an investigation of iranian m.a. and ph.d.tefl students’ attitudes towards supervisory feedback on their thesis/dissertation drafts

Master’s students consider thesis writing a tough task, therefore they require feedback from their supervisors to cope with its challenges. the effectiveness of this supervisory feedback depends on the usefulness of it, and also on students’ engagement with this feedback. there were many studies done by different researchers on the effectiveness of supervisory feedback, while the students’ attitudes on this feedback type are under studies yet. for this aim, this study investigated the attitudes of iranian m.a. and ph.d. tefl students towards receiving supervisory feedback on their thesis/dissertation drafts. the participants of this study were 10 m.a. and 2 ph.d. students studying teaching of english as a foreign language (tefl). a semi-structured interview protocol consisting of 13 questions was validated and used for data collection. the interview responses were analyzed through coding the data based on reading the notes and highlighting the main parts and extracting themes. the results revealed likes, dislikes, and attitudes of students towards supervisory feedback they received on their thesis/dissertation drafts. more specifically, this study indicated that all the students believed that supervisory feedback is so useful and they expected their supervisors to play different roles in thesis/dissertation writing process. the findings also revealed that the majority of the participants accepted even negative supervisory feedback easily. the implications are suggested for supervisors, students, and also materials developers to suggest students and supervisors or teachers several operational ideas and background in supervision process and to comprehend students’ attitudes towards supervisory feedback.