4.1 Research Findings
4.1.1 Challenges
According to the data obtained from the participants, they have some challenges during their online supervision experiences. There are two emerging themes found from the interviews and audio diaries namely internal factors and external factors. Table below displays each themes and sub-themes of the challenges:
58 Table 5 Themes and sub-themes of participants’ challenges
Participants’ challenges
Themes Sub-themes Internal challenges
factors
Lack of motivation Lack of confidence Poor time management External
challenges factors
Insufficiency support of supervisors Change of supervisors
Supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments
Internet and technology problems Family environment
4.1.1.1 Internal challenges factors
The first theme emerged from the data is internal factors of supervisions’
challenges. Internal factors are factors that can be controlled by undergraduate EFL learners that involve feelings, thoughts, and habits during their online supervision with their supervisor. The result of the interview that had been conducted by the researcher showed that undergraduate EFL learners' experienced some challenges which refer to the internal factors such as psychological factors. The researcher identified that there are three interrelated sub themes such as lack of motivation, lack of confidence, and poor time management.
59 a. Lack of motivation
After doing the interview to ten undergraduate EFL learners' at one public university in Jambi, the researcher found that lack of motivation was a common challenge felt by the participants. Nine of ten participants stated that lack of motivation was one of the factors that hindered the online supervision process. As P2 stated that:
“Sometimes the motivation is lacking. Sometimes there is an intention but there will be something that made me lazy again.” (P2, Interview)
This can be interpreted that she has desired to write her thesis but because of something uncertain, it makes her motivation decrease or fade away. With a different context, P3 mentioned a similar reason:
“It’s like I have no motivation. Sometimes I procrastinate to revise my thesis.” (P3, Interview)
The transcription of interview above indicates that the participant realized that when he was not motivated, he tended to procrastinate in revising his thesis. This influences the time he spent in writing his thesis. In addition, another participant never did online supervision for several months due to her lack of motivation, P10 expressed that:
“I ever delay my thesis supervision for about two months.
Because I think I have no motivation I just like I don’t want to do that.” (P10, Interview)
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P10 explained that the reason she did not do the supervision for two months was due to her lack of motivation. From the excerpt above, she did not clearly state the exact reason why she postponed her online supervision and only said that she had no desire to do so. From those statements above, it can be concluded that lack of motivation is one of their challenges that can hinder the online supervision process.
Lack of motivation is caused by motivation decrease possessed by participants for various reasons, which may or may not be obvious reasons. This depends on the conditions and situations experienced by each participant.
b. Lack of confidence
Lack of confidence seems to be one of the challenges for the participants during online supervision experiences. Seven of ten participants stated that lack of confidence becomes one of challenges that they faced. For example, P2 responded that:
“I'm afraid this will be wrong. I'm afraid it won't be appropriate to show it to the supervisor.” (P2, Interview)
P2 tried to explain that sometimes she felt unsure to show her thesis to her supervisor even when the thesis she wrote is actually finished. She was doubtful about what she had written. During the interview session, P2 shared about her feeling that sometimes she felt that she lacks time in conducting her thesis. This made her apprehensive and she eventually lacked confidence in submitting her revised thesis to her supervisor in online supervision. Another participant, P7, also stated that:
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“…I feel like I'm anxious to chat with the lecturer. Like afraid of being wrong.” (P7, Interview)
Before doing the online supervision with her supervisor, she knew that her supervisor was typically a bit moody based on the information she received from her seniors. She felt unconfident because of this and she was afraid she would be scolded by her supervisor if she made a mistake. Another statement also indicates that P9 also felt lack of confidence when she wanted to do the online supervision with her supervisor. She clearly mentioned that:
“So, if I have revised it, I'm afraid I'll be wrong again. So that's why I don't feel confident and don't dare to meet the supervisor.” (P9, Interview)
After repeated the revisions of her thesis, she was afraid to make mistakes again and at the same time her self-confidence also decreased. Moreover, she also did not dare to meet with her supervisor to show the results of the revisions she was working on. It can be inferred that the lack of confidence experienced by the participants was mostly caused by fear of a mistake they had made. The participants felt that this challenge could be one of the obstacles to the online supervisions’
process.
c. Poor time management
Another sub-theme that researcher found from the data is poor time management. Time management is very essential when we want to do something
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especially for students who have to complete their thesis. Only two of ten participants experienced poor time management. For instance, P1 stated that:
“It's hard to manage the time. Previously I already set the time. For example, at this time I need to take care of the house, at this time I need to write the thesis. It was not going well.” (P1, Interview)
In this statement, she has tried to manage time but in fact the schedule that she has set goes beyond the plan. Due to the uncertain conditions at home, it is difficult for her to divide her time between taking care the house and conducting her thesis.
Another statement also indicates that P4 felt that poor time management was one of the obstacles he encountered when he wanted to conduct his thesis. In the interview, he went by saying:
“… maybe poor time management. Usually, I like to procrastinate on everything. So if it's not the deadline, if the deadline isn't close, then I haven't worked on it.” (P4, Interview)
P4 realized that he is the type of person who doesn't do anything especially his thesis if the deadline set by his supervisor is not close enough. He recognized that this habit could be one of the challenges in conducting his thesis and doing online supervision with his supervisor. From the data mentioned above, it can be inferred that poor time management is one of the challenges that can affect the online supervision process.
4.1.1.2 External challenges factors
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Another theme emerged from the data is external factors of supervisions’
challenges. External factors are challenges that students get from other people or their environment and students cannot control these things. After conducting interview, the researcher found that undergraduate EFL learners experienced some challenges which refer to the external factors. There are five sub themes such as insufficiency support of supervisors, change of supervisor, supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments, internet and technology problems, and family environment.
a. Insufficiency support of supervisors
Supervisors who rarely provide support to their students are one of the concerns that students feel when doing online supervision also when writing their thesis. Seven of ten participants considered that one of the challenges they felt when they wanted to do online supervision was the insufficiency support of supervisors. To illustrate, P2 stated that:
“Sometimes my second supervisor is a bit unresponsive and the supervision process only returns documents to each other.
I sent my document and after that she just sent it back to me.
There is no discussion through Zoom.” (P2, Interview)
She explained that the online supervision process that she did with her second supervisor only sent the thesis document without any further explanation or direction given by her supervisor. She felt that the feedback given by her supervisor through the documents was not enough and she really hoped for a discussion process via Zoom, so that's why she considered that lack of support of her supervisor was one of
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the challenges she felt when doing online supervision. In addition, another participant, P3 expressed that:
“The first challenge is from one of my supervisors, she is difficult to contact through WhatsApp. Because yesterday I have contacted her several times but she has not responded at all.” (P3, Interview)
P3 elucidated that he tried many times to contact the supervisor but his supervisor did not reply to messages he sent via WhatsApp and this situation indirectly hampered the online supervision process he wanted to do with his supervisor. Similarly happened to P5 when the researcher asked her challenge, she responded that:
“After doing the revision, there are some parts that made me confused. I already asked it through the message I sent to my supervisor. Well, the supervisor just read my message.” (P5, Interview)
In this statement, she shared that once she sent a message to her supervisor but her supervisor only read the message she sent without responding to the question she asked. The participants felt the difficulty in conducting their thesis if the supervisor did not give response and provide support related to their thesis and supervision. This shows that indeed the insufficiency support of supervisors is a challenge felt by the participants.
b. Change of Supervisors
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A change of supervisor in the middle of the supervision process can slow down the progress of thesis work. Furthermore, change of supervisor is usually caused by certain reasons or there is a misunderstanding between the student and the supervisor. One of ten interviewed participants stated that she felt difficulties when there was a change of supervisor. P8 shared her statement that:
“I told her that I want to do it again but she kept asking me to stop and change the supervisor. So I changed my supervisor.”
(P8, Interview)
During the interview session, P8 shared about her experience when there was a change of supervisor in the middle of the online supervision process. At first, she felt anxious after she got negative feedback from her supervisor and decided to skip the online supervision for six months. After that, she decided to do the supervision again, nonetheless, her supervisor did not want to guide her and told P8 to change her supervisor. P8 finally decided to follow the advice given by her supervisor to find a new supervisor. Based on the experienced shared by P8, it can be inferred that the supervision process can be delayed if there is a change in supervisor and this can be a challenge for students in conducting their thesis.
c. Supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments
Based on the data that researcher found from the result of interviews, supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments appears to be one of the participants’
challenges when doing online supervision with their supervisor. There are four participants who stated this challenge, for instance, P2 said that:
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“I got negative feedback from the second supervisor. I feel down because of it. In the end, I did not do the supervision with my first supervisor because of it.” (P2, Interview)
From the statement above, she mentioned that when she got negative feedback from her second supervisor then she did not have the courage to do online supervision anymore with her first supervisor. In fact, P2 had missed online supervision twice with her first supervisor. She was afraid of receiving negative feedbacks and comments from her first supervisor as well as her second supervisor in previous online supervision. In the same way, P8 explained that:
“She mad at me like what I’ve been done all this time, why I can’t finish it all, and I’m wasting too much time. So she compared me with others.” (P8, Interview)
When doing online supervision with her supervisor, she got several negative comments even she mentioned that her supervisor compared her abilities with other students. During the interview session, the researcher can be interpreted based on the experience shared by P8 that her supervisor gave negative comments because the supervisor felt that P8 was very slow in completing her thesis compared to her peers.
Additionally, P8 continued by saying that:
“… and then she invited somebody to the Zoom before we finish our thing.” (P8, Interview)
The interview transcription above indicates that the supervisor invited other students under her supervision to watch and listen to the discussion between the supervisor and P8 that talked about their problems or misunderstandings during that online supervision. This made P8 sad and even cried when the online supervision was
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over. She was a bit traumatized by the incident and decided to skip online supervision for six months. Another statement also indicates that P9 felt supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments become one of the challenges when conducting the online supervision, as she explained:
“She was criticizing me and she asked what I wrote and she was like you didn't understand what you wrote.” (P9, Interview)
This statement can be interpreted that P9 felt that the way of her supervisor's giving criticism can make P9 less confident to develop her thesis. It can be sum up from the data above that supervisors’ negative feedbacks and comments becomes one of the participants’ challenges.
d. Internet and technology problems
In the implementation of online supervision, internet and technology are very fundamental and are needed to support the online supervision process to run well.
However, there are still some limitations to the internet connection in Indonesia and the spread of internet connections in this country is still uneven, especially in rural areas. There were six participants who explained that internet and technology problem as their main challenge in conducting the online supervision with their supervisors. For example, P4 explained that:
“Maybe the problem is more of a technical problem, for example in my boarding house, the network is very limited, so sometimes if there is online supervision through Zoom, it is
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hampered because of the internet connection. So, sometimes I miss some points that my supervisor give me.” (P4, Interview)
P4 clearly expressed that the problem he often faced when doing online supervision with his supervisor was the internet connection. This is quite disturbing for him because an unstable network can interfere with the online supervision process he does with his supervisor. Moreover, he would not receive the feedback given by his supervisor properly due to distraction from internet connection problems. Besides that, another participant, P6 said that:
“If I'm zooming when it's raining, then the signal is bad. In the end, the internet connection isn't very good, so I have to turn off the camera. I feel bad for my supervisor if I do that.”
(P6, Interview)
The cause of the internet connection problem felt by P6 is slightly different from the previous participant's experience. P6 shared that if it rains when she and her supervisor doing the online supervision, the signal that was originally good will turn out to be bad. She had to turn off the camera during online supervision in hopes of reducing the distraction caused by the internet connection problem. Nevertheless, this makes her feel bad and she will immediately apologize to her supervisor. Fortunately, in this case, her supervisor is very understood of the situation experienced by P6.
Similarly happened to P10 when the researcher asked her does poor connection became one of her challenges, she clearly mentioned that:
“Yeah the first is about the internet connection issue. So I cannot hear my supervisor’s voice clearly or she cannot hear my voice clearly. And also sometimes that is delayed because of that.” (P10, Interview)