Experiences of Student-Supervisor Interactions in Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

Student-supervisor interaction is an important aspect in graduate studies supervision. This is because when something goes wrong with the interaction process, many aspects of the graduate student's life affects completion time. The purpose of this study was to look at student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies in public universities in Kenya. The study sought to examine practices that would improve student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies. The study was guided by interpersonal theory.The target population in this study were 310 participants comprising of 60 supervisors and 250 supervisees from the school of education. The study used stratified sampling to sample universities, simple random sampling to sample graduate students and heads of departments, while purposive sampling was used to sample the supervisors and deans. The study adopted descriptive survey research design which enabled the researcher to explore and describe student-supervisor interaction. The study employed the use of questionnaires and interview schedules to collect data for the study. Data were presented using frequency tables.The study findings indicated that 42(76.4%) of the supervisors and 144(60%) of the graduate students held that the universities could deal with challenges facing student-supervisor interaction at a greater extent.The findings also revealed that the universities should strictly adhereto rules and regulations governing graduate supervision process 128(53.3%) of the graduate students and 39(70.9%) of the supervisors agreed. Further, qualitative results concluded that supervisors were allocated more graduate students than the rules and regulations allowed affecting graduate students thesis completion time. Policies guiding graduate student-supervisor interaction should be revised to meet up-to-date challenges facing student-supervisor interaction.The universities should provide seminars, workshops and trainings to both supervisors and graduate students to enhance student-supervisor interaction. The findings of the study will be useful for the university managements in understanding the student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies. The findings will also provide information to interested researchers in related topics in graduate studies.