Postgraduate supervision: supervisors versus students

Abstract

Previous studies show that there are conflicts between supervisors and postgraduate students in different areas of concern. This paper focuses on Graduate on Time (GOT) and Impact Factor (IF) journal publication among postgraduate students. A workshop was organised by the School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) to determine some resolutions to increase the number of students who will GOT and the number of high IF journal publications among postgraduate students. The workshop was participated by 15 experienced supervisors and 18 postgraduate students from engineering, science & technology and social sciences. They were divided into three groups among the supervisors and three groups among the students based on the fields of study mentioned earlier. They were asked to discuss in their own group to brainstorm on how to increase GOT and IF publication. Later, each group presented their ideas in front of all the students and supervisors. The audience were encourage to question the ideas while being facilitated by the researchers in order for all of the participants to come to a common agreement. The workshop was video recorded and the data from the video recording, discussion and presentation was analysed using thematic analysis. The results show that both the supervisors and students play important roles in achieving GOT and IF publication. There should be a balance between these two areas because by focusing on GOT, there will not be enough time for IF publication, and by focusing on IF publication, the students need more time to complete the thesis. However, consistent monitoring from the supervisors and the commitment of the students can help to strike a balance between these two.