Supervising and examining research students
“Despite the call for more innovative outcomes from doctoral programs, the doctoral product worldwide still seems to be overwhelmingly the thesis-as-tome. Few English- speaking universities have the staffing capacity to invite ESL students to write the tome in their first language. So standards of written expression lurk as a constant and double danger—the danger of failing to demand the highest levels of written expression (thereby risking reputation) and the danger of failing to provide the sort of quality teaching and learning that a “fail” result implies in an audit culture, especially if this were to occur in significant numbers. The danger is pronounced in those systems of examination that rely solely on a review of the written text, without a viva to allow both examiners and students to seek and gain more information. A further danger of the thesis-as-tome is, of course, the danger of a supervisor's overstepping the boundaries of good teaching by moving into the role of co-author. This puts at risk the requirement that a student's study be their own intellectual and textual property. While the risk of co-authorship for the supervisor of ESL dissertation writers appears at this stage to be “contained” somewhat within the academy, the matter of academic plagiarism certainly is not.” (p.127)
McWilliam, E., Singh, P., & Taylor, P. G. (2002). Doctoral education, danger and risk management. Higher Education Research and Development, 21(2), 119-129.* |
Your learning in this module
- Topic: Research skills training
Do you know what academic integrity understandings and skills your postgraduate research students start with, and what to do if there's a gap?
How do you satisfy yourself about the integrity and originality of a thesis that you have been asked to examine
?
What strategies can you use during your students' research candidature to monitor and give feedback on the academic integrity of their work?
What is the effect on the academic integrity of the thesis when it is edited by someone other than the student?
* Used with permission of the publisher.