From Supervision to Research Competence: Examining The Role of Research Supervisors in The Cognitive Activation of Postgraduate Research Students

Abstract

Although the supervision of research is crucial to postgraduate studies, its process of making a supervisee a competent researcher is little studied. The literature tends to consider supervision a managerial or relationship or mentoring process with less focus on the cognitive processes that invigilate research thinking, methodological reasoning, reflective judgment and scholarly independence. The paper aims to discuss cognitive activation as a linkage between supervisory practices and Post-graduate research competence in public universities of Azad Kashmir. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed method approach. The quantitative data were collected from 514 respondents (133 supervisors and 381 supervisees) who were randomly selected from public universities of Azad Kashmir. Descriptive statistics, multiple linear regression and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. Themes identified through the thematic analysis of supervisory experiences were used to explain the statistical patterns and findings. Results indicated that the supervisor's roles and supervision practices significantly and strongly predicted supervisor's cognitive activation (β = .851, R² = .725, p < .001). The research ability was highly associated with cognitive activation (β = .482, R² = .232, p < .001), and cognitive activation was also found to be a strong predictor of professional success (r = .614, p < .001). Descriptive results indicated that there was a significant difference in the levels of perceived institutional support, with supervisees reporting low level of support (M = 2.02) and supervisors reporting moderate levels of support (M = 2.81). The qualitative results revealed that supervisors facilitate cognition by engaging in dialogic questioning, scaffolding, iterative feedback, literature analysis and autonomy-supporting research guidance. In parallel, institutional limitations, resource scarcity, and communication challenges and supervisee dependence led to shallower cognitive activation. The study ends by defining effective supervision as a pedagogical relationship that is cognitively challenging, pedagogically supportive, and progressively empowering, and that requires the supervisor to engage in a pedagogical relationship to develop the competence of the supervisee. The paper makes a contribution to higher education research by introducing cognitive activation as a mechanism of explanation for the development of postgraduate research.