Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: There is a pipeline of production of PhD graduates, and any blockages in the pipeline \nwill result in delays in the country achieving the target of about a 5-fold increase in the \nnumber of PhD’s, suggested by the Department of Science in Technology in their ten \nyear plan to drive South Africa’s transformation towards a knowledge-based economy. \nTo increase the pool of students capable of PhD studies, the pipeline issues, such as \ntime taken to graduate by master’s students, need to be addressed. Therefore this \nthesis sought to review literature associated with throughput, dropout and \ncompletion times, determine whether any of the available information from \ngraduated MScAgric students could identify factors that promoted or impeded timeto- \ncompletion, and determine the views of supervisors of MScAgric students on their \nrole in the supervisory process. While this thesis did not assess “quality” of MscAgric \nstudents in any way, it is acknowledged that this is sometimes in tension with time-tocompletion \nand that in order for students to acquire the necessary skills, especially if \nthey are to continue with doctoral studies, time-to-completion may need to be \nextended. Results showed that between 2000 and 2012, 67% of full time and 56% of \npart time students took longer than the minimum to complete. The only variable that \nsignificantly affected time-to-completion was full time versus part time registration, \nwhere, on a full-time equivalent basis, full time students took longer. Cum Laude \npasses were obtained by those who had significantly higher matric score, \nundergraduate weighted average and final year of undergraduate weighted average, \nand significantly more White students passed cum laude, however they tended to take \nlonger to complete. Supervisors views related well to the guidelines suggested by the \nUniversity and supervisors appeared to acknowledge responsibility for roles allocated \nto them Irrespective of post level, experience in supervising MScAgric or PhD students, \nor whether they had attended seminars or workshops relating to supervision, \nsupervisors viewed their roles in the process relating to the topic, the thesis and the \nsupervisor-student relationship, in a similar way, with no differences in opinion on \nwhether particular responsibilities within these categories were those of the student \nor supervisor. The exception to this was observed where lack of supervision experience resulted in differing perceptions on the role of terminating the candidature \nand initiation of frequent meetings, both of which could result in longer times to completion of MScAgric students.
Author: Nicola Claire. Tyler
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2960863371