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What Roles do Supervisors’ Comments play in the Context of Doctoral

Research Proposal Writing

Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,

Technical Operations, Phdassistance

info@phdassistance.com

In Brief

The supervisor’s comment plays a vital role

in the process of Research Proposal

Writing. A supervisor offers support to help

the student develop their critical thinking

power to reach high-level knowledge and

become an expert.

Keywords: Supervisor’s roles, thesis

proposal writing, research proposal

writing, dissertation writing, proposal

writing, and supervisor’s comment.

I. INTRODUCTION

The role of the supervisor’s comment in

Writing a Research Proposal and its

progress is very significant. The supervisor’s

comment is very essential for research

students in many aspects as it replaces the

type of commands other students receive in

classroom and lecture approaches. Students

must depend on the comment provided by

their supervisors in the process of

researching and writing up the thesis

proposal, to get supervisors' command and

guidance about progress in their research

and thesis writing. Besides this,

acknowledged supervisor’s useful and

comprehensive feedback on the student’s

research is key for the successful completion

of their research and illustrates good

research supervision. They also stress that

knowledge is achieved through the feedback

provided by the supervisors. Especially,

when the supervisor’s comment is useful, it

signifies the inherent academic scope like

research supervision.

II. THE SUPERVISION FRAMEWORK

Feedback from supervisors plays a vital role

in the process of Research Proposal

Writing. In a more traditional model such as

an apprenticeship model of supervisor-

student relations, the supervisor plays the

role of the ‘expert’ who offers guidance to

the ‘novice’ research students. In this model,

the supervisor’s comment allows directing

the student into discipline-specific ways of

thinking and writing and offers a concrete

and site assistance for the student on the

progress of their research writing and ideas.

The overall role of a supervisor is to

communicate the performance of overseeing

employees, organizational needs, provide

assistance, support, find out improvement

needs, and manage the mutual association

between student and the staff so that each is

successful.

The main responsibilities of the supervisors

are:

1. Align expectations of individual

performance with managerial goals.

2. Improving performance goals together

with their direct reports.

3. Making sure that performance goals are

communicated and in progress.

4. Giving reasonable, productive, and

sensible feedback towards student’s

performance expectations.

5. Goals to provide help, assistance, and

coaching guidance as needed.

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6. Making sure that the organization has

professional development plans in the

workplace.

7. Conducting evaluations on performance

based on conventional systems and policies.

III. FACTORS TO SUCCESS IN

RESEARCH AND THE ROLES OF A

SUPERVISOR

A supervisor is allotted for the student who

researches to Research with Quality

processes to bring out the best possible

outcome as an outstanding thesis or

research. The anticipation of having a

smooth working phase and concluding the

research with the best outcome is not an

easy task. The success of a research or a

thesis for a research student greatly depends

upon the roles of their supervisor. The

student not only has to be prepared with the

knowledge but also be capable of managing

others and peripheral factors in the

meantime. The phase during which the

research is been conducted is mixed with a

variety of tasks.

The five encouraging roles of a supervisor

who involve in the supervision are

management, administrative support,

specific technical support, broader

intellectual support, and personal support

brings about the result of the research.

1. Management: Like marriage, both

supervisors and students must agree to work

together. The time for managing deadlines,

meetings, and objectives has to be planned

well. The student and the supervisor are

responsible to trust each other and cooperate

to work together.

2: Administrative support: A student also

needs support for getting funds and other

resources. Some rules and difficulties in

administration within the college or

university may be a hindrance to the

progress of the research. Thus, the

supervisor must be a great support for

students and help them to overcome all the

hurdles.

3. Specific technical support: Students need

to be trained in specific skills like searching

the related Literature, skill in using the

particular software, using the library,

structuring the thesis and research, offering

contacts with the experts in the field, and

offer training in critical reading. All these

skills must be guided by the supervisor.

4. Broadening intellectual support:

Supervisors must offer support to help the

student develop ability over his/her critical

thinking and discussion to attain high-level

knowledge and become an expert in the field

of study. These skills surely assist the

student in presenting and defending their

Research and Thesis.

5. Personal support: Most important role in

providing personal support as emotional

support, encouragement, inspiration,

providing with helpful advice, listening to

their problems can perk up their relationship

and work. Supervisors and students are

working under faith, care, and love that will

develop outstanding research. 3

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IV. RESEARCH EVIDENCE ON THE

ETHICS OF SUPERVISION

Critical thinking is stimulated through the

feedback offered by the supervisor among

students to guarantee the development of

productive ideas for writing. Feedback of a

supervisor is a vital thing for gaining the

learning experience of a PhD student. The

supervisor communicates through the

written feedback and offers advanced

training in academics, especially in writing,

to the student. Written feedback by the

supervisors and lecturers are the essential

source of input for Research Proposal

Writing & Thesis Writing.

Students face difficulties in their research

writing process from the perspective of

expressing and linking ideas, organizing

their assignments, and ensuring precision in

their writing. As such, productive written

feedback from their supervisors is of utmost

significance to improve their research

writing skills. Other feedbacks that students

frequently need are about logical ordering

and organization of facts and ideas, and flow

and transition between sentences,

paragraphs, or chapters. 4

V. CONCLUSION

Supervisors offer both review and feedback,

to help the students develop the quality of

their research writing. It has been discovered

that feedback from supervisors can

contribute to the academic growth of the

students. From the perspective of research

proposal writing and PhD Thesis Writing,

supervisors’ feedback plays a vital role in

assisting the student’s entry into the research

community through scaffolding the research

writing process, developing a quasi-

supervisory relationship, as well as

improving their confidence and motivation. 5

REFERENCES

1. Hazita Azmana, Nor Fariza Mohd Nor, Hnan

Omar Mohamed Aghwela, 2019, Investigating

Supervisory Feedback Practices And their Impact

on International Research Student’s Thesis

Development: A Case Study

2. Compasspoint nonprofit services, 2019,

Supervisor Roles and Responsibilities: Helping

People Succeed.

3. Nathara Mhunpiew, 2019, A Supervisor’s Roles

for Successful Thesis and Dissertation.

4. Yenus Nurie, 2018, Doctoral Students’ Perceived

Needs and Preferences for Supervisors’ Written

Feedback

5. Shulin Yu, Icy Lee, 2019, Understanding

Supervisors’ Commentary Practices in Doctoral

Research Proposal Writing: A Hong Kong Study.

6. J. Morton, N. Storch and C. Thompson, 2019,

Feedback on writing in the supervision of

postgraduate students: Insights from the work of

Vygotsky and Bakhtin