Supervisors' and supervisees' perception and perceived practice of a process-oriented thesis written feedback: The case of Ethiopian universities

Abstract

Feedback has a significant effect on the quality of the thesis a supervisee writes. However, this largely depends on the supervisors' and supervisees' feedback practice and perception. Thus, this study aimed to assess the supervisors' and supervisees' perception and practice of the process-oriented thesis written feedback from four perspectives: the function, focus, nature, and adjustment required. To do this, the study used questionnaires and interview data collected from English as a Foreign Language (EFL) thesis supervisors and supervisees were selected through a proportional random sampling technique from four Ethiopian universities. The study revealed that (1) supervisors and supervisees have a good perception of the four aspects of process-oriented effective written feedback despite some variations in the mean values among the sub-categories of effective written feedback. (2) It was also discovered that supervisors were practicing process-oriented effective written feedback to a required extent and supervisees agree their supervisors do so. However, interestingly, (3) there was a significant difference between supervisors' and supervisees' perceptions on the one hand and supervisors' reported practice and supervisees' views about their supervisors’ practice of effective written thesis feedback on the other.

Keywords

• Feedback perception
• Feedback practice
• Thesis feedback
• Written feedback
• Process-oriented feedback