A qualitative inquiry into the challenges and complexities of research supervision: viewpoints of postgraduate students and faculty members

Introduction: The supervision of academic theses at theUniversities of Medical Sciences is one of the most importantissues with several challenges. The aim of the present studyis to discover the nature of problems and challenges of thesissupervision in Iranian universities of medical sciences.Methods: The study was conducted with a qualitative methodusing conventional content analysis approach. Nineteen facultymembers, using purposive sampling, and 11 postgraduate medicalsciences students (PhD students and residents) were selected onthe basis of theoretical sampling. The data were gathered throughsemi-structured interviews and field observations in Shiraz andIsfahan universities of medical sciences from September 2012 toDecember 2014. The qualitative content analysis was used with aconventional approach to analyze the data.Results: While experiencing the nature of research supervisionprocess, faculties and the students faced some complexities andchallenges in the research supervision process. The obtained codeswere categorized under 4 themes based on the characteristics;included “Conceptual problem”, “Role ambiguity in thesissupervision”, “Poor reflection in supervision” and “Ethicalproblems”.Conclusion: The result of this study revealed that there is a needfor more attention to planning and defining the supervisory,and research supervision. Also, improvement of the quality ofsupervisor and students relationship must be considered behindthe research context improvement in research supervisory area.Keywords: Research; Complexity; Medical students; Grounded theory