I agree with Nizar, you are bound to become close with some of your graduate students. You want to see them succeed and revel in their triumphs. But I also agree that you can become too close and that this does the student no good if you let them slide on learning fundamentals or lessen the overall rigor of the degree program. When they get to their next position or school, their lack of skills will become readily apparent. This will not help the student, the reputation of the professor or the reputation of the university.

A personal relationship is bound to develop between a postgraduate student & the supervisor but it ought not exceed certain limits because a too much depth or warmness will cause the student to loosen up thinking of guaranteed success.

Supervision will have an added value if the student is kept assigned tasks & if there is continuous help but this help ought not lead to reliance on the supervisor to get involved in all the bits & pieces.

In some 3rd world universities, all the students (who register for a postgraduate degree & pay the fees) are awarded M.Sc or M.A degree. This is terribly wrong because a small percentage of them are too lazy to learn what to be expected from them. I know that failure will be hard on them but a way out is to award the very weak ones another degree which may be called "postgraduate studies diploma" instead of a master degree.

An examination-oriented education is a wasteful practice at the undergraduate level. This inefficiency is magnified when students join a postgraduate program aiming only at passing the exams with the required marks. This attitude will harm the students on the long run because they will not broaden their horizons & capacities.

How about conduct of a course based on application oriented research?

A real life problem can be studied in depth leading to a quality work in terms of concepts, thoughts, & frame work.

At least one research paper published in a scopus indexed journal should qualify the person for the degree.

Applied (or application-oriented) research is superb but most of the academic circles are engaged in basic (or fundamental) research. One of the major reasons, for the latter implementation, is that the expenses are lower "in general" than the former type.

However, if universities "restore" good relationships with industries or other funds-providing companies then applied research could become more pronounced. This type of research will surely give enormous benefits to students, supervisors, universities, and countries.

Nizar:

I agree with your sound recommendations, but these certainly would take much will on the part of research administrators. Sometimes, these relationships are colored by the administrators themselves, who want to see numbers graduated and overlook the deeper issues of lack of integrity and scholarship in students' research. When you try to uphold the latter in students, who have support from the administrators, you as the supervisor are seen as too rigid and not student friendly. Of course the latter is only my experience and cannot be generalize to other relationships.

Best regards,

Debra

I agree with Nizar, you are bound to become close with some of your graduate students. You want to see them succeed and revel in their triumphs. But I also agree that you can become too close and that this does the student no good if you let them slide on learning fundamentals or lessen the overall rigor of the degree program. When they get to their next position or school, their lack of skills will become readily apparent. This will not help the student, the reputation of the professor or the reputation of the university.

The supervision must be impersonal.

Field experience is a critical point in the educational progression where students learn the adaptive and flexible qualities necessary for success in the social work profession .

Degree classification is unfair to some students , Almost the opposite line of thinking is sometimes used to increase the class of a student with a very "even" performance; in this case consistency rather than occasional brilliance might be rewarded.

Provide students with a list of terms relative to their course work and ask students to create a meaningful pattern and If time allows, ask one group to share concept map with the whole class. Or alternatively, ask groups to explain their pattern to another group in the class