A pilot study on postgraduate supervision

The postgraduate education is considered to be important as it provides the educational institutions opportunities to build their research capabilities, enhance academic reputations and financial gain. The success and quality of post graduate education largely depends on effective and efficient supervision of postgraduate students. Despite its immense importance, the teaching and learning through postgraduate supervision is not still fully understood. As the expectation of high quality postgraduate supervision is increasing, the supervisory role is becoming more challenging due to the fact that most postgraduate students are coming from various ethnic, cultural, political, economical, linguistic and educational backgrounds and their attraction and retention are paramount for educational institutions. The primary objective of this work is to undertake a study on postgraduate supervision experience to provide better support for improving timely research completion, quality supervision, retention rate, student satisfaction, research environment and administrative support services. The research was undertaken based on questions based surveys. A set of anonymous questionnaires was distributed among postgraduate students studying at 3 universities in Australia. The study indicated ways to improve timely completion, quality thesis writing and scientific publications. The role of the supervisor plays a crucial role to the overall satisfaction, retention and completion.