dc.description.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 examine at student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies in public
universities in Kenya. The study sought to:evaluate supervisory styles used in student-
supervisor interaction, assess the characteristics of student-supervisor interaction,
establish the experiences of student-supervisor interaction and to examine practices
that would improve student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies. The study was
guided by functionalist theory of education, interpersonal theory and Socialization
theory. The study adopted descriptive survey research design which enabled the
researcher to explore and describe student-supervisor interaction. 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 employed the use of questionnaires and interview schedules to collect data
for the study. Data were presented using frequency tables. The study used a
Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of at least 0.7 as the threshold of reliability. The study
findings indicated that the ‘colleague in training’ style was widely used as revealed by
128(53.3%) of the graduate students and 29(52.7%) of the supervisors. Further,
28(50.9%) of the supervisors and 112(46.7%)of the graduate students agreed that
professionalism and respect was exercised. Also, 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 adhere to 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 from deans and heads of Departments
on supervisory styles indicated that colleagues in training was mainly preferred style
used in graduate studies. Deans and heads of departments reported that rules and
regulations in graduate studies should be adhered to.The study 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. |
en_US |