The voice of the external examiner in master's dissertations

Supporting the development of postgraduate academic writing skills in South African universities

“…Another participant observed that many poorly written dissertations were submitted for examination with the supervisor's approval, indicating the latter's incompetence to judge the quality of the writing. Similarly, in their analysis of examiners' reports on dissertations, Mafora and Lessing (2014) found that a recurring theme was the occurrence of weak discursive structure, poorly formulated ideas and poor writing in general. This suggests that some of the selected institutions lack a solid core group of members of the CoP who can transmit and exemplify the good practice required to support the development of academic writing among postgraduate students who are still on the periphery (cf.…”

Improving postgraduate nursing research output: A South African nursing science perspective

“…[32] Standard postgraduate research supervision is a vital requirement for successful completion of a postgraduate programme. [36] Undertaking postgraduate research supervision is an enormous, but rewarding challenge. Such supervision is performed in the university setting, with the university shouldering the overall support and development of the supervisor for adequate output.…”

The administration of the doctoral examination at South African higher education institutions

“…This has placed enormous pressure on supervisors who already work in challenging conditions created by academically under-prepared students, their lack English proficiency and supervisor overload (Mouton et al 2015, 2). Additional factors influencing poor outcomes at this level reported in the South African literature are poor supervision, inadequate student research skills and underdeveloped academic writing ability (Choke 2011; Lessing 2011; Mafora and Lessing 2014;Schulze 2016a;2016b).…”

“…The thesis should demonstrate a student's ability to do high-level research and "make a significant and original academic contribution at the frontiers of a discipline or field" (DoE 2007, 29). In South Africa, the assessment for the award of the doctorate is through the submission of written examiner reports on the thesis by examiners external to the university who should evaluate the thesis in a "clear, rigorous, fair and consistent" manner (Mafora and Lessing 2014). The master's examination overlaps with the doctorate examination, with minor differences, but it is not the focus of this study.…”

“…In South Africa publications on thesis examination are, to a large extent, surprisingly few. Mafora and Lessing (2014) explored the scholarly expectations of external examiners of master's dissertations by an analysis of their examination reports. However, the study aimed to improve supervision and not the examination process.…”