The Academic Support Research Students Must Obtain from Supervisors

By Elizabeth Paradiso Urassa

It is hard to keep silent when many higher education students drop out of their studies every semester. Different scholarly literature has indicated that almost fifty percent of students who commence higher education withdraw. Indeed, higher education and research training pedagogy depend on success in supervision where a student cooperates with supervisors effectively. However, some supervisors do not comprehend students' academic expectations, so it has become difficult to strategize for fulfilling students' learning goals. As a result, some students drop out because they do not experience support from supervisors in fulfilling their expectations. 

 Elizabeth provides information to guide postsecondary supervision partners in communicating their academic expectations  The book is a resource for students to comprehend issues to discuss and ask for in supervision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Information is Power
• Release date: Apr 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9788299867221

Elizabeth Paradiso Urassa

 Elizabeth is a former teacher, school inspector, and job advisor. During her Ph.D. study, she recognized students and their learning agency encounter with supervision. Since then, her primary responsibilities have been supporting people, including students and supervisors in higher education, with information and strategies to overcome diverse challenges, including isolation.

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Background Information

Scholarly literature has demonstrated the challenges students encounter when collaborating with supervisors. The rocky relationships, diversity in learning perspectives, and unknown expectations of roles and responsibilities are among the problems facing supervision partners today. Several academics have documented collaboration challenges between the research students and their supervisors, which need attention. The disputes prevent the partners from adequately discussing their learning expectations and failing to strategize how to fulfill them.

Let us orient ourselves with higher education structures and practices. Today, higher education learning environments are multicultural, with actors from varying social, academic, and financial backgrounds. So, students' and supervisors' interactions have become complex due to, among others, the diverging perspectives about teachers’ and students’ roles and responsibilities. Besides, students learning needs, abilities, and expectations vary, calling for different supervision strategies. Additionally, the learning time allocated for students’ degrees is limited such that it sometimes does not allow the actors to comprehend their needs and expectations adequately. 

Furthermore, the structure and practice of academic supervision differ from one institution to another and from one department to other. Besides, the higher education learning system is unknown to many, increasing challenges after enrolment. Although the supervision structure in many universities allows a research student to obtain at least two supervisors, some universities lack the human resources to fulfill this basic principle. So, students join the university without guarantees of competent supervisors, causing problems in attaining their learning goals.

Again, in some universities, supervisors may be students' choices and familiar, but most of the time, in others, supervisors are unfamiliar and unidentified to the students. Indeed, students who select their supervisors often are more confident working together than those with no such option. The students who choose their supervisors might have known their demands before establishing supervision relationships. Sometimes, they may have acquired helpful information that supports building and maintaining workable relationships. Usually, when assigned supervisors, students may need time to learn their demands, expectations, and abilities to build trust. Therefore, familiarizing and learning the supervisors’ preferences and capabilities may overshadow the need to discuss students’ needs and anticipations.

Another issue that appears in supervision is variation in practices. Supervision is complex teaching without external inspection to oversee the supervisors’ practices. Most institutions inform the procedures and rules that supervisors and students must observe without one to follow or monitor their interactions. The supervision instruction handbook is the tool most research students obtain in orientation programs or when discussing supervision practices. The book, in most cases, contains diverse supervision issues, including rules and regulations for meeting frequencies and changing supervisors. So, the partners sign a contract acknowledging their understanding of the information and adherence to the handbook’s instructions.

Although students and supervisors have a signed contract, it does not mean partners adequately comprehend their roles and responsibilities. Besides, there is no guidance on how to interact in creating shared expectations to succeed in supervision. Similarly, not all partners pay attention and discuss the handbook’s content intensely on its usefulness and how to apply the information. Some students consider the supervision handbook a formal written document without reading and comprehending the content seriously. Others review the information when they encounter problems in supervision or when instructed to do so. Therefore, most partners engage in higher education supervision without knowing its structures and practices.

The dilemma of dysfunctional supervision is not only for students but supervisors. Some supervisors do not know what they are signing up for and have no strategies to support students in fulfilling their learning goals. On the other hand, some supervisors consider supervision a duty to fulfill institutional demands and fail to focus on students’ success. They do not bother knowing students learning expectations or their needs and desires. Such supervisors may instruct students to perform what the handbook requires and the institution's and government's wishes without dyadic conversations with students. Scholarly literature about supervision informs the importance of supervisors in students’ learning and success. Indeed, students’ accomplishments depend on supervisors' ability to comprehend their needs and expectations while cooperating to fulfill institutional and governmental requirements. Therefore, students with supervisors who are not curious about students’ learning goals tend to encounter various challenges in supervision.

Without a doubt, the rules and regulations in supervision handbooks are crucial but cannot successfully expose students' needs and anticipations nor build the relationships required in different learning phases. Institutional managements expect supervisors and students to create effective and productive professional associations. How the partners define and strategize their cooperation becomes up to them, and no one is assigned to interfere with their agreement until one partner is dissatisfied. Even without sufficient guidance, supervisors and students ought to work collaboratively toward fulfilling the requirements. It is also assumed that the partnerships lead to fulfilling students' learning goals which (as mentioned earlier) are sometimes unknown.

On the other hand, the measure of competent supervisors has been the production of graduates timely, the production of publications, and the fulfillment of institutional and governmental policies. Unfortunately, the emphasis on the ability of supervisors to understand students' anticipations and their support to meet them is not the priority. As a result, some students graduate without attaining their learning goals, and others drop out. Often, if a student cannot harmonize with supervisors, no one questions whether supervisors comprehend the student’s expectations or whether partners understand each other and have shared goals. Instead, changing supervisors is normal advice given to students in case of dispute in supervision in many universities.

Indeed, scholars have written about good supervisors from their viewpoints (Wisker 2005, 2012). However, little is known about a good supervisor from students' perspectives, so the book intends to convey students’ academic expectations of good and competent supervisors. Therefore, it is time to listen to students informing their supervisors about the support they need and expect. Furthermore, the information can benefit institutional and governmental policymakers and other higher education actors who assist students and supervisors. Although, as I mentioned earlier, students require necessary support from their supervisors related to social and personal aspects, academic support is a cornerstone of research students’ supervision. So, understanding students’ academic anticipations is equally vital for qualified supervisors.

Thus, this book will mainly discuss the academic support students long for to fulfill their anticipations. The information in this book is from different higher education stakeholders, including research students with diverse backgrounds (age, gender, ethnicity, and disciplines). Some responded to semi-structured interviews, and others to unstructured interviews with open-ended questions about their academic expectations. No doubt less has been done to guide supervisors to perceive, comprehend, and meet students' academic expectations; otherwise, we could not witness student attrition caused by a failure in supervision to the rate we see today. The scholarly literature informs that many higher education students drop out today for many reasons worldwide. Among the major catalysts for their withdrawal are unsolved academic-related challenges. So, the lack of supervisors' understanding of their student’s academic goals and dysfunctional supervision cooperation have been stumbling blocks to students' failure.

As expressed, the book will guide supervisors, students, and other higher education stakeholders to comprehend students' academic expectations and formulate strategies to fulfill them. This writing originates from students’ responses informing the kind of support they expect from their supervisors. Therefore, students who read this book may be more effective in understanding the issues to raise in supervision and expectations to focus on continuously when working with their supervisors. In addition, students and supervisors may use this book to discuss the expectations while formulating shared and contextually related learning goals.

Thus, I consulted several students, most at the doctoral level, who shared their academic expectations in supervision. As a research student, one must converse his needs and anticipations with supervisors and other relevant learning agencies early and continuously. The more students manage to communicate their expectations, the increased knowledge of their supervisors’ roles and responsibilities in supervision. Indeed, students' information on their learning objectives can also support academic coordinators and those arranging supervisors' programs to plan accordingly. It is time for academic supervisors to consider and meet the students' expectations just as they do for institutions, governments, and other financial agencies. Since students are the leading higher education stakeholders who are the reason for the educational business, their views should matter.

Besides, knowledge of students' perspectives on supervision and expectations is essential. Unfortunately, even though institutions provide supervision programs, some supervisors still do not comprehend students’ expectations. Instead, as mentioned, they often undermine students' need to fulfill the institutional and governmental policy of timely degree completion. As a result, they often focus on speeding the learning process and completion, with less attention and effort to fulfilling students’ prospects.

So, this book is for everybody, especially those dealing with student learning directly (supervisors and advisors). Others who may benefit are those who desire to observe changes in higher education and the increasing number of students attaining their expectations. The book consists of six chapters to read for six days. Although one can read the book for one or two days, I recommend reading only one chapter daily to create time to think critically about the content. In addition, if you are a student, you may have a good time strategizing how to communicate your expectations if you have not done that. Finally, you may develop confidence in communicating your expectations with your supervisors to create shared goals to guide your learning process for successful outcomes.

In chapter one, I provide an overview of student attrition worldwide to support readers in understanding the challenge facing higher education institutions. Moreover, I discuss the student’s complaints about supervisors’ pedagogy as a learning aid in this book on supervision. Finally, in chapters two to six, I discuss the academic expectations of research students that their supervisors must discuss in the early stage and comprehend.

I am grateful that you choose this book and that you will become a tool for changes in higher education supervision.

Chapter 1

1.1 Student Attrition Statistics

The most challenging problem in higher education today is student attrition. Diverse findings demonstrate the seriousness and scope of the situation, which is partly associated with a failure in supervision. In addition, the scholarly literature has shown that institutions are affected by student attrition problems differently for thousands of reasons. Indeed, student attrition affects all higher education stakeholders in one way or another, but students are the most affected (Urassa, 2021). Even though researchers have indicated possible measures to reduce student attrition in higher education, the problem has persisted for a long time. For instance, if one reads publications by Beer & Lawson (2018), Maher & Macallister (2013), O'Keeffe (2013), and others of the kind, the reader may comprehend the scope of the challenge and consider the proposal provided by academics.

The scholar's central concept emphasized students’ good relationships with their supervisors. Currently, most students and supervisors lack skills that facilitate cooperation leading to unfunctional relations. For example, Grant (2005, 2010) explained the dilemma in supervision and the challenges students face in their relationship with supervisors, which sometimes resembles an enslaved person and master. Likewise, scholars mentioned students' lack of belonging to the institution and the learning community as another reason for withdrawing.

Indeed, many students, especially doctoral students in humanity (education and art), undertake research projects individually in most universities, which makes them isolated, especially those lacking