Postgraduate students’ level of dependence on supervisors in coping with academic matters and using digital tools

In order to build and empower human capital development, the Malaysian Ministry of Education devised a plan referred to as “MyBrain15”. Under this plan, Malaysia hopes to produce a total of 60,000 doctoral degree holders by 2023. However, high attrition and low completion rates among postgraduate students to date have hindered the noble aspiration. Among the factors that have contributed to this are postgraduate supervision in terms of student autonomy and students’ limitations in terms of knowledge and twenty first century skills such as critical thinking and lifelong learning. This paper aims to examine postgraduate students’ perceptions of their level of dependence on supervisors in relation to the use of digital tools and academic matters pertaining to motivational support, writing a proposal, collecting and analysing data and writing the final report. This exploratory mixed-methods study involved 132 postgraduate students and six lecturers from the largest public university in Malaysia. Data were collected through the use of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that students’ level of dependence on supervisors for academic matters was much higher compared to dependence on using digital tools. In terms of digital tools, students articulated dependence on supervisors in aspects such as data analysis, data visualization and data management tools. With regard to academic study, students’ dependence on supervisors was highest at the proposal stage but reduced at the data collection and data analysis stages. Nevertheless, their dependence again increased at the final writing stages. The findings of the study suggest that postgraduate students lack autonomy for lifelong learning and hence appropriate steps need to be taken to improve the quality of postgraduate supervision in the university.