Factors Influencing the Degree Progress of International PhD Students from Africa: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

In recent decades some countries of the Middle East have offered facilities to attract international students to pursue their higher education within their higher education institutions. The purpose of this study is to understand the difficulties faced by these students while conducting their studies abroad, and in doing so, to broaden the awareness of the challenges they face to complete their research. The participants of this qualitative study are international PhD students studying at a Middle Eastern public university. The university has reported increasing enrollment of international students, particularly from Africa in the last few years. Data were collected using a set of semi-structured interviews that drew out information on critical incidents that characterized the kind of difficulties students had faced in their studies. The data collected was further analyzed using a qualitative software package, NVivo (QSR International, 11). Six main themes came out from the content analysis of the interviews, which are the role of the adviser, student features, funding issues, family engagement, research and psychological obstacles which provide a holistic picture of student perspectives on the factors that influence degree progress. While these students might have faced difficulties mentioned in existing literature, this study argues that the participants have indicated experiencing psychological obstacles that were not described in earlier studies, such as the state of mind they were in as a result of being worried for family members due to war or violence in their home countries, and drop in currency exchange rates and difficulties in acquiring money due to international sanctions imposed against their countries. This study provides important thoughts on the factors that impact the degree progress of international PhD students from Africa, while at the same time revealing a serious gap in the advisers' role which can contribute to the problems experience during the study progress of doctoral students.

Supervisory feedback to postgraduate research students: a literature review

“…Many authors describe problematic feedback as vague, generic, non-specific and unclear (Ding and Devine 2018;Ali, Ullah, and Sanauddin 2019), which may be a result of the supervisor not (fully) reading the student's work (Evans and Stevenson 2011). Examples of such confusing feedback are the use of question marks and non-directive comments like 'rewrite this' (East, Bitchener, and Basturkmen 2012;Soumana and Uddin 2017), which does not specify how to improve (Basturkmen, East, and Bitchener 2014). Such feedback may result in students not understanding or misinterpreting the comments (Baseer et al 2020).…”

“…Such feedback may result in students not understanding or misinterpreting the comments (Baseer et al 2020). This issue is exacerbated for students whose first language is not English, and students from cultural backgrounds where questioning the supervisor (a perceived authority figure) is not common (Basturkmen, East, and Bitchener 2014;Soumana and Uddin 2017). Language barriers are even higher if supervisors also use English as a second language (Schulze 2012).…”

“…A further key problem is the tone of feedback: some supervisors are too harsh (or even cruel), and may give criticism without suggestions (Doloriert, Sambrook, and Stewart 2012; Zeegers and Barron 2012) -this can affect students' confidence and motivation (Odena and Burgess 2017;Soumana and Uddin 2017) and exacerbate negative behaviours like procrastination or perfectionism (Siltanen et al 2019). Other supervisors are 'too nice' and do not provide critical comments, even when necessary, which masks problems in the project (Kiley 2019).…”

“…Most authors refer to a lack of accessibility of supervisors and infrequent supervision meetings, irrespective of whether these are face-to-face or online (Ezebilo 2012;Hemer 2012;Soumana and Uddin 2017). This may be due to the supervisor's workload or their lack of interest in the student's project.…”

“…Poor feedback leads to a negative supervisory experience for postgraduate research students (Cekiso et al 2019). Unfortunately, inadequate, untimely and unconstructive non-critical feedback to postgraduate research students emerged as a common problem in many studies (Engebretson et al 2008;Lindsay 2015;Soumana and Uddin 2017). To enhance the learning process, an examination of feedback practices is warranted, particularly so that research supervisors have a better insight into what works and what does not.…”