Abstract
The advent of the Information Age leading to the democratisation and massification of higher education has led to institutions of higher learning (IHL hereafter) offering more flexible and diverse learning modes that allow adult learners to pursue their studies and upgrade their skills. Researchers note that while IHLs have witnessed a steady increase in the number of postgraduate enrolments, close to 40–50 % of these postgraduates students often leave without completing their doctoral studies. The high attrition rate coupled with the low-completion rate of research students has put a critical demand on IHL to critically examine supervision practices. Therefore, this paper puts forward the findings of an exploratory pilot study which investigated the perceptions of 32 postgraduate supervisors from two local universities in Malaysia. It explored supervisors’ perspectives from a variety of aspects ranging from their roles and responsibilities to supervisory practices and level of support they provide to postgraduate students at various stages of writing a thesis. Data were collected using a questionnaire and semi structured interviews. Initial findings revealed that a majority of the supervisors felt that the main role of a supervisor is to help, coach and keep the students on track so that they can meet the required standards and quality in producing their thesis for examination at the end of their candidature. The supervisors also highlighted that a majority of postgraduate research students not only lacked reading, writing and research skills; but also the ability to take responsibility for and ownership of their work. The implications of the study suggest that postgraduate supervisors need to re-examine their roles in today’s changing landscape of postgraduate supervision.
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This project was funded by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, MoE, Malaysia.
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Sidhu, G.K., Kaur, S., Fook, C.Y., Peck Choo, L., Fong, L.L., Jamian, L. (2016). Exploring Supervisors’ Perspectives to Enhance Postgraduate Supervision. In: Fook, C., Sidhu, G., Narasuman, S., Fong, L., Abdul Rahman, S. (eds) 7th International Conference on University Learning and Teaching (InCULT 2014) Proceedings. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-664-5_15
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