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Insights into undergraduate English thesis writing supervision in non-Anglophone contexts: Supervisors’ voices from Sweden and Indonesia
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Culture, Languages and Media (KSM).ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7182-7628
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Culture, Languages and Media (KSM). Malmö University, Disciplinary literacy and inclusive teaching.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2565-8875
2023 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Doctoral thesis supervision and its writing outcome in Anglophone countries has gathered a great research attention. Moreover, the collaborative supervisory relationship has been considered as an important aspect of doctoral students’ achievement and autonomy in thesis writing. Despite the similar student-supervisor model of supervision between doctoral and undergraduate students, cross-cultural research on undergraduate thesis supervision in the expanding countries seems still underrepresented. The presentation is based on a comparative study of Indonesian and Swedish supervisors’ expression about their experience in supervising undergraduate students to write a thesis in English, the students’ additional language (EAL). The research questions are:

In what ways do Swedish and Indonesian supervisors describe experiencing thesis supervision? In what ways do Swedish and Indonesian supervisors describe their relationships with students and colleagues?

Since previous research has discussed ideal practices of supervision involving students in dialogue and supporting their intellectual development, this presentation focuses on the exploration of the different challenges and considerations pertaining to this ideal as described by the supervisors in the three contexts (Swedish university, Indonesian public university, and Indonesian private university). This presentation highlights similarities and differences between supervisors in Sweden and Indonesia, and between supervisors in private and public Indonesian universities. It adds to previous research on supervision which are mainly conducted in the postgraduate or doctorate levels in the Anglophone context. Moreover, this presentation contributes knowledge of the supervisor's beliefs about their roles and relationships in three different contexts, with implications for what is seen as constituting a “good” supervision practice.

Accordingly, a qualitative case study with semi-structured interview technique was conducted with fourteen thesis supervisors (five Swedish and nine Indonesian). Thematic analysis was informed by systemic-functional linguistics from appraisal theory (Martin & White, 2005). It focused on analysing the discourses expressed by thesis supervisors related to their roles, relationship with students and colleagues, and values about supervision that are scrutinised through the use of modality.

The findings show that supervisors in the three contexts describe tensions related to imbalanced relationships with students and colleagues, supervisors’ various roles, and supervisors’ priority management regarding students’ instrumental purposes and their desired intellectual journey. Different concerns expressed by supervisors related to tensions in their supervisory relationship. Swedish supervisors described experiencing low authority over their students, Indonesian private university supervisors mentioned challenges in befriending students to create more symmetrical supervisory relationships. Meanwhile, Indonesian public university supervisors emphasised their unease related to students’ attitude for being too close to the supervisors. Different undesired supervisory roles recounted by supervisors such as being students’ editors, pseudo debt-collectors, and spoon feeders were necessitated either by institutional situations or personal commitment as the students’ thesis writing gatekeepers.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
EAL thesis supervision, supervisors' roles, supervisory relationship, SFL
National Category
General Language Studies and Linguistics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-58300OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-58300DiVA, id: diva2:1738757
Conference
WRAB 2023 - Writing Research Across Borders, 18-22 February 2023, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Available from: 2023-02-22 Created: 2023-02-22 Last updated: 2024-06-11Bibliographically approved

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Nangimah, MusrifatunWalldén, Robert

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
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