Master’s Thesis Supervision: Feedback, interpersonal relationships, and adaptivity

Abstract

In most academic master’s programmes the final component is conducting a piece of research, a master’s thesis. In this dissertation master’s thesis supervision is investigated from a feedback and interpersonal perspective, in order to provide more insight into its quality. The quality of master’s thesis supervision was investigated by measuring student satisfaction, measuring student perceptions of the contribution of the supervisor to their learning process, and interviewing supervisors with a local reputation of being good supervisors. The first study concerned students’ feedback perceptions (N=1016) collected with questionnaires. It was found that students perceive the focus of feedback in terms of a focus on task and on self-regulation, the elaboration of feedback in terms of positive and negative elaboration, and the goal-relatedness of feedback in terms of feed up and feed back-forward (i.e., how am I going and where to next?). Structural equation models indicated that perceptions of positive elaboration and feed back-forward were most strongly related to student satisfaction and perceived supervisor contribution. The second questionnaire study investigated student perceptions of the supervisor-student relationship (N=401) in terms of the two dimensions control and affiliation. Structural equation models indicated that both dimensions were positively related to student satisfaction and perceived supervisor contribution, but for control and perceived supervisor contribution a ceiling effect occurred. In a third study both the feedback and interpersonal perceptions (N=1016) were investigated. Regression analyses indicated that affiliation was by far the strongest predictor for student satisfaction and perceived supervisor contribution, followed by control and feed up. In addition significant interaction effects indicated that feedback perceptions are more strongly related to quality of supervision in situations in which no optimal supervisor-student relationship is perceived. Exploring the goal-relatedness of feedback, in a follow-up study 12 supervisors with a local reputation of being good and one of their students were interviewed. Analyses of the interviews revealed that supervisors and students pursue both curricular and personal goals with a master’s thesis and that these can vary greatly in supervision dyads. Also, it was found that these good supervisors aim to reach the goals of a thesis, based on students’ needs and on where they stand, by adapting their support strategies. This was termed ‘adaptivity’. Subsequently in a final study in which group interviews and individual interviews were conducted with 5 supervisors with a local reputation of being good the concept of adaptivity was further explored. It was found that supervisors diagnose students’ competence, determination and context and accordingly adapt their supervision to this in terms of explicating standards, quality or consequences, dividing responsibilities, providing more/less critical feedback and sympathizing with the student. The relation between diagnosis and adaptive support strategies was found to be complex and therefore needs further study. In general the findings indicate the importance of students’ feedback and interpersonal perceptions for the quality of master’s thesis supervision in terms of student satisfaction and perceived supervisor contribution. Additionally, adaptivity seems a good way for shaping goal-relatedness of supervision.