Academic supervision involves several key actors in addition to supervisors and students, who share the same general objectives. Our aim here is to investigate and discuss collective dimensions of degree project supervision practice by examining how supervisors use the acknowledgment of such key actors within the degree project context, in their interaction with supervised students. In what ways do supervisors in their supervision practice acknowledge various actors within the degree project context? What functions may this have in the supervision interaction?

The empirical material consists of recorded supervision sessions with students within teacher education at two Swedish universities. The results show how supervisors used attribution and active voicing to acknowledge the various actors in the degree project context, and how this could be part of the scaffolding means giving instructions and modelling. Based on the analysis of our material, we argue that this can be seen as contributing to the scaffolding intention cognitive structuring, by a) helping students understand the different roles and responsibilities of the different actors, by b) helping them to assess the importance and relevance of the advice given by these actors, and by c) emphasising the students' own role as active participants in the process.

This open access book examines the supervision of undergraduate degree projects, with a particular focus on how supervision may contribute to developing student independence and academic literacies. Based on an extensive research project, it uses examples from focus group interviews as well as actual supervision situations, taken from different higher education programmes at several universities in Sweden and Russia. The authors discuss issues such as supervisors’ perceptions and understandings of student independence, the relationship between supervisor and student, the significance of emotions in the supervision process, different supervision tools to foster independence, and the supervisor’s role not only as a guide and helper but also as an assessor of the students’ work. The book will appeal to scholars within the field of teaching and learning in higher education, as well as those from other disciplines who are interested in developing their own supervision practice.

Ett av många ansvarsområden som en uppsatshandledare har handlar om att möjliggöra och öppna för studentens självständighet. Självständighet knyts i den här undersökningen till studentens delaktighet i handledningssamtalen, och i det sammanhanget är handledarens frågor till studenten centrala. Syftet är därför att undersöka hur handledarna genom ställandet av frågor öppnar för och möjliggör studentens självständighet. Åtta olika handledarsamtal från två utbildningsprogram analyseras utifrån vilka frågor som ställs, och vilka av dessa frågor som öppnar för och möjliggör självständighet. Tre typer av frågor identifieras som särskilt centrala i handledningssamtalen; öppnande och överlämnande frågor, utvecklande och fördjupande frågor samt utmanande och problematiserande frågor. Variationen mellan samtal och handledare visar sig dock vara stor och det visar sig också finnas skillnader i vilken typ av delaktighet som skapas med hjälp av frågorna. 

Handledning av självständiga arbeten är en omfattande pedagogisk verksamhet inom högre utbildning och ingår i de flesta universitetslärares undervisningsvardag. Samtidigt är uppsatshandledning på många sätt speciell. Exempelvis ställs det höga krav på studenters självständighet, samtidigt som handledaren får en tätare och mer långvarig relation till studenten än normalt. Dessa speciella villkor ställer handledaren inför nya frågor och utmaningar:

• Hur kan jag stötta studenten i uppsatsarbetet och samtidigt uppmuntra självständighet? 

• Var drar jag gränsen mellan en professionell och en mer personlig handledningsrelation? 

• Hur mycket kan jag berömma och bekräfta studenten när det är en examinator som sätter betyg?

I den här boken ligger fokus på hur handledning ser ut och fungerar i praktiken. Genom exempel från verkliga handledningssituationer och teoretisk diskussion av dessa, behandlas handledares uppfattningar om självständighet, relationen mellan handledare och student, känslornas betydelse i handledningsprocessen, olika handledningsverktyg för självständighet, och handledarens roll som bedömare.

Handledning i praktiken kan användas i handledningskurser inom högskolan, men också som underlag för kollegiala diskussioner av frågor relaterade till handledning och uppsatsskrivande. 

Independence is becoming an increasingly important factor in Swedish higher education, especially in relation to undergraduate degree projects. Despite this, there is no shared understanding of what independence is or whether it is to be found in the finished text or in the supervision interaction. In this article I look at one specific definition of independence: the ability to position oneself and one’s work in relation to sources. Three supervision meetings are analysed, selected from a larger body of recorded material from teacher education courses in Sweden. I explore how independence can be enacted in the supervision of undergraduate degree projects, drawing on the analytical framework of appraisal. The theoretical framework is derived from the socio-cultural and dialogical perspective, which proposes that learning and understanding develop in context through interaction and dialogue. Independence, from this perspective, is something that can be explored in enactments in interactions of different kinds. The findings show that the students use different resources in order to relate to sources on different levels, and these levels could be related to independence in different ways.

In this article we will discuss how circumstances and requirements on a micro-level may be of relevance for the conditions for international student mobility within higher education. This will be done through examining similarities and differences in the organization of degree project courses at universities in Russia and Sweden, and how supervisors and course representatives described their experiences of working with them. International mobility is often described as having the potential of improving quality within higher education institutions and benefiting individuals through offering new experiences and perspectives. But the changing of academic contexts, which international mobility involves, demands a great deal of adjustment from the individual student and can be a complicated process.

Through examining similarities and differences in comparable courses at universities in two countries, this article aims to say something about what characterizes different local academic contexts and thus the differences in expectations students may encounter when going between them, here in particular concerning academic writing and the relationship to the supervisor. The article is based on empirical material from a qualitative research project on journalism education and teacher education in Sweden and Russia, and the discussion will be related to the concept academic literacies.

Purpose

The aim of this article is to examine if and how supervisors’ use of two kinds of potential scaffolding means - asking questions and giving instructions - could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence, in the context of supervision of degree projects within higher education.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on qualitative content analysis of two series of supervision meetings between a supervisor and a student in Swedish higher education, comprising a total of eight recorded sessions. The theoretical framework of the article is centered on scaffolding and independent learning, and central concepts are contingency, fading, transfer of responsibility and student independence.

Findings

The analysis shows how the supervisors’ use of questions, and in some respect instructions, could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence through enabling active participation of both student and supervisor and that the supervision was based on contingency. The analysis further shows that the supervisors tended to become more directive as the work came along, especially when students appeared to be running out of time. The supervision processes did thus not appear to be characterized by fading and transfer of responsibility.

Originality/value

This article contributes to the research field of higher education through discussing student independence as a potential scaffolding intention within supervision of degree projects, based on recorded supervision meetings. Supervision of degree projects is a highly relevant context for discussing scaffolding, since it combines increased student independence with close interaction between student and supervisor for an extended period.

This article uses examples from the media debate on higher education in Sweden, as well as from a research project on independence in higher education, to discuss the significance of class and social background in relation to higher education. The article takes as its starting point how higher education in the media debate tends to be described as being in a severe crisis, and how the roots of the perceived problems in higher education are described to lie in deficits or incompetence of the individual students, but also within higher education itself. The discussion of what role class and social background may play in this, relates these examples to the assignment given to Swedish higher education institutions to promote widening participation and to the claims within the field of academic literacies that academic writing is not only a question of writing skills as such, but also a question of epistemological understandings, meaning making, and students’ background, identity and self-perception.