Giving Feedback on Postgraduate Thesis Draft: An Episodic Reflection on My Supervision Experiences

Supervising postgraduate students in higher education (HE) is a key responsibility of the graduate faculty to assure quality control and the production of valid and reliable knowledge. This autoethnographic study explores my supervision journey while guiding a student's Master's thesis. By reflecting on personal experiences, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of supervisory practices and offer insights into the feedback mechanisms of novice supervisors. I analyze my feedback comments on Chapter Four of the student’s thesis draft, focusing on data analysis and interpretation. Undergoing supervision training made me curious to retrospectively examine my feedback on the thesis using my newly acquired knowledge as a foundation for improving future practices. I selected this thesis draft because I primarily used online communication tools to provide feedback. The study focuses on the dynamic and iterative process of supervision, particularly through episodic WhatsApp messages exchanged during the feedback process. To facilitate interpretation during analysis, I categorized my feedback comments into referential, directive, and expressive types. Without prior training, and before I embarked on supervising this particular student, I had gained some supervision experience as a postgraduate student, past supervision (I had already supervised another master’s student), and from colleague supervisors. Looking generally at the feedback I gave to this student, it demonstrates that the feedback spectrum was not fairly covered and did not follow a systematic approach. I attribute these deficiencies to the guesses and choices I made while giving feedback. Therefore, I recommend that Higher Education Institutions should offer postgraduate supervision training to graduate faculty a priori. This training will ensure that before the novice supervisor delves into the deep “waters” of supervision, they have a rough idea of the expected topography and inherent challenges, and are equipped with possible mitigating strategies