1st Edition

Graduate Research Supervision in the Developing World Policies, Pedagogies, and Practices

Edited By Erik Blair, Danielle Watson, Shikha Raturi Copyright 2020
    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    Recognising that graduate supervisory practice is not an abstracted academic pursuit, but an activity that is subjectively bounded by content and context, impacted by the experiences and beliefs of supervisee and supervisor, this text explores the unique dynamics of graduate supervision in the Global South, as perceived and experienced by students and academics within those same contexts.

    Bringing together contributions which reflect a rich diversity of perspectives on supervisory practices at regional universities in the Caribbean and South Pacific, Graduate Research Supervision in the Developing World explores how supervisors navigate unscripted supervisory terrain; contextualise supervisory best practices; establish roles and relationships, and work to understand supervisees’ needs. By highlighting the effect on graduate supervision of complex sociocultural interplay and the relationship between learning environments and student success, contributors look to locate best practices through analyses of stories of success and failure. As the contributors demonstrate, there is a need to restructure the standardised operation of graduate supervision across diverse faculties.

    This text will be of great interest to graduate supervisors and their supervisees as well as scholars in the fields of continuing professional development and higher education, in international and comparative education and Sociology of Education.

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

    INTRODUCTION. Erik Blair, Danielle Watson and Shikha Raturi

    PART ONE: Negotiating unscripted supervisory terrain

    CHAPTER ONE: Peer learning and intercultural expectations of the PhD journey. Lynn Beckles

    CHAPTER TWO: It takes a village? Diversifying and contextualising the supervisory team in graduate studies. Sara Amin

    CHAPTER THREE: Understanding policies intended to guide graduate research supervision: Institutional remit versus personal supervisory practice. Erik Blair and Danielle Watson

    PART TWO: Contextualising supervisory best practices

    CHAPTER FOUR: Supervising graduate theses in Literary Studies at the University of the South Pacific. Matthew Hayward

    CHAPTER FIVE: Research supervision at The University of the West Indies: The case of two veterans. Karen Sanderson Cole

    CHAPTER SIX: Navigating research trajectories with supervisees in the Pacific Islands. Shikha Raturi, Dawn Gibson, Frank Thomas and Atul Raturi

    PART THREE: Supervisory roles, responsibilities and relationships

    CHAPTER SEVEN: Adjusting supervisory practices to suit student needs. Danielle Watson and Erik Blair

    CHAPTER EIGHT: Reflecting on practice and beliefs can make graduate supervision a craft. Rawatee Maharaj-Sharma

    CHAPTER NINE: Graduate students’ areas of perceived strengths and weaknesses in thesis writing. Jeremy Dorovolomo, Govinda Ishwar Lingam and Adrian Abishek Kumar

    PART FOUR: Understanding supervisees' needs

    CHAPTER TEN: A phenomenological study of the supervisory experiences of students engaging in doctoral research: A tomb or womb experience? Beular Mitchell

    CHAPTER ELEVEN: Acknowledging the graduate student research experience: Lessons for supervisors from the auto-ethnographic writing of thesis acknowledgements and dedications pages. Greg Burnett and Shikha Raturi

    CHAPTER TWELVE: Structural dimensions of doctoral supervision in regional universities: The case of the University of the South Pacific. Eberhard Weber and Andreas Kopf

    FINAL REFLECTION. Erik Blair, Danielle Watson and Shikha Raturi

    Biography

    Erik Blair is Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of West London, UK.

    Danielle Watson is Senior Lecturer at the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

    Shikha Raturi is an academic in School of Education, University of the South Pacific, Fiji.