Creating Postgraduate Collaborations › Forums › CPC Supervision Development Course 2 › Module 1 › Module 1, Session 2: Variables and dynamics in the supervision process
Tagged: #goodsupervision
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Supervision needs the two who are from different ethnic, race, age difference to work in a kind of relationship and understanding. The challenge comes when communication/ responses form either side talk too long.
Gender plays a role in supervision in various ways; the female may have more responsibilities especially in taking care of children at home which may affect the time for both the supervisor and the student. Race may not be of great concern in the Kenyan context. Socioeconomic class may affect the students in that some students may not be privileged to fund doctoral education including research. Communication is key in postgraduate studies especially research, bearing in mind the social-economic differences in the Kenyan societies, our educational background varies with the poor going to low-class public schools which generally affect their communication style and knowledge. The topic/field of both the student and the supervisor must be similar for better communication and understanding, however, in the Kenyan context lack of enough supervisors in some field result in sourcing supervisors from other area/ fields to assist. Personality is key in supervision and may be critical in understanding the personalities of both the student and the supervisor. Culture/religion similarly may bring in different beliefs and traditions, especially on respect and these may affect the supervision process. Age may also affect supervision especially when the student is older than the supervisor which may result in the student disregarding the comments from the young supervisor.
I agree that gender plays a big role not only in supervision but also in pursuing further studies or in undertaking research tasks. This is especially so to married ladies who are tied to the family responsibilities which come first or have to be in order for one to concentrate or focus on their studies. This also affects female supervisors whereby the same issues apply to them in terms of time dedicated to supervision work.
All the variables play a role in affecting the supervision process in a negative way if they are not addressed.I have suffered the effect of some of them as a student.For example the issue of gender.Being a female student pursuing higher education is not easy.I was working and was a mother and at the same time sponsoring myself for my PhD studies. It was really tough negotiating through all those challenges.To make matters worse most supervisors are men so they cannot relate to your issues. The issue of financing introduces the social economic perspective which is made worse by gender.Further more postgraduate is not seen as necessary for women, first degree is enough. You are not supposed to compete with men.So you do it at your own risk and should not expect any support.
For effective post graduate supervision interventions should be put in place to address the challenges.The supervisees also expect discrimination even when its abated, and thus there could be some struggles.
Its risky that the discussion looks at the supervisee side of variables only. The supervisors are getting vulnerable to various difficulties to perform their work.
Age-wise, young energetic supervisors- their views do not count. Older supervisees underlook them. Genderwise- same as age-wise. Imagine an inferior supervisor, in a complex supervisor environment where the challenge is fellow supervisors and unfavorable policies!!!In Kenya socioeconomic, age and gender play a significant role.
All of these variables undoubtedly play a role. In addition, I think that the way in which the process of knowledge generation is structured is very stigmatised. Meaning by that, that we do the same things in the same way of years now and not really adaptable to the “change”
Communication style plays a major role in the success of student supervision.
Having been supervised and reading the colleagues’ reviews I was forced to reflect on my own supervision process and the experiences of students I have assisted in a consultancy capacity. I must mention that I recently graduated with my Ph.D. and during the course of my Ph.D. I also worked as a consultant in the research field, where I helped several undergraduate students and masters’ students.
The experiences drawn from both processes tend to reveal that there is a need to understand your students, appreciate their backgrounds, and their work output, and go the extra mile to show empathy whenever necessary. In the supervision process, there is a need to develop trust and build a good workmanship relationship based on professionalism, trust, and honesty. Students have different strengths and understanding them can bring the best in them. level of supervision also differs individually.
Personally, I was luck to have one of the best supervisors who managed to understands me and gave me all the freedom to build and own the project. I was a self-motivated student who needed little to minimum supervision in my study. Maybe, it was because I was studying in a familiar context as an insider formative interventionist researcher and having used theoretical framework well supported in the department and which has been applied thoroughly in similar context finding my way into the theoretical landscape was not an issue. As such my supervisor gave me the freedom, and I remembered our first supervision meeting when she asked me “how do you want us to work?” in short I asked if she can allow me to give her the first draft at once which I later did 2 years down the lane and she was happy to accept it as the final draft for submission. This just shows me how much trust she showed me in the project and I own the responsibility of the study, not to mention other roles she played on the financial side of the study and my stay which was extraordinary. comparing this experience to what some students I helped as a consultant I became aware of the importance of good feedback, nurturing, scaffolding, and induction.
In the feedback process, I learned how much it is important to give positive, constructive, and timely feedback. On the latter how important your own judgment and decision as a supervisor is important on deciding the best time to feedback.
I agree, but a point to make is that communication is 2 way and not always one-sided. So even on the issue of feedback I reflected on, there is always a need for the student to constantly remind the supervisor through emails and walk ins if agreed from the word go.
I find that most of the points enlisted all contributed to some sort of barriers to supervision. The navigation through our cultural imprints makes it very difficult to be free and collaborative, especially from a student perspective. I believe that understanding all these factors can be useful for us as prospective or active supervisors. It will help us to be accessible and thus boundaries and preferences can be amicably set and discussed which is the basis of a successful supervisor/student relationship which is the core of fruitful research.
All these variables play a vital role in the supervision process. Objectivity must be maintained so as to sustain a positive and productive working environment for timely success. Subjectivity remains a high-order toxic approach in the academic environment such that a lot of energy is lost to negativity hence delaying success and compromising academic quality for all the variables and dynamics in the supervision process.
The issue of gender is very important in the supervision process. As I mentioned in session 1, if the supervisor is male and the student is male, the is a problem with taking advantage of one another in the process. As for my masters, I was supervised by a male professor, and I have learned a lot of things in the process, it’s unfortunate that now he has retired. His immense knowledge was profound. all of these aspects are very important in the journey of supervision and they all depend on the personality of the person. above all, I think both the student and the supervisor must respect one another and they must be willing to learn from each other.
In my country ,gender,age and socio-economic status has highly affected supervision.At the post graduate level,most of the students are working and it is common to find that the student’s earn more than their supervisors and this has brought some lack of respect towards education as a profession, and hence,affecting supervision negatively.
Age factor is another variable,whereby the supervisor may find the supervisee is advanced in age,with some expectations which may not be met.Further,aged students lack commitment to their research work and this delays completion -
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