studied happenings a the precise sequence. To check the data against categories, the researcher asks questions related to certain categories and returns to the data to seek evidence. After developing a theory, the researcher is required to confirm the theory by comparing it with existing theories found in the recently available research [ 21 ]. We finalized the model after 5 days; during this time, we explained the relations between subcategories and the core category for realizing theoretical saturation and clarifying the theoretical power of the analysis explained about work as narration.

In terms of accuracy improvement, we used the Lincoln and Guba’s criteria, including credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability [ 22 , 23 ].

To increase credibility, we collected data from different universities in Iran, and their credibility was also confirmed by three reviewers and experts in qualitative research. Also, some of the participants rechecked the data and the investigators’ description and interpretation of their experiences carefully. Prolonged engagement and tenacious observation facilitated the data credibility. In this way, the process of data collection and analysis took 12 months. Data triangulation and method triangulation also confirmed credibility [ 20 ]. The use of the maximum variation sampling method contributed to the dependability and conformability of data. Furthermore, once the explanation of the phenomenon was full, it was returned for confirmation to 3 participants of each university, and they validated the descriptions. Finally, to attain transferability, we adequately described the data in this article, so that a judgment of transferability can be made by readers.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (92–6746). The participants were informed about the research aim and interviews. Informed consent for conducting and recording the interview was obtained. The confidentiality of the participants’ information was maintained throughout the study.

In this study, the mean age of the faculty members and students was 44.34 ± 14.60 and 28.54 ± 2.38 years, respectively. All the faculty members and most of the students were married. Only three students were single. Three themes and seven interrelated sub-themes emerged from the data (Table  1 ). The main variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the categories, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions of the expertise process are displayed in a model (Fig.  1 ).

The process of expertise attainment in research supervisor model

Theme 1: engagement

In this theme, the initial phase of expertise, the supervisor starts to observe the others’ behavior in the students’ supervision and guidance based on the practical and cognitive skills previously acquired. They attempt to recognize the different needs based on the amount of their motivation and previous competence so that the models become important for them, and they recognize the scope of the needs based on their importance. Then, they try to understand the needs and values of real thesis supervision in this context. In this theme, two sub-themes, curious observation, and evaluation with reality emerged.

Curious observation

In this sub-theme, several concepts such as personal interest, self-awareness, ability to meet the students’ needs, ability to detect weaknesses in research skills, and observation of role models in this area act as the impellent factors in expertise attainment in research supervision.

Regarding personal interest, a successful faculty member in the area of research supervision said:

“…In my experience, faculties must be selected from those who have curious personalities as well as being good observers, first of all. In this way, they will have the appropriate intrinsic character to acquire knowledge in guidance and supervision)…” (Faculty member N0.3)

According to our participants, the most important intrinsic motivation is the desire to update the content knowledge and skills in research supervision. An experienced professor said:

“ … The knowledge gap between the new and old generations of faculty members is what forced me to update my knowledge...and it has been detected by myself…” (Faculty member N0.3).

Another important intrinsic motivation is the ability to meet the educational and research needs of students. However, usually these needs are combined; one of the faculty members put it:

“…I would like to be an expert in this process (thesis supervision) to meet my students’ needs. Because I have seen and felt this need many times before…” (Faculty member N0.12).

Since the publication of research directly affects the promotion of a faculty, some professors seek skills that are practical in article publication such as several statistical and basic skills for thesis writing. The participants considered the self-awareness and consciousness elements as very important. Through consciousness, one can better understand their needs.

Evaluation with reality

In this sub-theme, in the initial phase maintaining academic dignity and competition motivates the faculty members to obtain expertise in research supervision. At this point, the supervisor evaluates themself and their potentialities considering more precise features and acquired information (or data), so that they can find the distance between the optimal state and the existing conditions. They also evaluate the others’ potentialities in this field realistically and compete. Good supervision is then highlighted for them. Based on the supervisors’ experience, at this stage, they are seriously engaged in evaluation and competition.

Another motivation was obtaining academic and social promotion. Although the number of theses supervised by them can affect the academic promotion of supervisors, this effect is insignificant. The real motivation is maintaining academic dignity and competition amongst peers. A member of the clinical faculties stated:

“ … To enhance academic dignity, a faculty member should master various skills such as patient care, teaching, educational skills, and last but not least, research supervision. I got involved in research and thesis supervision because I felt I should not be left behind…” ( Faculty member N0.17).

At this stage, the junior supervisor tries to increase the cognitive knowledge in research supervision such as increasing specific knowledge of the discipline, planning, directing of a project effectively, and developing good interpersonal skills presented in research supervision.

Theme 2: supervision climate

In this theme, we describe the contextual factor which changes the process of expertise attainment in thesis supervisors. The result of the study reflects some concerns about the relationship between individuals in the context in that they interact purposefully but with barriers. The supervision climate in the thesis supervision process in this theme led to the emergence of two sub-themes, challenging shortcomings and role ambiguity. These challenges include poorly structured rules and regulations which, in turn, can cause confusion and role ambiguity.

Challenging shortcomings

This report shows that contextual factor plays a significant role in promoting the quality of a thesis in a university, but the process is faced with altered challenges such as inadequate resources, inadequate time, and ineffective evaluation and rule and regulation deficit. These challenges include the following. Most faculty members and students have experienced these shortcomings.

Various inadequate resources, such as access to new and online journals, laboratory equipment were one of the challenges for supervisors in certain aspects which required more competency, and the constraints on communication with the other academic centers worldwide undermine the sense of competition and hinder the effort put in to become an expert. One of the students said: “… I see how difficult it is to gain access to a good article or laboratory materials in this situation …we try, but it just isn’t possible...” (Faculty member N0.17).

Based on our results, the sudden changes in personal life, work position, and organizational change can affect the path to expertise. These changes such as marriage, work overload, admission of students over the capacity, new rules and regulation of scholar citizenship, promotion and so on can have both positive and negative impacts, depending on whether they facilitate or restrict the professional development of faculties as supervisors. For instance, an increase in student admission causes work overload, which results in neglecting self-improvement.

“…As you know, we are over- loaded with students (they have increased the number of admissions), which is beyond our capacity. This means that most of our time will be dedicated to teaching. Self-improvement is difficult due to lack of time…” (Faculty member N0.6).

Role ambiguity

Poorly structured supervision can occur where there is an ambiguous context of supervision structure, supervisors and students’ roles. Most participants, as faculty members, managers, and students have experienced some difficulties in this regard, due to poorly structured rules(EDITORS NOTE; do you mean ‘rules and regulations ‘here) and regulations and its impact on the thesis supervision. It is not only the rules themselves but also the way they are implemented. One of the faculty members expressed confusion over the rules related to the dissertation as follows:

“…It should be made clear what I must do exactly. It is obvious regarding supervision on the work of students; there are not the same expectations from an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and a professor. Most problems occur as a result of the gap in legislation; For example, the rules imply a full Professor does not need a statistical consult, while many supervisors like me do not have enough knowledge and skills in statistical analysis...” (Faculty member N0.1).

Failure to implement the rules also increases the sense of this ambiguity, and there are no specific rules for verifying capability and audits to determine inadequate experts in thesis supervision. The role ambiguity or unclear roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and student in the thesis process were other limitations that were emphasized by the majority of participants. A faculty member stated:

“… Supervisors have different roles during the thesis process. To enhance this process, one must exactly know one’s responsibilities. For instance, in the beginning, the supervisor should guide the students through the process of finding a suitable research topic, but if the teacher's role is unclear, then instead of guiding they may actually choose the topic, and if so, the students will be prevented from exploring, using their creative thinking, and improving their problem-solving abilities…” (Faculty member N0.1).

Various performance

Based on the participants’ experiences, in this situation in which there are inadequate resources and organizational and social problems, some faculty members are well-trained in the field of supervision. One of the senior faculty members said: “It is my honor to mention that despite the existence of many obstacles, I have been able to train well-educated students, who have become researchers and contribute to the development of science in my country.”

One of the most important causes of poor performance is ineffective evaluation. Based on the participants experiences, two main problems can result in ineffective evaluation. First of all is the inadequate feedback from the supervisor which leads to unmotivated learners and the second one is lack of feedback from the stakeholders and educational institutes which in turn diminishes the supervisor’s efforts toward self-improvement. These can lead to poor performance both in students and supervisors.

In one of the Ph.D. student’s words:

“…In this system, there is no supervision on the supervisors; there is no control or evaluation of their work. Also, the supervisors don't get feedback from their students during the research process, and there is no third person who investigates whether the report is real or not…” (student N0. 7).

Evidence from data suggests that an unfair judgment and evaluation of academic theses are other problems in the process of acquiring the merit of teachers. If there isn’t proper evaluation, students and supervisors would not have the right standards to correct their performance.

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student had experienced:

“…I was so thrilled that my thesis supervisor was an experienced, older and well-known professor, but unfortunately, I soon found out that not only was his scientific knowledge outdated, but also he lacked the necessary supervision skills, so he let the students do all the work unsupervised. He did not take any responsibility during the process…” (Student N0.4).

Another point which leads to poor performance is the fact that some faculty members do not comprehend the main purpose of the thesis writing process; actually, they do not know the difference between teaching and guiding in the project or thesis supervision. One of the basic science supervisors said: “… Some faculties consider a thesis as research work and not a lesson in which research methodology should be taught...” (Faculty member N0.5).

Performing poorly along with ignoring professional ethics can also lead to increased tension and stress in student-teacher relationships. This can result in despondency and frustration in both students and teachers and create a vicious cycle of inefficient supervisors who will train inefficient students or future supervisors.

One of the students put it this way:

“...I feel the absence of a supervisor in my research; I would have been more successful, and my results would have been better if I had had more guidance.” (Student N0.6).

Theme 3: maturation

In this theme, the secondary phase of expertise, the individual is emotionally involved and feels that success or failure is important. This is a stage in which the learner needs an integrated schedule to be competent, and as a result, success or failure will follow. The supervisors frequently think about personal promotion and takes action in this way. They try out different approaches, and sometimes due to disappointment and embarrassment they fail. Some individuals quit at this stage and never reach competence, or they have what may be called an artificial competence. And this does not mean that they are not considered to be well-known supervisors; rather, they know, as do the students, that they are not competent. At this stage, the supervisor attempts to acquire the identity of a researcher and tries to enhance his availability, and be dutiful, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic in research supervision. Along the lines of this theme, three sub-themes of Reflection in action, Reflection on action, and Interactive accountability emerged.

Reflection in action

In this sub-theme, the patterns of expertise development begin, and self-directed learning, participatory teaching and learning strategies through a hidden curriculum are considered. At this stage, the supervisor tries to follow self-directed learning, and the amount of time allocated to expertise acquirement seems to be one of the most important factors. In this regard, one stated:

“…My success in this case (research supervision) is, first of all, due to self-evaluation and self-effort. For instance, to be in control and take full responsibility, I think about everything related to the guidance of the students, and I felt the need to master every aspect of research, even the statistical skills needed for analysis…” (Faculty member N0.8).

The supervisors’ activities were divided into two groups: self-directed –learning strategy and gaining experience through individual effort. Expertise requires continuous interaction and experience. They evaluate their learning, and by this, they experience the manner of managing and allocating time for effective supervision. According to participants, the amount of time allocation for expertise seems to be one of the most important factors for self-directed learning and expertise acquirement.

The formal training workshops provided an opportunity for supervisors with similar terms and the same problems in terms of learning experiences, environmental features, students, and educational problems to come together in one place. Participants also considered the formal participatory teaching necessary since it can provide an opportunity for the peers to get together and exchange their experiences. As a clinical faculty member put it:

“…Collaborative strategies can be beneficial in many ways. One of them is the facilitation of experience exchanges amongst teachers, peers, and colleagues and modeling the behavior of teachers and teaching workshops that emphasize the importance of their expertise in research supervision…” (Faculty member N0.1).

In our participants’ experience, this self-directed learning is effective if, and only if, it is done accompanied by proper training and participatory teaching. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. As an example, one of the students in this field said:

“…my supervisor was a great teacher and put in a lot of time and effort on my thesis supervision; however, due to his lack of research skills, I had to change my thesis proposal three times. However, after he participated in a training course at the University of Oxford, his progress was unbelievable and impressive…and I saw his expertise…” (Student N0.11).

One of the faculty members also quoted:

“…When the teachers feel a gap in their knowledge or skill, the university must provide a comfortable, appropriate, and easy way for learning them …” (Faculty member N0.10).

Regarding this subject, one of the Managers in this field stated:

“…Another improvement strategy is the use of interpersonal interactions among faculty members, these instructive interpersonal interactions among the faculty members in similar conditions make it possible to benefit from peers’ feedback …” (Manager N0.1).

A hidden curriculum strategy, like learning through trial and error can also affect the expertise process. One of the professors expressed:

“… Learning through trial and error is very effective; through the supervision of each thesis, we learn some of our mistakes and try not to remake them in the next one …” (Faculty member N0.3).

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student’s experience:

Reflection on action

The learner provides an integrated schedule for their competence and uses all the facilitators and facilities around them for further efficiency and promotion. This stage is named Conditional Self-efficacy by expertise experience. At this stage, the supervisor is considered a competent individual who can guide the students based on the experiences of specialized and non-specialized faculty members.

In this regard, one of the students said:

“…I can acknowledge that my supervisor functioned very impressively in this thesis, but guidance and supervision are not static; rather, it is an active process. To be a good supervisor, the faculty members should try to keep up to date and revise their attitudes, duties, and their specialty and knowledge. …” (Student N0.3).

According to the participants, at this stage the supervisors have achieved meta-competence and general characteristics or professional value; are able to guide the students and others; and develop characteristics such as acquiring specific knowledge of the discipline, especially well-organized knowledge, planning, directing of a project effectively, having good interpersonal skills, and being dutiful, knowledgeable and enthusiastic in research.

One of the PhD students states: “… My supervisor is typical of an expert. His ingenious inquiries, extraordinary attention to science and his personality have always been admired and he has been a role model for me…” (Student N0.6).

For example, the supervisors attend educational programs on scientific writing and thesis evaluation as well as ethics in research and apply them in team work. Gradually, their competency can enable them to function as a good supervisor for their students. At this stage, the supervisor develops so that they can respond due to discovery and intuition. These responses replace their dubious and unskilled reactions. The supervisor now reflects various stages of supervision and guidance. They take action, and in fact, a part of their reactions are achieved through observation and recognition. In this stage, they not only recognize what should be done but also distinguish how to achieve it with more precise discretion. A competent person does the appropriate task in the most appropriate time using the right platform.

The time period required for training or acquiring expertise varies from one person to another. Some individuals become experts very soon, whilst it takes others longer.. As one of the professors said:

“…In the beginning, I was too concerned with my responsibility as a thesis supervisor and was not sure what I should do. However, after ten years of experience, I have gained a sense of awareness which makes supervision easier for me. Of course, up to date knowledge and skill as to managing a thesis are always necessary. It took me about 12 years to reach where I am today. Furthermore, an individual who is expert at present, will not be so in two years, so I want to say that the expertise in thesis supervision in a continuum, which depends on the supervisor’s reflections on work and activity …” (Faculty member N0.15).

The continuous path of expertise in supervision can be affected by various factors. This has resulted in a range of expertise and performance in supervisors. This range and continuum is a theme that most of our participants agreed with. One of the managers revealed:

“…There is surely a continuum of expertise. We cannot deny the expert supervisors; however, the existence of those with poor supervising skills must also be acknowledged (in thesis supervision). There are those on whose ethics, honesty, and knowledge we can rely on. On the other hand, there are a few who are not as trustworthy as needed.” (Manager N0.1).

The core variable: interactive accountability

As shown in Fig. 1 , through this survey, we found that the core variable in thesis supervision process is the interactive accountability shaped by interactions of supervisors and students in an academic setting, so to enhance the accountability, each group must take responsibility and do his or her job. In this regard, one of the managers claimed:

“…When supervisors find themselves responsible, and the university officials recognize this responsibility, the supervisors are motivated to seek expertise and try to enhance their competencies and acquire learning strategies because of being accountable…” (Manager N0.2)

This means that teachers must be responsive to the needs of students, university and community. Accountability is a mutual interaction between the students and their supervisor, in other words, if the student is responsive to his duties, he creates motivation in his supervisor. One of the participants commented;

“…I've always tried to be a competent thesis supervisor, so that I have the ability to meet the needs of the community and university as well as students. I say to myself when I accept the supervision of a thesis, I should be well accountable for its results…” (Faculty member N0.32)

This study aimed at exploring the processes of expertise among thesis supervisors based on the experience of faculty members, students, and managers of Iranian universities of medical sciences. The section concludes with an explanation of how these themes are a cohesive relationship, which enables the expertise development of supervisors. It seems that the core variable in the expertise process is the concept of interactive accountability and efforts to acquire the capacity to respond to the students and academic needs. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. The importance of accountability and various types of ability in thesis supervision has also been emphasized by other studies [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. It was also mentioned as the major feature of the supervisor in other studies [ 26 , 27 ].

In this study, “accountability” emerged as the behavioral pattern through which the supervisors resolved their main concern of being an expert in being responsive to academic and students’ needs. Supervision training is complex since academic choices in the real world can depend on supervisor characteristics. The results of this study revealed that in the initial phase of supervision, observation, evaluation, and reflection in action and maturation stage in the secondary phase were the major themes that emerged. This result compared with Bandura’s social learning and self-efficacy theory was significant in similarity and difference. Bandura believes that achieving self-efficacy is one of the most important contributors to competence. In his model, he suggested four sources of self-efficacy, including previous accomplishments, vicarious experiences such as having a role model, verbal persuasion such as coaching and evaluative feedback, and emotional arousal [ 28 , 29 ]. Likewise, in this study, we found that the emotional arousals such as personal interest in cooperative learning, peer competition, meeting the needs of students, self-awareness and the need for upgrading are the significant factors for the faculties’ expertise. Also, our participants found that the utilization of previous experiences is the most effective method of achieving personal competence. However, this study indicates conditional expertise, which means if an expert’s information is not up to date and they do not make any effort in this regard, being an expert and having expertise is not a permanent condition.

This study also revealed that self-effort, workshops, and role models, as part of a hidden curriculum, are influential methods of teacher empowerment which agrees with the results of some studies such as those of Britzman et al. and Patel et al. Patel et al. have also suggested the importance of role modeling; they believe that modeling and observing other faculty members behavior is an effective tool for promoting and strengthening the sense of efficacy in learners [ 30 , 31 ].

Based on our study results, among the learning methods used in Iran, the collaborative education and problem-based learning is the widely accepted method which is preferred by most faculties. Therefore, cooperative and collaborative learning strategies can be used in educating the faculty members towards expertise in supervision, as revealed in other studies [ 32 , 33 ].

Lack of time is reported by supervisors to be one of the most common barriers in trying to become an expert and carry out respectable worthy supervision, and taking one’s time is acknowledged as a motivating factor for putting in more effort in thesis supervision [ 34 , 35 , 36 ].

The effect of contextual factors is studied in several surveys [ 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Gillet et al. state that contextual and organizational factors play a key role in the competence of teachers in research supervision [ 36 ]. This study also showed that faculty expertise in thesis supervision was significantly affected by the impact of contextual interventional factors such as sudden changes, structural shortcomings, and educational environment. Based on our and other studies’ results, among the sudden changes, increased workload due to the increase in the student population has greatly affected expertise. Moreover, while an increase in the workload can lead to more experienced faculty members, it is very time-consuming and, therefore, reduces the chance to obtain new information and skills in thesis supervision [ 33 , 37 ].

Similar to our study, other studies such as those of Al-Naggar et al. and Yousefi et al. have also found insufficient monitoring and lack of formative evaluations to be one of the main obstacles in the thesis supervision process. Studies have indicated that to improve the supervision process, careful planning and incentive rules must be applied [ 5 , 34 ]. Similarly, our participants mentioned that rules and regulations which have resulted in the positive effect of research on scholarship and promotion had truly motivated them. Like our study, other studies in Iran have also found that the amount of time allocated to learning is one of the influential factors affecting the faculty members’ expertise [ 13 , 38 ]. A malfunctioning relationship between the student and supervisors can affect both of them negatively; that is, it can compel the students to misbehave and also reduce the teachers’ motivation to develop better skills. This malfunction may be due to the lack of constructive interactions or paternalism leadership in research supervision [ 39 , 40 ]. As shown in Fig. 1 , this study provided a conceptual framework that can be used in policy making and studies of expertise development in research supervision. This framework is based on the perception and experience of the majority of those involved in the thesis process. It also provides teachers with an opportunity to compare and share their experiences.

This model has three fields of experience, which yields a comprehensive gradient of the factors used for the development and progress of thesis supervision quality. In other words, it is a rational structure that makes an effort to cover a comprehensible number of stages, of concept, achievement, and impact or consequence. In other words, this model is a combination of a great number of items that help to recognize the present and future processes of expertise in thesis supervision, and future challenges in this area which predict results and impacts of supervisor’s knowledge, attitude and research supervision. Table one offers the categories and clarifications [ 17 ].

This study is based on our overall model of expertise attainment. This model reveals that specific personal efforts such as observation of prior knowledge, evaluation or self-assessments alongside the university contextual dynamics help to figure out how supervisors select their approaches and engagements, and respond carefully to their task, which in turn impacts the supervisors’ level of expertise and, finally, outcomes such as work and perseverance, which then help them to become an expert. Similar to the social learning theory of Bandura, this model also states that there is a mutual relationship between different parts that can mutually affect one another. For instance, faculty members have shown in various studies how one’s previous academic success and failure can affect the future levels of involvement and motivation. Based on the study aims, we focused on only three of the components of the model: observation, evaluation, and self-efficacy; in terms of motivational processes, we focused on four motivational components. The first is self-efficacy, defined as students’ judgments of supervisor abilities to carry out a task, and their beliefs about their ability to do so show the highest levels of academic achievement and also engagement in academic behaviors promoting learning.

Through the use of this grounded theory, we can begin to understand the supervisors’ challenges and why it may be difficult to become an expert in research supervision in practice. The junior supervisors curiously observe and evaluate their environment by reflection and in action and do their best to attain knowledge and skills in the supervision of the theses, so that they can reach maturation. They are mainly supported by prior knowledge of the research supervision, which they had acquired when they were students. The concept of “interactive accountability” refers to the fact that if the supervisor is responsive to the students’ needs, they can be an expert in supervision. If they cannot overcome the barriers and shortcomings such as lack of time, they will not attain expertise in thesis supervision.

Strengths and limitations of the study

This grounded theory study describes the main dimensions of expertise in research supervision from straight reports of a large qualitative sample ( n  = 84) which consists of thesis supervisors, from all Iranian universities in three different data collection phases. Like other qualitative research, the results of this study cannot be generalized; therefore, it is recommended that the researchers conduct further qualitative research in other contexts to support these findings.

Despite the above limitations, we believe that this model can be useful for supervisors in the thesis supervision area, not only in analyzing the supervisors’ experience of supervision and being an expert but also in recognizing the areas of intervention or development of teacher training.

Implications of the study

The findings of the present study will help administrators to choose the supervisor with definite criteria in medical sciences institutes and facilitate the expertise in the supervision process through elimination of the shortcomings and improvement of the educational climate. The supervisor’s interest, talent, and capabilities should be assessed at the beginning of their employment as academic staff. Supervisors should attend educational workshops for updating their knowledge about supervision. It is recommended that collaborative strategies and methods should be used, so that we can contribute to the process of becoming an expert. The assessment of supervisors’ functioning in supervising and provision of feedback can contribute to the process of expertise. Feedback received from students about their supervisors will improve the supervisor’s further expertise and capabilities. For future studies survey on the impact of successful models in thesis supervision, disclosure analysis studies about student and supervisor are recommended.

In this study, we aimed to find out how thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision. The results of our study indicated that thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision in two stages of engagement and maturation. The emotional need to be responsive towards peers and students is the main motivation for the acquisition of competency at observation and evaluation phase of engagement. Through the evaluation and observation phase, the supervisors reach cognitive competence, such as research skills. Also, in the maturation phases, they reach meta-competence in research supervision such as problem-solving and resolving dilemmas by reflection in and when exposed to dilemmas. Meanwhile, the effects of supervision climate include shortcomings and role ambiguities which should be taken into account. According to this model, when supervisors are exposed to such problems, they apply multiple strategies, such as self-directed and collaborative learning; and learning by trial and error and from the role models. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. This study indicated that interactive accountability, as the core variable, can be guaranteed in thesis supervisors by making the role clear, creating a supportive context, and improving the academic competencies of staff in an ongoing fashion. Therefore, this can promote constructive expertise in supervisors and foster a deeper understanding of the supervisor’s expertise in thesis supervision.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets produced and analyzed during the present study are not publicly accessible due to participant confidentiality, but are obtainable from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

The researchers would like to thank all research participants of Medical Sciences Universities (faculty, student, and managers) who contributed to the study. The authors would also like to thank the Education Development Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for cooperation in this study and special thanks to Professor Shokrpoour for her editing.

The present article was extracted from the thesis written by Leila Bazrafkan. The design and implementation of the project was financially supported by Esfahan University of Medical Sciences (Grant No. 92–6746).

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Clinical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

Leila Bazrafkan & Mitra Amini

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Contributions

LB developed the study design, conducted the interviews and analysis, ensured trustworthiness, and drafted the manuscript. AY, as the supervisor participated in the study design, supervised the codes and data analysis process, and revised the manuscripts. NY as research advisor participated in the study and provided guidance during the study and MA revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Authors’ information

LB is an assistant professor of medical education in Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

AY is Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan

MA is Professor of Medical Education in the Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

NY Associate Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nikoo Yamani .

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This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (92–6746). The participants were justified about the research aim and interviews. Informed consent for conducting and recording the interview was obtained. The confidentiality of the participants’ information was maintained throughout the study.

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Participants gave printed informed consent for the use of passages for publication.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Bazrafkan, L., Yousefy, A., Amini, M. et al. The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study. BMC Med Educ 19 , 320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1739-z

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Received : 07 February 2019

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Published : 22 August 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1739-z

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Dissertation supervision.

A dissertation supervisor provides regular guidance and support to a student undertaking a dissertation.

The supervisory relationship is built on clear communication and mutually agreed expectation in terms of progress. Working in partnership with the student a supervisor assists in the definition of a research topic the design of a programme of study and the implementation of this. They also provide expertise at the writing stage and support in the face of deadlines.

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‘Am I doing it right?’: Conceptualising the practice of supervising master’s dissertation students

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• Students Social Sciences 100%
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• Practice Social Sciences 66%
• Support Social Sciences 66%
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T1 - ‘Am I doing it right?’

T2 - Conceptualising the practice of supervising master’s dissertation students

AU - Macfadyen, Ann

AU - English, Christine

AU - Kelleher, Michael

AU - Coates, Maggie

AU - Cameron, Colin

AU - Gibson, Vanessa

PY - 2019/7/29

Y1 - 2019/7/29

N2 - An action research project involving 25 master’s supervisors, from health and education disciplines, sought to enhance their understanding of dissertation supervision. Recognising that they were sometimes slightly unsure about their role, they sought to identify issues that contributed to this circumstance, and to develop supervisor preparation materials to support future colleagues. During interviews and collaborative workshops, colleagues shared their experiences and reflected with one another on the nature of supervision. Through this process they constructed a model that conceptualises how they practice. The core element is an ongoing assessment of a student’s readiness, motivation and individual situation. In response to this assessment, supervisors balance three functions: Facilitating, Nurturing and Maintaining Standards. Facilitating encourages student growth through challenge or stimulation. Nurturing involves the provision of support and reassurance within a safe space in which this growth can occur. Maintaining standards ensures that academic and professional rigor are preserved.

AB - An action research project involving 25 master’s supervisors, from health and education disciplines, sought to enhance their understanding of dissertation supervision. Recognising that they were sometimes slightly unsure about their role, they sought to identify issues that contributed to this circumstance, and to develop supervisor preparation materials to support future colleagues. During interviews and collaborative workshops, colleagues shared their experiences and reflected with one another on the nature of supervision. Through this process they constructed a model that conceptualises how they practice. The core element is an ongoing assessment of a student’s readiness, motivation and individual situation. In response to this assessment, supervisors balance three functions: Facilitating, Nurturing and Maintaining Standards. Facilitating encourages student growth through challenge or stimulation. Nurturing involves the provision of support and reassurance within a safe space in which this growth can occur. Maintaining standards ensures that academic and professional rigor are preserved.

KW - Supervisor

KW - supervision

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KW - Postgraduate education

KW - postgraduate students

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DO - 10.1080/07294360.2019.1597024

M3 - Article

SN - 0729-4360

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JF - Higher Education Research and Development

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