Pitfalls to avoid when preparing for and defending research proposals

Prof Anna Hugo wished Prof William Fraser welcome at Unisa

Prof Anna Hugo on 11 April 2013 introduced Prof William Fraser from the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology, Education at the University of Pretoria to the audience. He was invited by the Department of Language Education, Arts and Culture to come and present a guest lecture on how to avoid the common pitfalls in the business of doing academic research. During his presentation, he informed academics that they have to wear many hats when they do their work, which ranges from being teachers, supervisors, researchers toeing scientists. He finds that with the current emphasis on research, the teaching aspect of their work is unfortunately much reduced in standing.

In order to be a sought after supervisor, Prof Fraser says you need to have developed a research focus area of expertise during the course of your career. Academics need to consider where they wish to be in ten years from now to help them focus their energy. By means of a slide he pointed out eleven different categories in which an academic can be active. They can choose to focus on being a senior professor, or a director of their own research centre, the coordinator of their own international masters or doctoral programme, an A ‘B’ or ‘C’ NRF rated scientist, a leader in their field, a consulting editor to journals, the editor of their own journal, a sought after supervisor, a sound methodologist, an established and highly cited author, or to be a nationally and internationally renowned scientist. If an academic has a specific clear focus area in their work, it becomes much easier to streamline the various activities that they are engaged in.

Prof PM Sebate listens to Prof William Fraser who was speaking about the pitfalls to avoid as an academic

His advice for establishing a professorial identity is that academics should associate with at least one research journal and enrol with that journal. They should stay within the broad focus of their department and decide early on what their specialisation field will be. It is important to be specific and establish a record of NRF or related research funding and teach and supervise within that field of specialisation and research methodology only. It helps to set-up national and international networks and links and to utilise sabbaticals well. Take care to have professors extraordinary appointed, and research and publish with them. An academic should voice their opinion at seminars and conferences and strive to publish in quality international journals. “Join professional bodies and organisations (societies; institutions and academies) and don’t underestimate the value of your contribution to collaborative research reports” said Prof Fraser. It also is of great importance to find a local and international mentor and for an academic to take care of their allocated students. It will also be helpful to master a local and a classical language and to support the department’s scientific field(s) of specialisation. Last but not least, an academic must avoid becoming academically arrogant.When building their departmental research programme an academic should do the following:

• Align your field of specialisation with that of the department
• Nurture the Centre of Excellence (CoE) concept
• Run your postgraduate programmes from the CoE
• Teach at undergraduate level
• Attract international students and
• Publish

With regards to student foci Prof Fraser shared his strategy on how he supervises his students across the four years that they enrol with him to acquire their degree. In the first year he focuses them on research support, proposal defence and ethics clearance. In the second year he expects his students to write three chapters and to do their field work. In the third year their focus is on data analysis and synthesis of their findings. The final year consists of writing up the rest of the chapters and for submission of the final document.

Dr TV Manyike thanked Prof William Fraser for his excellent presentation

Years of experience have also taught Prof Fraser that different approaches to students are needed as different personalities require different ways of supervision. Some students are highly creative, unstructured, and will be changing the goalpost all the time. If not guided correctly these students will never finish as they never reach consensus and are forever changing their frameworks. They need to be guided and provided with structure. Others are ‘No-where goers’, they are those who are always waiting to be told what to do and then there are those who are highly structured executives always working with rules and frameworks and they need to be given their freedom. Over the years he has developed his own approach to supervision. His student’s topic and focus should vest within his own personal field of specialisation. He avoids working qualitatively and has preference towards quantitative methodologies and he informs his students accordingly. It is very helpful to set up an e-mail file to communicate general information to all the students and he provides his students with a solid reading list which is linked to a very sound theoretical framework. As the supervisor he decides on their framework and he tells them how it will impact on their assessment of the thesis/dissertation. He briefs them from the start on the technicalities they need to comply with (referencing, ‘anatomy of an argument’, etc) on the report.

Prof Fraser’s teaching philosophy leads him to expect his students to call on him when they need him and he insists that they call him at least once a week! He gives them a hard time during the first year of study and he also guards against being in a position where he ends up writing up their report. It is helpful to avoid too short turnaround times for the students as they achieve too little quality when this is so. A supervisor should use tools such as ‘track changes’, create e-mail files and archive all correspondence between him and his student. He never does any language editing, but focuses on being a researcher and not just a supervisor.

Prof Fraser says that because he has developed his own master’s or doctoral programme which is focused on his field of specialisation, he can recruit local and international students into his programme. Experience has taught him to build complexity into simplicity and he expects his students to complete three chapters within their first year of study. The choice of examiners is very important – make sure that their voices (as experts) are substantiated in the student’s work. As a supervisor you need to make sure that students do not rewrite all literature and theory on the subject. When you register a research project it is important to draw all your students onto that project. A research proposal should be limited to ten pages maximum.Major threats that need to be managed by the supervisor are the unsympathetic administrative, governance systems and examiners. Research needs to be substantiated with enough data and it is wise to guard against poor justification, substantiation and silent voices. Supervisors need to avoid short listing examiners they are not acquainted with, should keep a visual record of the progress of all their students on i.e. a big poster which keeps track of each person’s progress. It also is important to stop the process and redo the fieldwork should this become necessary and don’t be tempted to patch.

The presentation was very well attended and sparked numerous questions which Prof Fraser eloquently answered. The session was found very helpful by those who attended, also from other departments in CEDU and from within Unisa. More such in-depth presentations are planned and the staff in the Department of Language Education, Arts and Culture, look forward to the next one.