Complexities of Online Thesis Supervision during the Covid-19 Pandemic: EFL Lecturers’ Perceptions

Abstract

The Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in the transformation of EFL undergraduate thesis supervision from offline to online, bringing with it its inherent complexities. Hence, this qualitative study sought to investigate the complexities associated with online EFL thesis supervision from the lecturers' perspective. The complexities in this study were conceptually categorized as problems and solutions. The participants were purposefully chosen. They were 30 lecturers from two universities in Central Java and Papua. The data were collected using interviews and analyzed using an interactive model. The findings revealed a variety of problems with online thesis supervision, such as facing difficulties in going along with the shift from offline to online thesis supervision, having ineffective interactions between lecturers and students, having less time available to constantly access online media, being hampered in the field data collection process because many schools students had targeted to collect their data held online learning, and suffering from a decrease in students' motivation. To cope with such problems, there were some solutions offered by lecturers. The lecturers asked students to remind them of the online thesis supervision schedule, making active use of communication technology, assisting students in interacting with authorized parties of students' research objects, and reorienting students' research data collection. Further research is expected to focus on a similar problem to that addressed in this study, but with a larger sample size drawn from various provinces throughout Indonesia. Such studies may be beneficial for extending our current findings and adding to the body of knowledge regarding online thesis supervision in the Indonesian context.

Self-efficacy and Metacognition as the Mediated Effects of Growth Mindset on Academic Writing Performance

“…This bachelor's thesis is regarded as a significant component of the curriculum since it requires that students locate pertinent materials, think critically, process complex information, apply scientific reasoning, and work independently. The six general components of a bachelor's thesis for undergraduate students in Indonesia typically include an introduction, literature review, methodology, findings and discussions, conclusion and suggestions, and references (Prihandoko et al, 2022). Each of these components has different moves (Moreno & Swales, 2018) that should be taken into account.…”

Online Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in the Process of Writing Undergraduate Thesis: A Survey Study

“…According to Mahfudhoh (2019), thesis writing is also defined as a type of writing that is metacognitive and requires a high level of responsibility in problem-solving and decision-making, and students are required to have a high level of skill and toughness in the writing process. Some problems, such as difficulties in responding to the lecturer's feedback (Sandria, 2021), making time to revise the drafts (Nurkamto et al, 2022;Pravita & Kuswandono, 2022), adapting from offline thesis supervision to online thesis supervision (Prihandoko et al, 2022), getting access and permission to collect data at schools (Dewi, 2022), are identified in the process of writing a thesis during online learning at the time of COVID-19 pandemic. To deal with the problems in the process of writing undergraduate thesis, students need to practice self-regulated learning strategies to survive in emergency teaching.…”