Creating Postgraduate Collaborations › Forums › CPC Supervision Development Course › Module 4 › Module 4, Session 2: Research Committee Membership and Examination
Tagged: assessment, examiner, oral, Viva
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This forum is to share your experiences of examination at postgraduate level and of proposal reviews in research committees.
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Many postgraduate supervisors are university staff and may play different roles within and without the universities. Some of them may be involved in university committees which may have nothing to do with postgraduate supervision or may be related to student supervision. However, in some situations, for example my university, all thesis proposal preparation goes through departments and finally schools, and each proposal must be defended and approved by the senior faculty/ teaching staff in the school. In such defenses many postgraduate supervisors in the relevant fields present themselves to give their final inputs before a student proceeds for data collection and thesis preparation under supervision by appointed university supervisors.
Many postgraduate supervisors are from time to time involved in postgraduate internal or external thesis examination depending on their qualifications and their experience in their respective fields. In some universities, external examination experience forms and seniority forms a criteria of being appointed an external examiner in that university criteria eBeing a member of the postgraduate research proposal review committee is sometimes overwhelming given the extra work load from the normal teaching, research and extension work on the table. With many schools running post graduate programs, the committee has to process hundreds of proposals in a semester. The poor ratios between the number of proposals to be processed within a time frame and the number of committee members in a given meeting may affect the quality of review given that members in these committees do not have extra remunerations as a motivation. Therefore many will attend to other duties they deem more important to be prioritized.
Examining the thesis or dissertation is part of the responsibility of all academic faculty. When students arrive at the final examination stage, there is a sense of achievement on the supervisors’ part that provides the impetus to examine with the keen hawk eye since this final piece reflects the collective responsibility of the whole supervisory process and the scientific rigour of the research process.
Having being involved in both Research/Proposal Approval and Examination of theses, i consider the following to be important;
For Proposal/Research Approval:
a) Objectivity
b) Social inclusion
c) Professionalism
d) Avoiding conflict of interest
For theses examination:
a) Strictly follow the rules and regulations
b) Objectivity in giving comments and verdict
c) Observing set timelines
c) Declaration of conflict of interest if anyMy experiences of examination at postgraduate level and of proposal reviews in research committees.
My own experience at postgraduate level examination is that sometimes having worked amicably with the student throughout the process makes the whole process easier. Sometimes there are situations when the student feels the thesis is ready for presentation and even examination when you as a supervisor are sure that the document is not yet there. This sometimes causes acrimony but in case where there is co-supervision discussions and discussions are the key to unlock the impasse. I find it as bit tricky to participate as an internal examiner for a thesis I have been involved in as a supervisor. There is a challenge here as it will be as good as self examining and puts me in a situation with the student who will say but you say it is ready for examination but why?
Thanks to participants for posting isssues on proposal review and examination. A few questions come up:
1. If the number of proposals that one needs to review feels overwhelming, how do faculty make sure the review process is worthwhile for the students instead of it becoming a mere bureaucratic hurdle?
2. @ Amos in particular: You talk about the need to safeguard “objectivity” in judging proposals and examining theses. How do you achieve this objectivity? How do you avoid being influenced by other factors than the mere quality of the work that has been submitted?
3. We discussed the role of supervisors in examination already in the very first session on institutional practices. How does one avoid the mix-up of responsibilities of supervisor and examiner in those cases where one is expected to evaluate a thesis one has been involved with oneself?
Hi Amos — Please see my question regarding you comment on objectivity below: https://postgradcollaborations.com/forums/topic/module-4-session-2/#post-2956.
Best regards
WilIn my University there are two committees that go through the proposal. There is the departmental graduate studies’committee and the School graduate studies’ committee. Both have chairs. The proposal is first subjected to scrutiny by graduate faculty of the specific department in a public forum. The candidate presents the proposal to the committee and is given comments on the various aspects of the proposal. If the proposal meets the threshold then it moves to the next level i.e the school level where the graduate faculty is invited. This is a more multidisciplinary committee and brings together expertise from different knowledge. This has both advantages and disadvantages as some faculty members think that things must be done in accordance to the protocols of their discipline. But normally the candidate benefits from a myriad of enriching comments. If the board approves the proposal at this level the the candidate proceeds to the research stage and eventually thesis writing.
I have been both an internal and external examiner. The processes and protocols presented in the power point are not so different from our own. There are however, a few points of departure. Though the department appoints both the two internal examiners and one external examiner it is the board of school of graduate studies and senate that eventually approves the board of examiners. It is after the viva that it is determined according to the rules and regulations the verdict of the thesis. Though the supervisors must be in attendance during the oral examination, they remain passive throughout the process. At the end of the examination the candidate is provided with the examiners’reports as well as the issues the issues that emerged during the examination to assist them with the corrections in collaboration with the supervisors.RESEARCH COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP AND EXAMINATION
All supervisors find themselves in the two roles presented; serving in the higher degree commiittee and also in examination.In my institution, there are three level of higher degree committees that a supervisor can be involved; at the departmental, school and university level. All supervisors belong to the departmental committees at which quality assurance/ gate keeping for a specific discipline is ensured with support given to both supervisors and students. At the school and university levels, more general interdisciplinary issues are dealt with.
My institution have laid down procedures and rules on appointment of of higher degree committee and examiners’ which include expertise, experiences and qualifications laid down by the university and the Commission of University Education in Kenya.
However, as the presenter noted the “never appoint an examiner without checking with them that they will take the thesis, and the time frames proposed are acceptable”, this is a principle that is not applied in my institution. Perhaps this could be as a result of a small workforce in comparison with the students’ population and thus checking with the examiner would almost always result in decline.
The examination process in my institution is almost as explained. However, rarely does the supervisor write to the examiner explaining why some changes in the examined thesis are not being made. This could be an area we could look at in the future.
The power point slides outlines steps that are similar to what happens in my sistitution.
One thing that i have seen that varies in institutions in my country is on the issues of an internal examiner. In my institution, you can not serve as an internal examiner to examine a thesis for which you have been a supervisor to the student. However in another institution, i have been asked to examin a thesis which i have supervised. This sometimes i find it not giving a new insight of seeing issues that the supervisors may not be realising as not being okay and by passing them. I think it is better to avoid having a supervisor serving as an examiner to improve on ethical issues and to generally improve on quality checksThe ppt presentation speaks to my experience as a supervisor and a member of an Ethics Committee. These committees are important, as Chrissie says, in spotting what the supervisors and relevant committees might have missed out, and act to guid the student (and sometimes supervisors) on ethical issues. Setting time frames within which a protocol should be reviewed by any given committee and a clarification that the work of the committee should be for the best interest of their clients is important in keeping delays and other challenges in check.
On supervision and vivas, a few things that we do differently at my institution: Supervisors do not nominate examiners. This is done by the departmental postgraduate committee and approved by the School of Graduate Studies. The vivas for PhD students do not necessarily have happen after a written examination. There are those that take a doctoral programme by thesis. This does not require any form of written examinations. However, this is slowly changing with the Commission for University Education demands for coursework and seminars for all Masters and PhD programs.
I am grateful for such an insightful presentation,
There may always exist some implicit roles in every process for all participants of a process including supervision. Making such implicit knowledge, that is difficult to transfer to another people, explicit is a key contribution, since we always need concepts to deal with challenges we face.
Beyond providing practical solution sets, this presentation highlighted for me one more time the importance ofeffective communications
among student, supervisor and committee members
(thank you all)-
This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by
Israfil BOYACI.
I found the PPT to be speak to some of my experiences as an examiner and member in examination committees. I have been a postgraduate thesis examiner both as an internal and external examiner and my experiences sometimes bring out some of the dilemmas that characterise the duty involved. In my university there is an elaborate guideline on the scoring of the various aspects of the thesis. However, there are instances where written report does not correspond with the overall marks awarded e,g a highly critical report but a high mark and vice-versa. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of my faculty, the evaluation guidelines sometimes don’t capture the disciplinary practices in the various fields e.g examiners may be required to rate the accuracy of Tables/statistics yet for the particular discipline there is hardly use of statistics. With regard to external examination, i have been exposed to practices where the supervisors are at the same time examiners which does not happen in my university. Sometimes in the viva it emerges the written evaluation reports from supervisors who are also examiners and ‘external’ examiners are in agreement but the final verdict in terms of pass with minor corrections; major corrections required; re-submission or fail differ widely between the two categories of examiners. This has often led me to wonder on the dilemmas a supervisor-examiner goes through in maintaining some objectivity in assessment of work they are involved in
producing.Today’s responses highlight a set of interesting institutional practices. The comments speak a lot about the responsibilities of supervisors and internal and external examiners. These comments lead to the question whether and how examiners are actually held accountable for their judgments? In case there is a discrepancy between a grade and a written report, how do examination boards (or other bodies that are responsible for maintaining quality and fairness of grading) relate to examiners?
Being a member of a higher degrees committee or
As a member of research committee responsible for approving research proposals, I should familiarize my self with the structure or guideline of the proposal as per field or faculty. Proposal act as a part of the screening process of higher degree candidates and gives departments and prospective supervisors a sense of the candidate’s ability to formulate their ideas, the contribution of the study to the field of research, and the feasibility of the project. supervisor should also form part of a committee. This will help the student as the supervisor will be noting all comments made by the committee. Approval will be made if members get satisfied by the final submission of the proposal after correction.Being an examiner of thesis, in writing
Thesis can be evaluated according to the scale: satisfactory/very satisfactory /good/very good /excellent. The research scope has been defined. The goals of the thesis are evident. The research questions and hypotheses contained in the scope of research and goals are evident from the thesis. I even write the comments on the ring bind book if hard copy submitted. I also thoroughly check references as students has the tendency of including source that not cited within the text.Being an examiner orally in a viva
I check the significance of the work and its context, both interms of the field and in the public understanding of science. The sound knowledge of the techniques & methods applied and the strengths and limitations, and if student applicable to a given context. Make sure that student understand processing of data. Check if student manage to answer all questions from the external and external examiners. It is very crucial to encourage to prepare viva before hand. -
This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by
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