Published Article / Postgraduate supervision and research training are core academic activities for most higher education institutions. Worldwide, including in South Africa, there is concern about the quality of postgraduate training in higher education institutions, the length of time it takes postgraduate students to complete their postgraduate studies, and the high percentage of students who terminate their studies. Against the backdrop of these concerns, the quality of research supervision is essential for the successful completion of studies. However, ensuring the quality of the input dimension within South African postgraduate supervision is complicated – the reasons being that the process is entangled with issues of power, desire, and differences in relation to supervision practices, along with rapid higher education transformation demanding more quality and accountability, etc. Therefore it is recommended that the supervision process be monitored for improvement purposes and to address context-specific needs. This article reports on an improvement-oriented investigation into the current supervision practices at the case study university.

Published Article / This paper promotes the argument that although conventional postgraduate supervision is useful to address the research skills and competences of postgraduate students, a wider perspective is nonetheless required to educate and train any researcher (including postgraduate students upon their entrée into the world of research) to comprehend the demands made by research and how best these demands can be addressed. It is in this context that a more comprehensive concept of research education is promoted. The argument is based on the perspective that methodological understanding alone is not sufficient to assist a researcher in meeting the expectations of a research project. Research education refers to the training of researchers to be responsive to the research value chain. This includes aspects such as the formal research process, the importance of research ethics and integrity regarding the research project, the imperative to promote scholarship in research and the application of research results through technology transfer, innovation and incubation. Research education sensitizes the researcher to look beyond the scope of the academic research project and to extend the research to activities such as technology transfer, innovation, commercialization and partnerships. The aim of research education is to promote the wide range of aspects contributing to the understanding of what counts as research and its application.

Magister Artium - MA / Postgraduate research throughput and problems associated with appropriate supervision are a key focus area for many higher education institutions around the world (Lessing & Schulze, 2012; Amehoe, 2014; Botha, 2016). Central to this challenge is the supervisory relationship, which by its very nature, is not one-sided. A productive and rewarding supervisory process requires that both student and supervisor(s) are committed to fulfilling clearly-articulated responsibilities relevant to the research project at hand (Eley & Jennings, 2005). Both student-centric and institutional factors have been found to contribute to low student throughput and to the time taken to complete postgraduate studies (Amehoe, 2014; Luescher-Mamashela, 2015). In South Africa, the higher education landscape is increasingly fraught with varied challenges, including issues of attrition and completion rates as they relate to postgraduate students. Some of the implications of the premature termination of postgraduate research are that various academic fields are deprived of potentially valuable research contributions, and there is a significant cost incurred by the affected students and supervisors (Lovitts, 2001; Lessing & Lessing, 2004), as well as the relevant faculties and institutions, and society at large. Additionally, a number of South African universities are still grappling with inequities resulting from the Apartheid era (Pillay & Karlsson, 2013). It is against this backdrop that this research, through a narrative research lens involving semi-structured interviews, explores and chronicles the stories of six Master’s students who have encountered supervision-related challenges. According to Pearson and Kayrooz (2004), a limited narrative research spotlight has been trained on the issue of postgraduate supervision from the student perspective. The primary objective of this study, therefore, is to facilitate a platform through which the six respondents are able to share the stories of their Master’s supervision experience. On a secondary level, the sharing of these student stories has the potential to enhance the postgraduate research experience, as Lovitts (2001) and Lessing and Lessing (2004) point out.

Submitted on completed of Master’s Degree of Technology: Quality, Department of Operations and Quality Management, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / Similar to a production line, the development of a dissertation is a process within a research dyad that is affected by many factors. On completion, the customer / student is either satisfied or dissatisfied with the outcome of the research process. However, errors in the dissertation detract from its quality and this may leave students dissatisfied with the overall outcome of the marking and review process. To improve the product, it is critical that factors contributing to the production of a quality dissertation are understood. The aim of this study was to determine which components of the SERVQUAL model (namely, Responsiveness, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy and Reliability) contributed to a lower quality dissertation, thereby gaining an understanding of, and implementing factors which enable the production of a good quality dissertation which meets all stakeholders’ expectations. This was achieved through a prospective, mixed-methods study which analyzed the quality of 30 dissertations by means of a Checklist, denoting the quality of the dissertations. Thereafter, the 30 students and 30 supervisors involved in these dyads were asked to each complete separate questionnaires. The questions covered their respective demographics, research knowledge, expectations and perceptions of the research process. The data was then descriptively analysed and presented by way of tables to demonstrate the quality of the dissertation, and the characteristics of the students and the supervisors. The Chi-Squared statistics and Fisher’s Exact tests were then computed to determine relationships between these characteristics. It was revealed that significant differences between the students and the supervisors existed regarding: the length of time to completion of their Master’s; the roles of facilitators in the research process; student and supervisor role ambiguity; the reason for and need to complete research and specific knowledge of the research process. It was noted that a lack of communication resulted in a significant impact on reliability of the university service, moderate impact on assurance and responsiveness, with the least impact on empathy. In contrast, both the student and the supervisor perceived the tangibles provided by the university as satisfactory. Then, through the process of triangulation, it was shown that the relationship within the dyad lacked clear communication and common understanding of the research processes which was likely to result in a lower quality dissertation. It is, therefore, recommended that all students and supervisors that enter into a dyadic relationship need to find mechanisms (for example: learning contract, weekly meetings) to ensure a consistent and common understanding of the research process throughout its development to allow for the effective production of a good quality dissertation.