Developing an Indigenous Graduate Research Supervision Culture in Open and Distance E-Learning Environments Using Ubuntu as a Framework

Background

Masek and Ilias (2020: 2496) have found that in literature, the main problems associated with clashes between graduate supervisors and their supervisees stem from the different expectations of the supervisor who expects the supervisee to be competent, ethical, reliable, self-directed, able to solve research problems and be able to draw meaning from the conclusion; while the supervisee expects the supervisor to be innovative, creative, a problem solver, resourceful and, a technical expert in his/her field. The second problem is to do with the contrasting ways of thinking and working which may result from different biographies and cultures as well as a clash of personalities. There is, therefore, a need to reconcile the way the supervisor and supervisee think, have common expectations and most importantly resolve possible clashes of personality (Masek and Ilias, 2020; Lee, 2010).

There are several models of doctoral supervision ranging from the apprentice model where the supervisor is the master, and the supervisee is the apprentice (Grant, 2005, 2008), the pastoral model (Gatfield, 2005) and a model of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991)