ITU 20/11 2009 Expectations and Ambitions 1

Making Expectations and Ambitions

Explicit in Supervision: Two Metaphors

Anker Helms Jørgensen

IT University of Copenhagen

ITU 20/11 2009 Expectations and Ambitions 2

Point of departure

• Master Thesis exam - external examiner: "This is not a temple, its a factory!"

• A student”I aim for a shed, but so solid that the Big Bad Wolf can't blow it over!"

• These statements made perfect sense in the universe of these metaphors

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Background

• Grades– Sometimes (very) disappointing to the students– Emotionally loaded– Rikke von Müllen: between emotions and law

• Students' expectations in MA theses (Harboe & von Müllen)– Avg. 10.4 in humanities, 10.2 in social science (13 scale) – Actual avg. 9.5 - my average 9.3

• Suggested remedies in the literature (Handal, Rienecker, et al.)– Make expectations re. process and product explicit early on– Make evaluation criteria explicit

and use the same criteria in supervision and grading– Consistently base supervision on written materials

• My approach: the above and the two metaphors

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The product metaphor

• The product – the delivery: a building– size: smaller is easier than larger – complexity: more factors/aspects are at play– requires more skills and interaction btw. skills

Garage House Palace

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The process metaphor

• Walking on a road - how you go about building the building– middle of the road: no dangers, well trotted, a safe road– shoulder of the road: danger of falling in the ditch– explore the wilderness

- danger of getting lost - find something new - find nothing

Wilderness Ditch Road Ditch Wilderness

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The metaphors interact

• By being innovative and courageous: students can build a trend-setting garage – high grade

• By being overly traditional and cautious students can build a poor palace – low grade

• A key feature in supervision– match the students' ambitions to their resources– make their resources – and ambitions - grow

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How do I do it ?

• Early on– hand-out "Adjusting expectations in supervision" – early discussion about ambitions related to product and process

• Later: classic academic quality criteria: – a hand-out ”Quality Criteria in University Reports”

(Rienecker, Booth, ...) – I draw on the metaphors

• What's coming out of this? My view:– obvious that the students appreciate the discussion– make sense, concretise– broaden the narrow focus on emotionally loaded grades– more nuances: process-product interaction

• What's coming out of this? Their view ?– an enquiry - email-questionnaire

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Survey of students’ views

• Questionnaire sent to 39 students supervised in the last two years – 4 questions on the product, 4 on process– 10 minutes to answer

• Respone rate telling– sent 6.01 pm– answers 6.16, 6.23, 6.36, 9.18, 9.34, ...

• After 24 hours 12 anwers– 31 % – biased positively – indication

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Qualifications re. validity

• I'm wearing three caps– proponent of the metaphors– have supervised the students:

assymetry, authority, power, etc– doing the survey

• This is not cricket ... but useful– personal level: feedback– research level: indicative– collegue: inspiration

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Quantitative results: product

• Did you find it relevant to talk about the level of ambition?• Yes: 12 very, for sure, yes!, overly important

• Do you remember if we used the garage-house-palace metaphor• Yes: 8 No: 3 Unsure: 1

• Do you think that the metaphor made sense ? If yes, explain.• Yes: 8 not used: 2 don't remember: 2

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Qualitative results: product

Plusses– increase understanding – establish a joint vocabulary– metaphor is deeper, think more about it: good garage vs. poor palace– nice, reassuring

Minusses– more concrete– resulted in a difference of 2 grades anyway– garage metaphor appeared negative

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Quantitative results: process

• Did you find it relevant to talk about the process?• Yes: 12 "very, for sure, important"

• Do you remember if we used the walk-on-road metaphor• Yes: 11 no: 1

• Do you think that the metaphor made sense? If yes, explain• Yes: 10 no: 1 not used in a short project: 1

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Qualitative results: process

Plusses– clear, meaningful– understood instantly– gave peace in mind– put frustrations into words

when lost in the wilderness– middle of road: earlier negative, now positive

Minusses– middle of road:

danger of being run down by cars

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Conclusions and discussion

• All the students found it important to address ambitions and expectations in supervision

• Most of the students found the two metaphors useful

• Suggestion: Use more on the way

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Ample time for questions and discussion

• ”This is not a temple, its a factory!”

• ”I aim for a shed, but so solid that the Big Bad Wolf can't blow it over!"