Literature Review
2.7 Synthesis of the literature and its implications for this research
53 author sees this as a mechanism to ensure that all topics approved for students are aligned with the institutional mode of knowledge creation (predominantly, the positivist tradition), otherwise, the topics are likely rejected by the committee. Other issues related to in-fighting among committee members during oral defence; the demand by the department that students provide refreshment for defence panel members; and intimidation by supervisors whose relationship with students are more like the ‘master-servant relationship’ (p. 123). Thus, the author recommended further investigation of these challenges. My student research thesis would add to this emerging body of work that has a focus on the Nigerian context, by exploring the supervision experience of doctoral students in the business education programme.
54 that not one single framework is adequate to be a universal fit; rather, the appropriateness of a supervision framework should be determined by its flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of students (Calma, 2007; Lee, 2008). Thus, the need to explore the doctoral student experience of supervision in different contexts forms a part of ongoing discussions (Lahenius & Martinsuo, 2009). The third strand of work where my thesis is located, aims to illuminate understanding, and to improve the effectiveness of supervision and doctoral productivity by investigating, evaluating and/or describing supervision actions, activities, practices, relationships and student experiences (Abiddin & West, 2007). Although my student research does fall within the third strand of work on doctoral research supervision, it was necessary for me to draw on works from the first-two strands to provide the reader with a clear understanding of relevant concepts of research supervision, supervision frameworks and discourses, supervisory relationships, and learning which have now become the core of the supervisory process – as these are in line with the objectives of my thesis. Since in reality, the theory and the practice are both informed by each other, in the same light, the different strands of scholarship on research supervision are inextricably interwoven.
With regards to scholarship that examines/explores doctoral supervision experiences, research evidence has shown that writers within this frame mostly explore supervision from the perspective of supervisors and the institutions (Kobayashi, 2015). Leonard et al. (2006), in their review of the literature on PhD supervision in the UK, argue that a substantive amount of existing research on the supervisor perspective does exist, but, “there has been very little research done on the students’
perspective and giving students’ views of the doctoral experience” (p. 5). The need to focus on the doctoral student perspective is consistent with an earlier argument by Bennet & Knibbs (1986) that, with the highly privatised process of PhD supervision it is better to consider the perspective of those directly concerned – the doctoral students who are the most affected by supervisory practices (Wang, 2013). Similarly, a recent review of the literature by John & Denicolo (2013) also draws attention to the lack of research into the doctoral research student experience. The authors argue that although this issue has been identified by the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) in 2006; research work along this line is still very limited, thus making it an important area of research.
55 The existing body of literature has focused on different aspects of doctoral supervision experiences including doctoral students’ satisfaction (Zhao, Golde & McCormick, 2007), supervisors’
cognitive style (Armstrong, 2004), and alignment of the supervisory styles with student expectations and student stages of development (Abiddin & West, 2007). However, research has shown that most “of the research on supervision experiences in doctoral education is cross- disciplinary… Single university departments … need knowledge on how to promote high-quality supervision experiences within one discipline…” (Lahenius & Martinsuo, 2009, p. 2004). Thus, Lahenius & Martinsuo (2009) investigated the supervision experience of doctoral students in a single discipline - Industrial Engineering and Management, in Finland.
Generally, there is a large body of literature that researched into doctoral supervision in the Western context but there are very limited studies in the developing African context (Hadingham, 2011). The Hadingham study builds on the Okeke (2010) work, as discussed in the previous section. Although the Okeke (2010) study provided insight into the supervision experience in the Nigerian context, the study is limited in that it only provided an individual’s account of supervision experience within the Nigerian context. My student research thesis takes this a step further to explore the supervision experiences of a particular group (doctoral business education students) in a single department (vocational and technical education department). Also, while the Okeke study focus is only on the supervision experience at the proposal preparation stage, but my student research thesis extends it by exploring student supervision experiences all the way through the stages of the research process. Again, Okeke’s study was only concerned with supervision experiences in terms of the struggles/challenges encountered; but, my thesis is concerned with the entire supervision experience of doctoral students (including the positive aspects). The assumption in my thesis is that, doctoral research supervision might be complex and challenging to the student and probably the supervisor as well. Also, my research assumes that doctoral supervision experiences would depend on the context. In other words, the context would play a part in the way that doctoral supervision is likely to happen.
Having provided an account of existing state of knowledge on research supervision practices in the world (from different environments, spaces and geographical contexts), the body of literature studied/reviewed so far has enabled me to gain understanding of the issues that play at the different
56 levels of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model of human development. In some instances, authors like McAlpine & Norton (2006) and Lovitts (2005) for example talk to the environmental variables at play in all the levels of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model (the macro, exo, meso and micro-levels). I hope that using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to explore doctoral students’
perspective in a Nigerian context would not only illuminate understanding of supervision experiences, but also produce discussions and debates on doctoral supervision. Also, I believe that my thesis will contribute to the body of literature on doctoral supervision, not only by adding the supervision experiences of doctoral business education students from the Nigerian context, which appears to have remained obscure and secret, my thesis would also contribute to the literature in terms of approach. By employing the phenomenographic approach in my thesis, doctoral student supervision experiences are collectively mapped in a qualitatively limited number of ways for easy an understanding of the groups’ way of experiencing supervision in a given context. Whereas, the majority of existing studies that relied upon or employed other qualitative research methods are mostly concerned with reporting students’ individual accounts. Given the diversity of doctoral students (each with different age, research skills and competencies, knowledge and intellectual abilities, and different modes of study – full-time/part-time) and the uniqueness of each supervision relationship, this may result in producing unending lists of students’ personal experiences of supervision. In general, my thesis has the potential to offer insights for the selection/recruitment of new doctoral students (pre-doctoral preparation and supervisor selection/allocation) and for proposal development as a process and for public defence practices.
My thesis could have the potential to illuminate the inherent power dynamics or students’ abuses and the measures to counter these; as well as providing reasons for the possible improvement of institutional and national policies on supervision. Again, my thesis could provide insight into the induction of doctoral students into the world of academia and the re-conceptualisation of doctoral work as a knowledge creation process.
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