Supervision of doctoral candidates at Kyambogo University: Supervisor–doctoral student perspectives on roles, approaches and type of relationship

Abstract

African universities are increasing enrolment in higher degrees especially at doctorate level. Kyambogo is one of the universities, in Africa found in Uganda that is offering doctoral studies though it is still fairly young. This study explored the perspectives of supervisors and doctoral students regarding their roles, approaches and type of relationship in the context of Kyambogo University. Considering the fact that supervisor-doctoral student relationship is important, the study set out to explore their perceptions regarding the roles, approaches and types of relationship. The results indicate that those who had gained full admissions for doctoral study were very few. No single doctoral student had graduated since it was introduced. Low institutional capacity and lack of funding were key factors in this. The features of the supervision approaches are differently emphasized in each approach. The approaches form a continuum with different stages of development of the doctoral candidate. Each stage determines the type of supervision approach. Eight types of relationship occur in the supervision process but at different frequencies. The finding also indicates that out of all the eight types of relationship, the captive and con relationship had not occurred at all.

Keywords: Doctoral supervision, roles, approaches, relationship, Kyambogo University.