African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (Aug 2016)

Supervision of doctoral and master’s students in the ODL context in the field of tourism: an integrated review.

  • Professor Lizeth Roets

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 4

Abstract

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The transformation of higher education brought about many changes in postgraduate research supervision, as the electronic media offered students all over the globe the opportunity to register for master’s and doctoral degrees at the university of their choice. Rapidly growing industries such as for example, the travel and tourism industry, as well as the health industry where there are shortages of health professionals, contribute to the need for more masters and doctoral students at both practical and other training institutions. Both the greater number of students and institutional accountability for quality research outputs contribute to pressure on supervisors to produce more masters’ and doctoral students. Research supervisors find themselves under immense pressure to produce graduates as a result of the demands and expectations of their institutions, governments, students, their profession and industry demands. The aim of the study was so identify the gap in guidelines for supervisory practices in the education of post graduate tourism students within the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) context. An integrated review was conducted to provide evidence from literature regarding supervisory practices. The research findings obtained, did not provide evidence to allow for the development of best practice guidelines, but gaps identified from current published research were recognized and discussed. There is a dire need for the publication of narratives to ensure the sharing of best supervisory practices, specifically within the ODL context.

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