Researching online supervision

Abstract

Online supervision and the use of digital media in supervisory dialogues is a fast increasing practice in higher education today. However, the concepts in our pedagogical repertoire often reflect the digital tools used for supervision purposes as either a prolongation of the face-to-face contact, or a poor substitution of such. This one-sidedness on the conceptual level makes it challenging to empirically study the deeper implications digital tools have for the supervisory dialogue. Drawing on phenomenology and systems theory we argue that we need new concepts in qualitative methodology that allow us to research the digital tools on their own premises as autonomous things in themselves, possessing an ontological creativity of their own. In order for qualitative research to match the ontological nature of digital tools we conclude the article by formulating three criteria of a ‘torn’ methodology that makes room for new approaches to researching online supervision at the university.

Keywords

• Qualitative research methods, phenomenology, systems theory, educational philosophy, creativity, higher education