Supervisor’s Experiences of Supervising Postgraduates Students doing Masters in Education (MEd APPS): Implications for Improving Supervision at the Open University of Tanzania

Abstract

 The study analyzed documents of supervision reports from eight students who are doing Master in Administration, Planning and Policy studies (MED APPS) at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) in 2013. The study explored the experiences emanating from the supervision trends of these students. The findings showed that many students were not serious in their dissertation work and they were sometimes called by the supervisor to remind them on their progress. The findings further showed that students failed to master many components of the research which include the statement of the problem, the literature review, as well as writing a well informed research methodology. Even for those who managed well the process of research had problems in language that affected their report writing. Furthermore, students were caught plagiarizing other scholars‟ work and the general computer skills were lacking to a majority of the students. Proximity to the supervisors seems to fervor some students to go fast in the research writing as they enjoyed close guidance from the supervisors. The study derived some implications that are expected to guide  OUT to work on for better improvements of the supervision trends of the these Master students.