Irina Baydarova Thesis
Practicing Dialogic Pedagogy to Support Alignment of Student-Supervisor Expectations Irina Baydarova Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swinburne University of Technology June 2021 Abstract Postgraduate research supervision is a widely discussed topic among scholars and government practitioners. Current research indicates postgraduate research supervision presents many challenges in both national and international contexts. In particular, a misalignment of student-supervisor expectations has been cited as a major contributor to low completion on time rates and high attrition rates. These studies have been undertaken in developed countries such as Australia, England, and the United States of America, leaving developing countries' experiences unexplored. This study explores student-supervisor expectations regarding their respective roles and responsibilities in postgraduate research supervision in Malaysia. Using an interpretivist approach to research design, fifteen HDR students and twelve supervisors from various universities around Malaysia were recruited using snowball sampling for the first phase of data collection. During semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to discuss their understandings of their roles and responsibilities, and the roles and responsibilities of their counterparts in the student-supervisor relationship. Personal and professional relationships were explored, including sources of student-supervisor conflicts. Results of a thematic analysis have identified areas where HDR students and supervisors have similarities and differences in their views. They had particularly diverse views on those expectations that are not regulated by institutional policies, and which were reliant on implicit, rather than explicit expectations of roles and responsibilities. Using the patterns that emerged in the results, a hierarchical model has been proposed to group and differentiate the topics about which there is agreement or disagreement between students and their supervisors.
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