Key Findings

Findings indicated that:

• A wide range of beliefs and practices about feedback are held by supervisors.
• Best practice was typically explained as that which is most appropriate for an individual student at the time feedback is provided.
• From the student perspective, direct or ‘to-the-point’ feedback was easier to understand and act on.
• Written feedback, followed by face-to-face meetings, is useful in allowing discussion to ‘flesh out’ and clarify points that are made and to help students move forward to the next stage.
• Supervisors and students recognised the fact that the relationship between them needs to be framed as a partnership of equals.
• The content focus of the feedback was generally the same for both L1 and L2 students but sometimes supervisors found it necessary to provide some L2 writers with a greater amount of feedback on linguistic accuracy and appropriateness than was the case with most L1 students.
• Professional development for supervisors is necessary to support supervisors in identifying and diagnosing problems in students’ writing.

Key Recommendations

Recommendations for further research included:

Quantitative study | Carry out a further quantitative study to examine the extent to which supervisors and students hold the various ideas suggested by the respondents. A series of behavioural and attitudinal statements could be developed and these could include both Likert-scale and ranking questions.

Disciplinary differences | Recruit a larger sample size and a more equal participation from the three discipline areas. This would provide a more solid basis for investigation of disciplinary differences.

Feedback practices | Investigate other forms of practice (such as, supervisory meetings and feedback sheets) to provide a more complete description of feedback practices.

Comparative study | Make a comparative study into the nature of feedback given at early and later stages of the supervision process.

Effective practice | Carry out a longitudinal study to gain insights about effective practice over the entire supervisory period from the perspectives of supervisor and supervisee.