Nurse Lecturers’ Experiences in Students Use of Corrective Feedback, Time Management and Communication During Research Supervision

Abstract

Undergraduate and postgraduate students are mandated to write and defend a research project before they will be conferred their honorary degrees with the sole aim of making them become proficient independent researchers. Nurse lecturers like every other lecturer are saddled with the responsibility of scrutinizing students’ project write-ups thoroughly, ensuring that a polished version of the work emanates at the end. The study aims to explore nurse lecturers’ experiences as regards students’ use of corrective feedbacks, time management and their communication gaps. A phenomenological qualitative research method was used for the study. The study was conducted with 19 lecturers from universities in Southeast Nigeria who agreed to participate voluntary via in-depth interviews after meeting the inclusion criteria. Colaizzi’s method of data analysis was employed to extract 4 themes and 10 subthemes. The themes identified are; ‘Cordial student-supervisor relationship, Difficulty with keeping to time-schedules, Determined and Undetermined students and Students appreciate feedback but have difficulty in implementation’. From the study, it was concluded that students need to improve on their communication level, make judicious use of their time and implement feedbacks as instructed by their research supervisors. Therefore, the researchers recommend a cordial mentor-mentee relationship between supervisors and supervisees which will lead to a dynamic trusting supervisory relationship so as to ensure a smooth success of the student’s project.