Understanding the up, back, and forward-component in master's thesis supervision with adaptivity

Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can more closely reach the goals (forward-component). Twelve supervisors and students were interviewed and the adaptive approach of supervision emerged as a recurrent theme. Applying qualitative content analysis, findings indicated that the role of goals can be described as: aiming to reach the goals (up-component) by adapting supervision strategies (forward-component), based on students' specific needs and where they stand (back-component). This was termed ‘adaptivity’. Providing adaptive supervision can also involve tensions concerning the level of regulation and the severity of their critique (ranging from mild to heavy-handed). Findings are discussed in relation to other studies concerning research supervision.