Blended e-learning skeleton of conversation: Improving formative assessment in undergraduate dissertation supervision

The supervision of undergraduate student dissertations is an area in need of research. Although some studies have already addressed this, these are primarily based on academic staff responses.
This study contributes to knowledge by gathering the responses of students and focusing on formative electronic assessment. Data was collected using a student focus group and student questionnaire.
Unsurprisingly, the findings suggest that good supervisor–student communication is crucial to the supervision process and a number of students felt unhappy with this aspect. However, to facilitate this communication, the perceived absolute necessity of regular supervisor–student meetings is being questioned and a combination of technology-enabled communication is advocated. It is suggested that to improve the undergraduate student dissertation experience, a combination of face-to-face and electronic formative assessment is used. In addition, the blended e-learning skeleton of conversation model provides a sound theoretical framework that could guide supervisors and students in the supervision process. This model is advocated for use in dissertation module design and in supervisor development.     

Novice supervisors’ practices and dilemmatic space in supervision of student research projects

Growing interest in student research projects in higher education has led to an emphasis on research supervision. We focus in this study on novice supervisors’ approaches to research supervision as they explore their practices and experience difficulties supervising medicalstudents. Teacher noticing was used as a sensitising concept and relations with teacher dilemmas were explored in the research supervision context. To provide in-depth insights into supervisors’ practices and pedagogical choices, twelve stimulated recall interviews with supervisors were analysed. The supervisors were involved in individual undergraduate or master degree student research projects at a research-intensive university. Analysis revealed four kinds of dilemmas which may influence research supervision practices, namely questions regarding regulation, student needs, the student-supervisor relationship and supervisors’ professional identity. We explain the relationship between novice supervisors’ practices and dilemmas in detail. Implications are given to enhance initiatives for professional development of supervisors.     

Online supervision: a theory of supervisors’ strategic communicative influence on student dissertations

Online supervision mainly focuses on written communication and electronic drafts, while offline supervision comprises physical and social clues, verbal communication, and drafts of texts. This article focuses on supervisors’ written online communication about drafts of undergraduate student dissertations. Theoretically, these utterances form part of the communicative exchanges performed in the practice of supervision. This means that supervision is an emergent phenomenon that relates to its past, current, and future states. The setting was a dissertation course within a bachelor programme in behavioural science. The data consists of 423 utterances from four supervisors. The utterances were analysed and categorised, and the results show different qualities and degrees of identifications in the supervisors’ communicated utterances. The study shows that the quality of supervisors’ utterances embraces the difference between the application of comments, points of view, instructions, and questions. This implicates the importance of supervisors’ awareness of the nature and the combination of their utterances if they want to increase the student autonomy when supervising online.     

Effective Supervision As Portrayed By Trainee Expectations and Preferences

Effective counseling supervision features the establishment of clearly defined mutual expectations. The following article is a critical review of the literature on trainee expectations in supervision that divides the research into three areas: expectations about structure, expectations about communication, and expectations of the supervisory relationship. Implications for supervisors are discussed.     

An exploratory study of subordinates' perceptions of supervisory politics

This study was designed to explore the relationships between subordinates' perceptions of their supervisors' involvement in organizational politics and subordinates' perceptions of supervisory work facilitation, satisfaction with supervision, and openness in superior‐subordinate communication. Results suggest that subordinates who perceive their supervisors as highly involved in politics are less open in communication and less satisfied with their supervisors than subordinates who perceive their supervisors as moderately or minimally involved in politics.     

The purposes and processes of master's thesis supervision: a comparison of Chinese and Dutch supervisors

The number of international Chinese students enrolled in research programmes in Western universities is growing. To provide effective research supervision to these students, it is helpful to understand the similarities and differences in the supervision process between the host country and their home country. We explored which learning outcomes supervisors of master's theses aim for in two cultures, China and the Netherlands, and how they help their students to achieve these learning outcomes. Semi-structured interviews with 10 Chinese and 10 Dutch supervisors revealed, besides a strong resemblance, some clear differences between the two groups. For example, the Chinese supervisors aim to prepare their students for future jobs and use explicit assessment and regulation to monitor student progress, while the Dutch supervisors aim to enhance student well-being and use implicit regulation, emotional support and frequent posing of questions to facilitate student learning. Implications for cross-cultural and international education are provided.     

Characteristics of the research supervision of postgraduate teachers’ action research

Today, many institutions of higher education support students in conducting practice-oriented research. This research refers to a broad array of approaches geared toward practitioners’ practice. The supervision of such research is of crucial importance, but little is known about its nature and characteristics. This study examined what research supervisors and postgraduate, in-service teacher students perceive are key elements of successful action research supervision. Four action research supervisors and eight postgraduate students were interviewed. Data were analysed by using theory and empirical data. Findings reveal 24 key elements of action research supervision, which refer to supervisors’ (1) skills in supporting knowledge development through and about action research and creating a supportive environment for developing knowledge, (2) knowledge and expertise in supervising action research, (3) attitude in the supervision of action research and (4) the motives driving supervisors’ actions in the student-supervisor relationship.     

Collective academic supervision: a model for participation and learning in higher education

Supervision of graduate students is a core activity in higher education. Previous research on graduate supervision focuses on individual and relational aspects of the supervisory relationship rather than collective, pedagogical and methodological aspects of the supervision process. In presenting a collective model we have developed for academic supervision of Danish master students, we seek to fill these gaps. The underlying pedagogical rationale for the model is that students’ participation and learning are interconnected. The model provides possibilities for incorporating a progressive and systematic interaction between master students in their individual writing processes. In the article, we investigate the potentials and challenges of the model and draw on analyses of six individual interviews with master students and one focus group interview with five supervisors. Our findings show that students learn core academic competencies in collective academic supervision (CAS), such as the ability to assess theoretical and practical problems in their practice and present them to peers. The analysis reveals that interaction between divergent projects and voices in CAS can be highly productive in academic learning. However, the model also challenges both students and supervisors because both parties are used to a one-to-one supervisory relationship and not prepared for different modes of participation and learning. According to both supervisors and students, the majority of supervisors need better training in the facilitation of collective supervision processes.     

Supervision of Higher Degree Students — Problem Areas and Possible Solutions

Supervision of postgraduate students remains an area of concern to university administration, to supervisors, to student unions and the individual research student. Many studies have examined student dissatisfaction with supervision. However, there is also considerable uneasiness among academic staff about the extent of their supervisory role and functions. In a series of workshops in several tertiary institutions problem areas were discussed with supervisors, both experienced and inexperienced; and practices and strategies were explored which facilitate effective supervision. Those provisions for and approaches to supervision which supervisors have found to be effective are presented and discussed as they apply at the institutional, departmental or individual level.     

Field Supervision of Counselors in Training: A Survey of the North Atlantic Region

Most of the research on supervision has focused on supervisors in academic institutions (faculty members or doctoral students). In this article the authors describe a study in which they examined supervisors in community agencies where master's level counselors were assigned for practicum and internship training. The survey suggested that agencies were heavily invested in supervising graduate level counseling students and providing them with a rich clinical experience. Respondents typically had a master's degree, used various models of supervision, and provided feedback by means of self-report and audiotape or videotape review of counseling sessions. Results suggest that these supervisors had little contact with the concurrent academic supervisor and may have had little formal training in supervision. Implications of this survey include a need for more training for supervisors in graduate counseling programs and a need for more liaison between campus and field supervisors.     

The Reflective Model of Triadic Supervision: Defining an Emerging Modality

Current Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Eduational Programs (CACREP; 2001) standards promote the use of triadic supervision by counselor educators and supervisors. However, conceptual models of triadic supervision do not presently exist in the supervision literature. This article describes the process and structure of 1 model of triadic supervision (D. M. Kleist & N. R. Hill, 2003). This model provides a vehicle for implementing triadic supervision in response to changes in the CACREP standards and adds to the literature on triadic supervision. Implications for counselor educators and supervisors, as well as future research, are conceptualized.     

An Electronic Lifeline: Information and communication technologies in a teacher education internship

Practicum experiences in preservice teacher education are often characterised by disconnection. Preservice teachers are typically disconnected from university faculty and from their peers. Traditionally, university-based supervisors work to bridge the school and university contexts of preservice teacher education and facilitate learning to teach by visiting preservice teachers in their schools. This situation places high importance on the value of face-to-face interaction. The research reported in this paper explores the possibilities of utilising information and communication technologies (ICT) in the practicum component of preservice teacher education. It investigated the use of electronic discussion groups by preservice teachers and university lecturers while the preservice teachers were completing an internship towards the end of their teacher preparation programme. The paper discusses the benefits and challenges as reported by the participants in interviews, draws on the actual text of the electronic communication, analyses the findings, and draws implications for all participants in the preservice teacher education practicum. The study highlights the potential of ICT in providing new learning spaces that enable personal and professional networking and support, and points to reconceptualised notions of university supervision focussing on facilitating learning to teach and promoting reflective practice within the context of a professional learning community rather than as 'check-up' trips to schools.     

Organizing a Practicum and Internship Program in Counselor Education

This article describes procedures for organizing a practicum and internship program in counselor education. Application procedures, supervision, and communication with sites, students, and supervisors are discussed.     

Research supervision: the research management matrix

We briefly make a case for re-conceptualising research project supervision/advising as the consideration of three inter-related areas: the learning and teaching process; developing the student; and producing the research project/outcome as a social practice. We use this as our theoretical base for an heuristic tool, ‘the research management matrix’ and this is the major focus of this paper. The matrix facilitates the work of supervision. In the matrix we privilege the research questions. The research management matrix can be easily used to focus on key research features and the relationships amongst them. The timing of different parts of research is introduced so that practical goals are identified. This facilitates project and research student learning management and timely completions. For these reasons the research management matrix is a useful tool for supervisors/advisors     

Triadic Supervision and its Impact on the Role of the Supervisor: A Qualitative Examination of Supervisors' Perspectives

Although triadic supervision has been the subject of little empirical research, perspectives of supervisors in this form of supervision have received even less attention. This qualitative study examined 6 doctoral student supervisors' experiences of triadic supervision and the demands it placed on them in their role as supervisors. Data collection involved use of in‐depth, open‐ended interviews, and a whole‐text analysis resulted in 2 major categories. These categories address various ways in which triadic supervision increases or decreases the demands placed on the supervisor. Implications of the findings for supervisory practices and future research are also addressed.     

School Counseling Site Supervisor Training: An Exploratory Study

This study explored the supervision training needs of site supervisors of master's program school counseling interns via the construct of self‐efficacy. Using the Site Supervisor Self‐Efficacy Survey developed for this study, the authors surveyed school counseling site supervisors in the states of Oregon and Washington (N = 147) regarding their hours of supervision training and their supervisor self‐efficacy. Results indicated that 54% of school counseling site supervisors had little or no counseling supervision training. Supervisor self‐efficacy appeared to be relatively strong, consistently so for school counseling site supervisors with over 40 hours of supervision training. A partial correlation indicated a slightly positive relationship between the hours of supervision training received and perceived self‐efficacy regarding supervision. Implications regarding school counseling site supervisor training and future research are offered.     

Anticipating doctoral supervision: (Not) bridging the transition from supervisee to supervisor

Building on existing studies that ask doctoral supervisors how they understand their role, and what has influenced this understanding, this article explores invitations that are issued to supervisors to reflect in certain ways about the role of supervisor. The article calls into question the ways in which supervisors are invited to think about and represent supervision, by professional development courses, handbooks on supervision, and the questions that researchers pose about supervision. This discussion is situated in autoethnographic analysis of a valuable moment in the author's academic career for reflecting on these factors: the author is positioned directly between the role of doctoral supervisee and the role of doctoral supervisor. Through autoethnographic engagement with doctoral supervision literature, the article argues that professional development for supervisors would benefit from more critical analysis of the invitations which are issued to supervisors to reflect on the transition from supervisee to supervisor.     

高校教学督导工作的“宜”与“不宜”

面对新形势新要求,高校教学督导工作应把握“六宜”“六不宜”：在体系构建上宜“综”不宜“单”;在队伍建设上宜“专”不宜“兼”;在职能定位上宜“实”不宜“虚”;在督导内容上宜“广”不宜“狭”;在督导方式上宜“疏”不宜“堵”;在信息处理上宜“快”不宜“拖”。     

Blackboard教学平台在英语教学中的使用效果调查

不少研究者对网络在英语教学中的使用进行了探讨,但是却很少有研究关注学习者在网络环境下的表现。本研究基于学习者的表现情况,对英语教学中Blackboard教学平台的使用情况及其效果进行了调查。结果显示这个虚拟的教学平台为师生之间的沟通及教学材料的交流提供了便利,但在我们的学生群体中该平台所提供具有真正交流意义的讨论版的功能却未能得到较好的利用。本文认为在学生交流意识较强的情况下,网络交流在英语教学中较真实的面对面交流要稍为逊色。另外本文还对学生具体表现的原因作了探讨和分析,旨在为更好地利用该教学平台提供一些建议。