Articulating Research Students’ Relational and Social Expectations

Copyright 2023 by Elizabeth Paradiso Urassa. 998672

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The book is a professional non-fiction work. All the information is well scrutinized and comes from the author and other people’s experiences with their consent. The names of the participants are not real, as they want to remain anonymous. However, the stories are real and have been modified without distorting the message for learning purposes. Any resemblance names to any actual persons, living or dead, and events or location is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN   Softcover    978-82-998672-7-6

EBook  978-82-998672-3-8 

Rev. date 10.05.2023

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Note from the Previous Book

The Proceeding Book

Chapter 1

1.1 Supervision in Higher Education

1.1.1 Student Attrition Statistics

1.1.2 Students Complaints

Chapter 2

2.1 Students’ Learning Goals

2.1.1 Right People and Channel

2.1.2 Timing is the Key

2.1.3 Relevant and Reliable Information

2.1.4 Unrealistic Assumptions and Advisors

Chapter 3

3.1 Supervisors’ General Behavior

3.1.1 Supervisors’ Accessibility

3.1.2 Busy Supervisors

3.1.3 Unnecessary Distancing

3.1.4 Negotiation is Appreciated

Chapter 4

4.1 Supervisors’ Specific Behavior

4.1.1 Emotional Control

4.1.2 Respect and Friendly Atmosphere

4.1.3 Supervisors’ Ego

4.1.4 Combat Sexual Feelings

4.1.5 Encourage Pleasant Emotion

Chapter 5

5.1 Constructive Communication

5.1.1 Information reliability

5.1.2 Complications in Interaction

5.1.3 Enculturation and Acculturation

Conclusion

References

Index

Introduction

This book continues to report the investigation conducted in higher education, asking students about their expectations of a competent supervisor. Students informed their academic and social relational expectations that they think a good supervisor should support them in fulfilling. We may agree that higher education supervisors are vital for students’ successful and timely graduation, but they also safeguard the learning process by ensuring students’ knowledge and skills acquisition. However, for students and supervisors to cooperate and work productively academically, they must observe some social qualities. Thus, the book aims at disclosing the vital social relational abilities students expect from their supervisors.

This book connects my other book, The Academic Support Research Students Must Obtain from A Competent Supervisor I applied the qualitative research method to collect the information in both the first book and this one. First, I had narrative conversational unstructured and structured interviews with research students and supervisors. The method applied to reach the informants were telephoning, emailing, and face-to-face meetings from 2017 to 2020. The main question was, "what are students’ expectations of a competent supervisor? The responses were analyzed using NVIVO software described by Gibbs (2018), where descriptive information was coded and interpreted accordingly.

Surprisingly, when analyzing and synthesizing the responses, I realized that students’ expectations of their supervisors were in two major categories thus academics and social relations. So, I had to synthesize the responses to convey the two categories of information separately for the readers to comprehend it better. Fortunately, I have reported academic expectations in the book The Academic Support Research Students Must Obtain from A Competent Supervisor Supervisors." and obtained positive comments and advice, which is the foundation of this book. However, this book deals with the social-relational aspects of what students expect from their competent supervisors.

Although more than seventy percent of students responded to the question explaining the support they need and expect from their supervisors, their responses mentioned the expectations in these two books. Two hundred and eighty students and eight supervisors making a total of two hundred and eighty-eight from four countries, communicated with me concerning the students’ expectations. Thus, Norway with thirty percent of responses, Tanzania with twenty percent, New Zealand with forty percent, and South Africa with ten percent. The university’s names remain anonymous, as agreed by participants, to avoid misconceptions, misjudgments, and stereotypes. Although students were delighted to respond to the question, most had not communicated their academic and social relations prospects with their supervisors.

Note from the Previous Book

The first book (Urassa 2021) reports the findings and discusses vital academic information that one can benefit from to understand students' expectations comprehensively. In a net shell, the book describes students’ academic expectations that supervisors should know. First, students anticipate obtaining advice concerning the literature to review and references relevant to their projects. Reviewing literature may be the initial point for the research students to discover the knowledge gap in the field and formulate the research topic and title.

Second, the book explains the procedure students may undertake when joining their supervisors' projects, especially science students. Indeed, there are several issues to consider when joining supervisors’ projects because sometimes, the projects may fall outside students’ passion, and the learning process may be burdensome. On the other hand, students may have projects that do not attract supervisors’ attention and may be out of the supervisors' specialization area leading to difficulties in supervision. Therefore, the book supports students with techniques for attracting supervisors’ support to fulfill their expectations. The initial support students expect from their supervisors is dealing with a literature review that can help them identify the appropriate title for their project within the area of interest or the field.

After students and supervisors are comfortable with the title and topic of the projects, they must continue with proposal writing. More than ninety-seven percent of students expected supervisor support to construct research proposals. In most cases, students need their supervisor's approval of the research proposal to continue with the following learning stages. For example, they may continue collecting data in a natural setting or elsewhere, and supervisors’ assistance is significantly needed. Likewise, ninety percent of students demonstrated their need for guidance in comprehending research ethics, settings, and participants’ involvement. Indeed, seventy percent of students do not delight in teachers who dominate their research plan and project while providing directions but in the ones who establish partnerships and work effectively, building students’ confidence.

Moreover, the book explains that students expect to receive academic services fairly but individually, focusing on the student’s abilities, resources, and expectations. Eighty percent of students were not expecting supervisors to choose a few students for academic work like teaching or research assistant opportunities but expected all students to be considered according to the mentioned aspects (abilities, resources, expectations). They pointed out that relationships with supervisors and networking should not be the only selection criterion for supervisors. Although most students are aware of differences in academic abilities, they believe that the variation should not hinder students from receiving vital support and opportunities from their supervisors. Students with less academic ambitions should receive support to reach their potential.

Moreover, students expect appropriate and timely supervisor feedback because the delayed response may be irrelevant. At the same time, students demonstrate trusting supervisors’ constructive leadership, especially at the beginning of their learning, and they expect supervisors to be aware of their needs. Likewise, students need support writing their theses and producing publications with their supervisors or other learning agencies.  Finally, students express their need to support to defend their writing work orally (where applicable) through viva voce. Indeed, students admitted the need for supervisors’ support in many academic areas, but the previous book focuses on the mentioned areas.

The Proceeding Book

In this book, the discussion will turn to students’ social-relational expectations of their supervisors. I believe many students are unaware of social factors that supervisors should consider working with them effectively. However, my informants (students and supervisors) described social aspects they desire supervisors should consider. So, discussing the expectations through the social lens can help students share their needs and anticipations with supervisors and evaluate whether the supervisors meet them. They can also understand the basic social-relational aspects vital to converse and agree upon in supervision and strategize for its fulfillment.

Indeed, the student's responses demonstrate that most need support in communicating their social relational expectations. Students find more comfortable sharing their academic expectations with their learning agencies than social relational ones. Therefore, students who have not considered discussing their relational expectations may learn from this book the significant social aspects and areas to focus on when conversing with their supervisors. I believe the supervisors and students who review and grasp the message in this book and work toward communicating the expectations while strategizing to suit their context will fulfilling them. Indeed, they should create shared social relational expectations that are realistic based on the nature of the contextual culture and resource availability, without forgetting the nature of students’ projects. Other determinants to consider when communicating expectations are language, readiness to learn, and supervisors’ and students’ willingness to cooperate.

Although I communicated with actors from higher education in only four countries, I regard their explanation concerning students’ expectations can be generalized worldwide and that if supervisors pay attention and practice as expected of students, supervision cooperation may be successful. Indeed, success in supervision will lead to students’ acquisition of expected knowledge and skills and graduation. Nevertheless, I am not dictating readers' perception in generalizing the information but encouraging them to initiate a conversation that can reveal contextual students’ expectations. After that, they can compare the students’ expectations in this book and the first on academic expectations. Finally, I know that students must comprehend