The Credibility of Graduate Advising Development in South Africa

• In Event: Doctoral Education in the Global South: A Critical Analysis From Chile and South Africa

Abstract

The rapid increase in doctoral enrollments in South Africa has challenged capacity. Postgraduate supervision, which is the term used for graduate advising, is understood in the literature as an activity that calls for ‘both pedagogical expertise and research-related expertise' (Vehviläinen & Löfström 2016, 509). If those with institutional influence, that is those who have what Archer terms ‘corporate agency’, do not have such an understanding, it seems unlikely that supervision development would be appropriately developed or institutionalised.

This paper draws on an extensive study of doctoral supervision development in South Africa. It calls for the development of emerging supervisors and for such development to be both contextualised and theorised, with a focus on a enabling a quality educational experience rather than only on efficiencies.

Theoretical framework
I utilise Bhaskar's (1989) critical realism to understand the conditioning mechanisms that enable or constrain supervision development from across these different institutions. Margaret Archer's social realist framework is used to account for the interplay between structure, culture, and agency. Archer (2000) contends that social phenomena occur through contact between individuals' agency, social interactions, and social structures.

Methods
This is a qualitative study of twenty out of the twenty-six universities in South Africa. Data were drawn from 54 semi-structured interviews with participants from across institutional types and disciplines. In a realist study, it is understood that participants’ may present multiple and conflicting experiences. It is the researchers' responsibility to identify some of the mechanisms from which such experiences emerged (Danermark et al. 2002). Ethical clearance was obtained from the twenty institutions. Each institution had very different requirements and the levels of concern about research being undertaken suggested a high-risk aversion in universities.

Findings and discussion
The development of postgraduate supervision was uneven. Some novice supervisors within a single institution indicated that there were no development opportunities, while others reported they were available. Those who offered the development workshops and courses were often hired in contract positions and paid from a national grant allocated for the development of doctoral education. Such facilitators generally did not have much graduate education experience. Likewise, they were generally not necessarily disciplinary experts, which implies that they may not have the theoretical and meta-theoretical discourse that influences research (Mouton, 2019). The development opportunities were generally generic, regardless of the discipline or institutional type. The focus on skills training was found to underestimate the complexity of the supervision endeavour. This emerged from an understanding in the realm of culture that skills training can enhance efficiency. Furthermore, there was an assumption that novice supervisors would be able to translate such skills back into their complex contexts. This caused a lack of buy-in from the supervisors, both novice and experienced. There were calls for development to be offered by experienced academics who would understand the nature of postgraduate education as a complex pedagogy rather than a set of skills to be applied for optimal efficiency.

Author

• Puleng Lorraine Motshoane, University of Johannesburg
  Presenting Author