Undergraduate Physical Therapy Students´ Experiences of Supervision during Bachelor Thesis Course
Monika Fagevik Olsén1* and Kristofer Bjerså2
1Department of Physical therapy, Institute of Neuroscience and
Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
2Division of Nursing Science, Department of Medicine and Health
Science, Linköping University, Sweden
*Corresponding author: Monika Fagevik Olsen, Department of physical therapy,
Sahlgrenska University Hospital, 413 45 Goteborg, Sweden, Tel: +46 313421195, Fax:
+46 313424341; E-mail: monika.fagevik-olsen@vgregion.se
Received
date: 25 November, 2016;
Accepted date: 01 December, 2017; Published
date: 06 January, 2017
Citation: Olsen MF and Bjersa k (2017)
Undergraduate Physical Therapy Students´ Experiences of Supervision during
Bachelor Thesis Course. ECRA 2017; Educ Res Appl: 102. DOI:
10.29011/2575-7032/100002
Background: Studies
evaluating scientific supervision at the undergraduate level are few and
heterogeneous. The aim of the study was to further explore undergraduate
students´ experiences of and thoughts about research supervision.
Methods: The sample of informants consisted of 13 physical therapy
students from two Swedish universities. Data collection was done using
semi-structured interviews covering the areas of supervision and collaboration.
Data analysis was performed according to qualitative content analysis.
Results: Three they emerged from the interviews- the role of the
supervisor, the student's perception of uncertainty and structure of the
supervision
Conclusion: Physical therapy students´ experience of their supervision
was dependent on the supervisors’ attributes, both favourable and unfavourable,
difficulties with communication, being disregarded and affected by the
supervisors’ personal views. This was also put in the context of the current
form of supervision, as individual and group supervision brought both positive
and negative factors to the experience of the process.
1. Background
Scientific supervision as performed during bachelor courses is a
regular role for lecturers at higher education institutions. The main aim of
the thesis at the undergraduate level is to give students basic knowledge about
the research process [1,2]. Scientific supervision differs from other forms of
teaching and learning in higher education in its peculiarly intense and
negotiated character, as well as in its requirements for a blend of pedagogical
and personal relationship skills. Therefore, it is demanding primarily due to
that the students have the lowest degree of autonomy and knowledge of
scientific methodology [3]. Formative feedback has been defined as information
communicated to the learner that is intended to modify the student´s thinking
to improve learning [4] and should be open minded in terms as none evaluative,
supportive, timely and specific. However, there are large variations both in
the amount of time that is devoted to supervision and the supervisors´
approach, which can vary between focusing on the process or the product, in
this case a thesis. The degrees of affiliation and control have been found to
be related to outcomes of students writing their master thesis [5].
Fundamentally though, students are expected to produce a thesis
but they do not have the knowledge of how to do so [6]. They also dedicate
different amounts of time to the task and are more or less independent,
confident and interested in the topic [7]. The students´ sex, age, family
status, social background and previous studies contribute as factors in the
collaboration between student and supervisor [8].
Supervision can be performed individually by one or several
supervisor (-s) or in a group setting. More than one supervisor can be helpful
for the student to gain a broader perspective on their work, various types of
supervision approaches and, hopefully, make it easier to get the guidance they
need [7]. But several supervisors can also contribute to distress as they are
not always of the same opinion, which may result in dilemmas where the student
does not know how to proceed [7]. The aim of group supervision is to increase
the involvement of the students by reading and commenting on each other's work
throughout the writing process [9]. The supervisor's role then changes from a
relationship between two or three individuals, to between the supervisor and
the group [9]. However, the students may choose to focus on an area in which
the supervisor does not have the best knowledge and so their ability to help
will be compromised as regards the subject matter and becomes more about
project management [9]. Also the student role changes with group instruction,
as participation requires preparation and contribution to the group's meetings
[9]. The different types of supervision provide different opportunities for
cooperation, which affects students´ work
Studies evaluating scientific supervision at the undergraduate
level are few and heterogeneous. Two studies have evaluated it from the supervisor's
perspective. In a study by Holmberg on the perspective of the learning process
in business administration, they discovered that the supervisors experienced
difficulty in balancing science and practice. In a Finnish study evaluating
perceptions of group supervision at a healthcare institution the lecturers
perceived their role as experts and coaches of teams of students who would work
together [10,11]. But they also expressed that it was a problem to get enough
time for supervision in different phases of the work i.e. ‘mismatch’ between
the needs and time for supervising.
There are a few studies exploring the students' perspective. In
teacher education, students found practical-oriented supervision preferable to
create a good learning process when compared to traditional supervision, which
was perceived as solely focusing on the final product, the thesis [1]. The
Finnish study described earlier correspondingly assessed students' perceptions
[10,11]. The result describes positive student experiences of group supervision
due to the dynamic ways in which learning activities could take place and
students could be involved in each other’s processes. However, if the students
only focused on their own work it was a risk that they would perceive the group
supervision as meaningless. Group supervision from the students' perspective
has also been studied in a group of Japanese students in a thesis course in the
humanities [12]. The results emerged that the students felt that the seminars
allowed them to gain knowledge from their classmates and it was good to receive
feedback from more than just the supervisor. The students also experienced that
the group supervision better socialized them into academic writing. In an
English study of students in a social work programme, the students were
supervised in groups or individually [13]. At the midpoint of the study, the
students who were being supervised as a group had significantly higher hope of
learning more about the topic and developing their writing skills compared to the
students who were being supervised individually. Individual supervision has
also been studied in students studying economics at a South African college
[14] where the students expressed the opinion that they received too little
supervision to be able to write an academic thesis. The students understood
what was missing but they did not know how to change the text to meet the
expectations.
Hence, the rational for this study is a lack of research
focusing on bachelor thesis courses, with only a few articles investigating the
scientific supervision on this level. Implications for further investigating
the students’ experiences of bachelor thesis supervision has also been
addressed in order to develop learning and teaching activities during this
initial encounter of the students in producing research [15,16]. To our
knowledge, no previous research has investigated the type of scientific
supervision in physiotherapy programs. Based on this knowledge, the aim of this
study was to explore undergraduate students´ experiences and thoughts about
scientific supervision.
2. Methods
The study was conducted by a qualitative, inductive approach
with semi-structured individual interviews and analysed using context analysis
as described.
2.1. Informants and context of the study
Based on the rational for this study, a focus on bachelor thesis
course in physiotherapy was chosen. In Sweden, a total of eight universities
and university collages provide this program. Applications to the program are
made through a national web-site and no study-fees are charged from the
students from the European Union. The programme is given as full-time during
three years and result in both a diploma as Physiotherapist and a Bachelor of
Science in Medicine with a focus on Physiotherapy. The bachelor course is given
during the third year and supervisors are lecturers or clinical lectures with a
master or doctoral degree.
In this study, a convenient sample was used based on students
from the University of Gothenburg (Gothenburg) and the Karolinska Institute
(Stockholm). In Gothenburg the course that includes the bachelor’s thesis
initiates during the fifth semester when students decide the topic and write a
research plan with assistance from the supervisor. The work for the thesis is
then carried out during the sixth semester. According to the syllabus, five
occasions of supervision is included. However, the actual supervision time that
each student receives varies. The course ends with a viva voce examination
where the thesis is presented and discussed.
During the autumn semester of 2013, group supervision was
initiated. Supervision groups were put together consisting of four project
groups with two students in each group. Each group was supervised by two
lecturers, as the model for group supervision was new. Meetings were scheduled
with themes such as ‘Background, aim and hypotheses’, ‘Method’ and ‘Results’.
During the semester the majority of the students had group supervision, though
some still had individual supervision.
The Physical Therapy program at Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm has the same construction of the bachelor’s thesis course as the
University of Gothenburg, but with a tradition of performing group supervision
with students in the Physical therapy programme.
Students within the last semester of the programme were
approached. Invitation to participate was performed by written and oral
information about the study after the examinations in the bachelor’s thesis
course.
A first sample of informants consisted of 11 student who
responded positively out of 20 strategically chosen from the group in
Gothenburg. Initial contacted was done via e-mail and aimed at strategically
sampling for age, gender and diversity in receiving individual or group
supervision. Students who were being supervised by the authors were excluded
from the study. To avoid having a sample that only represented students from
one university; a group of students from the physical therapy programme at the
Karolinska Institute, Stockholm were also included. When two additional
interviews were carried out and nothing new had emerged, data collection was
stopped. The students who participated were between 20 and 40 years of age,
nine were women and four men, four had received individual supervision and nine
group supervision.
2.2. Data collection
The interviews were conducted individually at the university
hospital or university. The last interviews were conducted by telephone due to
logistic reasons. The data collection was made using semi-structured interviews.
The interviews covered the following areas:
·
Examples of good / less good supervision in the different phases
of the thesis work
·
Description of optimal supervision.
·
The collaboration between the student and the supervisor
Follow-up questions such as the following were used to engage the student more
deeply.
The interviews were recorded with standard cassette tapes and
with a voice recorder. The interviews were transcribed verbatim.
2.3. Data analysis
Content analysis is a method of analysing written, verbal or
visual communication messages and a research method which is a systematic and
objective means of describing and quantifying phenomena [17].
The analysis was performed by the two authors, independently of
one another according to the following steps described.
The text was read through several times to create a sense
of wholeness.
I.Areas included in the
aim were marked in the text – units of analysis
II.The marked areas were
divided into meaning units.
III.The meaning units were
condensed, ie, the sentences were shortened without changing the meaning.
IV.The condensed text was
abstracted which means that the content and interpretation of the condensed
text was described at a higher logical level in a code.
V.These codes were then
sorted based on similarities and differences. The codes were divided into
themes and sub-categories.
The analysis and coding were discussed until a consensus
arose.
2.4. Ethics
This study was conducted as a part of a thesis project in
pedagogics. The ethics were reviewed, monitored and approved by the University
of Gothenburg in accordance with Swedish law on ethics in research
(Prop.2007/08:44; Law 2003:460). Permission to carry out the study was given by
the respective head of the physical therapy programmes. All participation was
voluntary, and all data were collected anonymously. The informants participated
after verbal and written information was provided and their written consent,
except in cases where the interviews were conducted by telephone, where the
approval was given orally.
Internal ethics guidelines for the transcription of the
interviews were followed as to how pauses, repetitions, etc. would be handled.
The two authors did the analysis separately to increase credibility and to
reduce the risk that the information would be distorted or taken out of
context.
3. Results
Analysis of the 13 interview resulted in three themes: ‘The role
of the supervisor’, ‘Perception of uncertainty’ and ‘Structure of the
supervision’. These were divided into categories and sub-categories as
illustrated in Table
3.1. The role of the supervisor
The informants describe cooperation with the supervisor as very
important. Cooperation was perceived as vital in all steps of the research
process; planning, data collection, analysis and writing the thesis. Both good
and bad experiences and attributes throughout this process were described.
There were two categories in the theme, the superior and the inferior
supervisor.
3.2. The superior supervisor
Experiences of positive qualities that were desirable in a
supervisor were described by the informants based on their own experiences but
also reflection after hearing about experiences of other students in the class.
Above all the informants said it was important that the
supervisor is competent in the research design of the project. In cases where
students had a quantitative approach, several students mentioned that it was
necessary that the supervisor was qualified in statistics. They wanted the
supervisor to be competent in the topic of the study, but this was secondary to
knowledge of research design.
’The supervisor must of course have knowledge about the topic
you choose to write about. Some knowledge of what my work is about and also, of
course, an understanding of statistics, because that was what we had a lot of
questions about.’
A fundamental element was that the supervisor had time and was
available. The participants described that it was important that there be
enough time for discussion during the planned meetings. But that it was also
important that the supervisor be available for contact via email or phone
outside the pre-arranged meeting times.
’I think it is most important that you have time to supervise.
That the supervisor has time’
The informants wanted a supervisor who was straightforward,
clear, committed and was interested in the students' work and respectful of the
students' opinions. They should also have a positive attitude and a willingness
to guide students through the work with their thesis.
’That they primarily are interested. But also that they have to
have the ability to know how the work should be written and structured ... to
be respectful towards those who write’
3.3. The inferior supervisor
All the informants had experienced more or less good
supervision. But they described inferior supervisors as those who were
uncommitted to the students and their writing, to the topic or someone who does
not devote enough time to supervision or had a negative attitude towards
supervision generally.
’Having little personal involvement, little interest in the
subject area and not really having time for your students. I don’t know how you
get to be a supervisor, but I think that if you are, you should have time for
your student and the ability to devote time to them. You can’t say “maybe I can
reply [to your email] next week.’. In that case, you shouldn’t be a
supervisor.’
Another aspect was that the supervisor should not be too strict
and controlling which seemed to be a risk if they had a lot of expertise in the
topic. The supervisor might not allow for the students to develop the process
and influence the work as much as they would like. Instead controlling
everything based on his/her own knowledge and understanding.
’It is possible that the supervisor takes a lot of control… if
the supervisor is very good with methodology and very good in the area, it is
possible that the supervisor takes over a little bit, provides a little too
much input and the students then may not have the space to be creative and
learn. But this is still a learning experience.’
3.4. The informants´perception of uncertainty
Several experiences were described by the informants, when
confusion had prevailed, leading to uncertainty which sometimes delayed the
work process. The category includes both the frustration in the cooperation and
the ambiguity in instructions and information given
3.5. The informants' experiences of frustration
Several participants shared that they had experienced difficulties
in communicating with the supervisor and other lecturers included in the course
which lead to frustration and uncertainty. The time schedule was so tight that
minor lapses in communication lead to delays in the work. ‘It was when we were
doing statistics. X (one of the lecturers) didn’t have time for us right then.
And we understood that, but then we tried to email Y (another lecturer) but we
did not get any response. We thought that was a bit frustrating because we did
not know if it was because [she knew] we had another supervisor or if she just
didn’t have time. ‘Disregard was experienced and expressed by some
participants. They described situations where they felt that the work was
unimportant or did not mean anything to the supervisor. Some experienced
concerns that the supervisor forgot what had been decided and this delayed the
process. One fear was that the supervisor actually had poor control and
approved everything without requiring further work from the students, meaning
important aspects may be overlooked. ‘It was noticeable especially during the
examination where we found that the examiner brought up the things that we
absolutely ought to have already heard about during the time we were being
supervised. We had been a little too focused on our own work and had not
thought of those things. But it was very obvious when we heard it [from the
examiner/s].
We felt that supervisors should have commented on it more
[during supervision]. ‘The informants' perception of ambiguity the informants described that the written and oral
instructions they receive before and during the course was often
unsatisfactory. This lead to uncertainty in their work, difficulties to know
the frames and different interpretations increasing their work load. Especially
at the start of the work it was important to get specific and correct
information in order to eliminate delays. ’The attitudes of the lecturers were
very much focused on not being worried, and that things would “be resolved”. We
wanted to know when we had to do the different tasks. It was very unclear. It
was frustrating with the “it will be resolved” mentality. We were not at all on
board with it. ‘A common experience was that some supervisors approved what
other supervisors did not. It included both formalities and the structure of
the project and thesis. This lead to a lot of uncertainty. Some participants
felt unfairly treated.’ You heard that other people’s supervisors had been
saying specifically that “you must do this” or “this mustn’t be done” but later
it was shown that this wasn’t the case.
3.6. Structure of the supervision
Positive and negative aspects of structure of group and
individual supervision were described by the students.
3.7. Group supervision
Seven of the eleven participants had had group supervision. Both
positive and negative experiences were expressed, though they were
predominantly negative. The advantages of group supervision over individual
supervision included using the peer-reviewing process, with several people
reading through written work. Students stated that being able to express and
receive ideas, change their perspective and get feedback on their work was also
an advantage of group supervision. One of the participants, who expressed a
difficult start-up phase, described group supervision as a positive source for
ideas on how to advance and engage the problems of research design. Other
participants expressed that their thinking about the research processes and
research construction had been positively affected by the group intervention
and the diversity in aims. This knowledge was of great value during the
opposition and defense seminars.
“I believe that it worked well because I and my thesis-partner
started off a little late... I believed was very good being in a group and
hearing the others” questions and thoughts and how they were doing their
projects. So if you didn’t understand that well, you were able to better
understand [by listening to others in the group]. And that question arose in
our group and they were answered very well. I believe it helped everyone and to
also be able to throw ideas around about each other’s theses.’
‘I also had the opportunity to provide feedback. It was one of
the projects which I was very interested in I thought it was a very good idea and
something valuable to do. And then I got the opportunity to help them. I
brought up something that they were able to use. That was fun!’
Disadvantages with group supervision was stated as lack of or
difficulties to commence good Disadvantages of group supervision were stated as
lack of or difficulties starting good and constructive discussions in the group
when the students were in different phases of the research process. Some
students in the group were already in the middle of the process at the start of
the course, while others did not begin until sometime later. The ones who had
already started experienced lack of supervision compared to their current need,
and that the supervision session only became formal attending occasions
necessary to be approved of to get course credits. The students were mostly
passive during the meetings and not particularly interested in the others’
work. As there was a lack of correlation between the discussions during the
sessions to their own individual projects, the students generally did not
commit to reading the project papers of other students. They experienced the
time in between supervision sessions to be a frustration, as this delayed the
progress of their project. They suggested that individual supervision could be used
to complement group supervision sessions. All the group supervision
participants experienced a lack of more individual support at one or several
times during the project.
’It started well and you were able to get going and make
progress, while at the same time others had a really hard time even deciding
what they were going to do. So there was a great deal of focus on them and
getting them started with their work. Which of course they needed, but at the
same time you felt that you were not making progress because you weren’t
getting the supervision you wanted. I think it would be better to have had
individual supervision.’
Using two supervisors was seen as hindering the learning process
by students in group supervision. This led to students being unsure who to
contact when they needed help as the responsibilities of each supervisor were
not clear. In some cases, the supervisors were at odds with each other
concerning super visional guidance, which made it hard for the students to
choose whom to listen to and to trust. The participants who experienced this
would have preferred to have only one supervisor or mix between group and
individual supervision to minimize these problems.
3.8.
Individual supervision
Similarly to those who had had group supervision, those who had
had individual supervision also experienced positive and negative perceptions.
A beneficial aspect of the learning process in individual supervision was the
total and solitary focus on one’s own thesis. No consideration had to be taken
to other research processes, methods or texts, just their own work and the
supervisor was fully focused on the current status of the work in progress. The
supervisor had, in most cases, made up a timetable for the work process and
communication was continuous with contact via e-mail, telephone and SMS.
‘We could email, call and meet our supervisor pretty much
whenever we wanted, and we thought that was very good. At the beginning we had
a lot of questions that we needed help with so we could get started and then we
were more independent the rest of the time.’
As regards negative experiences, the supervisors´ role as the
only source of reflection and perspective of the work could be a vulnerability,
particularly if contact and the relationship with the supervisor was compromised,
leading to uncertainty of procedure and extension of the work. Assumptions
among the participants with this experience expressed a belief that group
supervision might have decreased the risk of such dilemmas as feedback could be
given within the student group.
‘I think that it was better to have individual [supervision]
but. If group supervision works really well then perhaps it is also really
rewarding. Like being able to give each other a bit of feedback.’
4.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore how undergraduate
students’ writing a bachelor’s thesis experienced scientific supervision during
their physical therapy course. Earlier studies in this area are few and
heterogeneous, highlighting both the students’ and the supervisors' perspective.
The study focused on the students' perspective and a group that has not
previously been investigated, physical therapy students. Previous studies in
healthcare programmers have evaluated the healthcare students' perspective
[11,12] but there are still topics left to focus on.
The results of this study indicate that many of the participants
were satisfied and had a positive experience of the course and the supervision,
but they also described shortcomings and problems. The supervisor's role is
essential to the quality of work and the process of supervision. The
participants describe that a superior supervisor must have time for guidance,
knowledge of the scientific method and a positive attitude to the topic. In
contrast, they felt an unengaged supervisor who controls too much, ‘takes over’
or did not have the time was less desirable. The participants described that
they want a coach or consultant, which is in line with results from a previous
study the participants expressed the same desire that student in a teacher
program in the study by [1] who wanted a supervisor who would be involved and
would guide them throughout the process. However, the participants in the
current study didn’t want a “parent’, which some of the supervisors in study
perceived they as being for their students. Based on the findings and previous
research, it seems the guidance during the process is most important for
bachelor level students in healthcare the first time they write an academic
thesis. Formative feedback [4] can be one approach to guide students to new
knowledge by reducing the uncertainty between performance and goals, keeping
feedback as simple as possible and promoting a “learning’ goal orientation via
said feedback.
As academic writing involves a completely new way of working and
writing for the student, the supervisor/s needs to provide sufficient support
so that students can achieve what is expected. Nowadays when students get less
classroom time and are expected to take increasing responsibility themselves for
their learning [9] it becomes difficult to simultaneously have time to
socialize students into the academic context. Students can no longer just
follow the supervisor and grow into the role by observing and imitating [6].
The more practically oriented guide where students and supervisors work
together with the different parts of the process has previously emerged among
supervisors as important in working with bachelor’s thesis. But this requires
more effort from the supervisor/s, which is poorly correlated with the
increasing numbers of students and the decreasing time available for
supervision time for each student [11,18]. Discussions between supervisors how
to facilitate the students' work without it taking too much time can be useful.
Another aspect is to, during the course; give additional lectures in subjects
which often take much of the time for supervision as academic writing and
methodologically diverse ways of performing analysis.
One way of reducing time for supervision is to do it in groups.
One of the challenges in group supervision is that the included students can be
at different phases of the work process, which has been reported earlier [10].
This may be an inevitable and sometimes difficult factor for the supervisor to
master. Seven of the participants had had group supervision and were more or
less positive towards this form of supervision. They described that they were
in different phases, had been too focused on their own study and did not read
the others' writing or had time to provide feedback, the latter being one of
the main positive features of group supervision. But they also described
advantages of reading and discussing each other’s drafts. Receiving feedback
from more than supervising lecturers have previously emerged as an advantage of
group supervision but it is also known to increase scientific knowledge and
make the students better prepared for examination [11,12]. In the current study
the results indicate that the group supervision they had was more like
individual supervision but given in a group [9]. However, the result may not be
comparable to group supervision where all students take full participation.
The students were satisfied with individual supervision,
although it had its pros and cons too. They were pleased that the focus was
only on their own work, even if it was a week spot vulnerable to have only one
supervisor. Many of the participants who received group supervision wanted
additional or only individual supervision. They thought that there were
benefits in getting more individual feedback and individual supervision would
provide increased knowledge of the scientific method versus the unstructured
group supervision they received. Supervision requires other skills than
traditional teaching requires [2] and group supervision makes this even harder
to provide. Though it is possible to combine different types of supervision. In
a Norwegian study, multi voiced supervision of master’s thesis students were
used. They mixed group and individual supervision with student colloquia and
concluded that the different approaches complemented each other. The student
colloquia filtered the first idea and texts, group supervision gave diverse
feedback but also facilitated the students into the discipline and the
individual supervision provided more specific advice.
An integrated Learning Environment (LE) to support undergraduate
dissertations was developed and utilized in a business school in the UK [19].
The new approach included new uses of information technology to support work
flow, observation of support, enhancement assessment regimes, improved
communication and easy access to relevant documents. The implementation led to
improvements to the student dissertation experience and achievement and seemed
to also have enhanced the consistency and effectiveness of research
supervisors. The results from this new approach are interesting as the
participants in the current study pointed out several areas where they
experienced uncertainty during the course. They felt that it was difficult to make
contact with the supervisor and that the they were overlooked, as the
supervisor did not have focus on their work or did not devote the time
necessary to provide proper feedback. The participants described that they
thought that the instructions they received was unclear and that supervisors'
personal opinions resulted inequality between students. These experiences could
have been diminished with a more integrated learning environment. The lack of
sufficient supervision has been highlighted in a previous study [14], in which
the surveyed students felt they had received too little support and they did
not know how they would proceed, resulting in an experience of uncertainty.
However, no previous studies have had students describe that they have felt overlooked
or had uninvolved supervisors. In this study, the supervisors were not
interviewed. It would have been interesting to study how the supervisors
describe the correspondent situations from their perspective and if they were
aware of the uncertainty that students felt.
Twenty of 35 students were contacted and asked whether they
wanted to participate in the study. Of those, 11 accepted and were interviewed.
The stated reason for declining to participate in the study was a lack of time,
as the interviews took place during the last two weeks of their very last
semester. It would have been an advantage to perform the interviews at an
earlier stage in the program, but this was not possible due to logistical
reasons. It is impossible to know how these students, who chose not to
participate in the study, experienced scientific supervision. As a result there
may be experiences that we have been able to cover here. There is always a risk
that the study participants are those students with a critical perception of supervision
and the thesis course and vice versa. If you are content with your experiences
of supervision, it is harder to prioritize an appointment for a follow-up. On
the other hand, most interviewed students were pleased with their thesis
course, although they felt there is potential for improvement in terms of both
group and individual supervision [20, 21].
5. Conclusion
Physical therapy students´ experience of their supervision
during their bachelor’s thesis course was dependent on the supervisors’ attributes,
both favourable and unfavourable, difficulties with communication, being
disregarded and affected by the supervisors’ personal views. This was also put
in context of the current form of supervision as individual and group
supervision brought both positive and negative factors to the experience of the
process. Further research may investigate the supervisors’ experience of equal
forms of supervision in the educational program to physiotherapists.
6. Acknowledgements
Funding: This work was
supported by the Renée Enders foundation. Conflict of interest: The authors
declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Theme |
Category |
Sub-category |
The role of the supervisor |
The superior supervisor |
Having the time and being available |
Right skills |
||
Supervisor default |
||
The inferior supervisor |
Negative attitude |
|
The supervisor takes over. |
||
Perception of uncertainty |
The students' experiences of frustration |
Difficulties with communication |
To be disregarded |
||
Students' perception of ambiguity |
Unclear instructions |
|
Supervisors' personal views |
||
Structure of supervision |
Group supervision |
Positive experiences |
Negative experiences |
||
Individual supervision |
Positive experiences |
|
Negative experiences |
Table 1: Structure of the analysis.
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