A Conversation Analytic Approach to Doctoral Supervision: Feedback, Advice, and Guidance

209 Pages·2023·8.311 MB·English

by  Binh Thanh Ta

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Binh Thanh Ta
A Conversation Analytic Approach
to Doctoral Supervision
This book reports on an empirical study of oral feedback practices in doctoral
supervision meetings, observing supervisors’ and students’ conduct to enable a
new understanding of the social organisation of doctoral research supervision.
In a field that has predominantly drawn on surveys and interviews, this study
presents a rare, direct insight into doctoral supervision meetings, showing us
what actually happens and making a significant contribution to future practice.
Based on 25 video-recorded supervision meetings at an Australian university,
the book invites the reader into the micro-world of interactions between doc-
toral students and their supervisors. Drawing on conversation analysis as an ana-
lytical framework, the study uncovers how feedback is initiated and delivered,
how supervisors manage when students disagree with their advice and guidance,
how they acknowledge student autonomy and identity as people with knowledge
and expertise in their own right, as well as how supervisors co-work within a
team supervision environment.
Offering an important new perspective to the study and practice of doctoral
supervision, this book will be of interest to doctoral supervisors, postgradu-
ate students and researchers working with conversation analysis and education,
and those with an interest in feedback and advice as an integral part of their
professions.
Binh Thanh Ta is a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health
Science, Monash University, where she teaches communication courses. She
has expertise in conversation analysis, video-ethnography, and video-stimulated
interviews. Her publications have focused on interaction between students and
educators in the contexts of doctoral education and clinical placement.
Routledge Research in Higher Education
Supporting Student and Faculty Wellbeing in Graduate Education
Teaching, Learning, Policy, and Praxis
Snežana Obradović-Ratković, Mirjana Bajovic, Ayse Pinar Sen,
Vera Woloshyn, Michael Savage
Optimising the Third Space in Higher Education
Case Studies of Intercultural and Cross-Boundary Collaboration
Natalia Veles
How Organisational Change Influences Academic Work
The Academic Predicament Model for a Conducive Work Environment
Sureetha De Silva, Donna Pendergast and Christopher Klopper
University Autonomy Decline
Causes, Responses, and Implications for Academic Freedom
Kirsten Roberts Lyer, Ilyas Saliba and Janika Spannagel
The Experience of Examining the PhD
An International Comparative Study of Processes and Standards of
Doctoral Examination
Edited by Michael Byram and Maria Stoicheva
Internationalising Higher Education and the Role of Virtual Exchange
Robert O’Dowd
A Conversation Analytic Approach to Doctoral Supervision
Feedback, Advice, and Guidance
Binh Thanh Ta
Representations of the Academic
Challenging Assumptions in Higher Education
Edited by Jean McNiff
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Higher-Education/book-series/RRHE
A Conversation Analytic
Approach to Doctoral
Supervision
Feedback, Advice, and Guidance
Binh Thanh Ta
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2023 Binh Thanh Ta
The right of Binh Thanh Ta to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-20908-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-20909-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-26586-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003265863
Typeset in Galliard
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
List of extracts x
Preface xii
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The need for innovations in doctoral supervision
practice and research 1
1.2 Applying CA to understand the institutional
organisation of doctoral supervision 3
1.3 Applying CA to effect doctoral supervision practices 5
1.4 The structure of the book 6
References 7
2 Feedback, advice, and guidance in doctoral supervision
and in other educational contexts 13
2.1 Chapter overview 13
2.2 Feedback and advice in doctoral supervision:
The “what” questions 13
2.2.1 What do feedback, advice, and guidance mean? 13
2.2.2 What are the possible areas for feedback, advice,
and guidance? 15
2.3 Feedback and advice in doctoral education: The
“how” questions 16
2.3.1 How do supervisors deliver critical
feedback or criticism? 16
2.3.2 How can disagreement between students
and supervisors be managed? 17
2.3.3 How do supervisors support co-production
of knowledge? 18
vi Contents
2.3.4 How do supervisors support student development
of knowledge identity? 18
2.3.5 How do supervisors support student
development of autonomy? 20
2.3.6 How do multiple supervisors co-work
in team supervision? 21
2.4 Feedback and advice in other educational contexts: An
increasing interest in interactional research 23
2.4.1 Feedback in formal education 23
2.4.2 Feedback in clinical education 24
2.4.3 Feedback and advice in teacher education 26
2.5 Chapter conclusion 27
References 27
3 Conversation analysis 36
3.1 Chapter overview 36
3.2 CA’s theoretical background and methodological
principles 36
3.2.1 CA’s theoretical background 36
3.2.2 CA’s data-driven approach 37
3.2.3 CA’s emic approach 38
3.2.4 CA’s perspective on socio-cultural context 39
3.3 CA’s core analytical tools: Fundamental mechanisms
of social interaction 40
3.3.1 Turn-taking organisation 40
3.3.2 Sequence organisation 43
3.3.3 Repair 44
3.3.4 Epistemics 45
3.4 CA research on advice and feedback 47
3.4.1 CA approach to advice 47
3.4.2 Advisees’ attention to competence and
autonomy issues: Advice resistance 47
3.4.3 Managing advice resistance 48
3.4.4 Advice initiation in institutional
interaction 50
3.4.5 CA research on feedback 51
3.5 CA research on storytelling 52
3.5.1 CA approach to storytelling 52
3.5.2 Storytelling as a resource for accomplishing
social actions 53
Contents vii
3.5.3 Story-opening 54
3.5.4 Story-closing 55
3.6 CA research on social identity 56
3.6.1 CA perspective on social identity 56
3.6.2 Epistemic identity 58
3.6.3 Deontic identity 58
3.7 The study 60
3.7.1 The participants 60
3.7.2 The doctoral education programme:
Candidature milestones 61
3.7.3 Data collection 61
3.7.4 The data corpus 62
3.7.5 Data transcription 62
3.7.6 Data analysis objectives: Action,
practice, and phenomenon 64
3.7.7 Data analysis procedure and methods 65
3.8 Chapter conclusion 66
References 66
4 Initiating feedback and advice activities and the practice of
problematising student responses for advice purposes 75
4.1 Chapter overview 75
4.2 Student problem reporting turn and
supervisor advice-giving turn 75
4.2.1 A minimal feedback and advice sequence 75
4.2.2 Student turn: Problem reporting 76
4.2.3 Supervisor responding turn: Orientation
to advice giving 80
4.3 Supervisor inquiring practice 84
4.4 Supervisor practice of problematising student responses 87
4.5 Chapter conclusion and discussion 92
References 93
5 Securing student display of understanding and acceptance
of feedback and advice through storytelling 96
5.1 Chapter overview 96
5.2 Invoking supervisor knowledge authority at story-opening 96
5.3 Appealing to shared knowledge at story-opening 100
5.4 Pursuing students’ display of understanding at
story-closing 104
viii Contents
5.5 Securing acceptance of advice at story-closing 106
5.6 Chapter conclusion and discussion 109
References 110
6 Managing resistance, rejection, and securing acceptance
by invoking student epistemic identity 113
6.1 Chapter overview 113
6.2 Managing resistance and affirming student
knowledge authority 113
6.3 Managing rejection of advice and exiting
disagreement cordially 117
6.4 Addressing a problem with advice resistance and
avoiding direct criticism 121
6.5 Pre-empting resistance/rejection and securing
acceptance of advice 124
6.6 Chapter conclusion and discussion 127
References 129
7 Managing disagreement by attending to student
autonomy and invoking student deontic identity 132
7.1 Chapter overview 132
7.2 Invocation of student deontic identity to
manage potential disagreement 132
7.3 Invocation of student deontic identity to exit
disagreement 137
7.4 Chapter conclusion and discussion 143
References 144
8 Anticipatory completion of feedback and advice in team
supervision 147
8.1 Chapter overview 147
8.2 Displaying agreement and intensifying co-supervisor’s
advice 148
8.3 Assisting co-supervisors in constructing feedback
and advice 151
8.4 Providing an alternative way of
formulating feedback and advice 153
8.5 Securing speakership and making substantial
contribution to co-construction of feedback and advice 156
8.6 Chapter conclusion and discussion 159
References 161
Contents ix
9 Inviting collaboration in team supervision 162
9.1 Overview 162
9.2 Inviting co-supervisor collaboration as a
turn-management strategy 162
9.3 Inviting co-supervisor collaboration to manage
student resistance and disagreement 165
9.4 Chapter conclusion and discussion 169
References 170
10 Towards effecting feedback and advice practices in
doctoral supervision 172
10.1 Chapter overview 172
10.2 Innovative discoveries of supervisory feedback
and advice practices 172
10.3 The innovativeness of the above discoveries 176
10.4 Recommendations for practice 179
10.5 Effecting practice through a CA-informed professional
development programme 182
10.5.1 Why should we adopt a CA approach
to professional development? 182
10.5.2 How can we develop a PD programme
for doctoral supervisors drawing on
CA empirical findings? 183
References 187
Appendix 191
Index 193