International research students’ experiences of feedback

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 32: The Student Experience

July, 2009, 715 pages
Published by
Helen Wozniak and Sonia Bartoluzzi
ISBN
0 908557 78 7
Abstract 

Supervising international research students has drawn increasing attention in recent years, but inadequate research has been conducted to examine their experiences of the feedback from their supervisors and its impact on the thesis-writing process. This paper seeks to fill the gap and contribute to understanding international research students’ feedback experiences in postgraduate research supervision. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with a small group of international research students from non-English speaking backgrounds at an Australian university. The interviewees reported a wide range of both positive and negative experiences with supervisory feedback, which reflects their unique pedagogical needs in the thesis-writing process. The students’ voices revealed through this study will have significant implications for enhancing postgraduate research supervision with international research students.

Key words: feedback, postgraduate supervision, international students