Supervision of doctoral and master’s students in the ODL context, field of tourism: an integrated review

Abstract

The transformation of higher education brought about many changes in postgraduate research supervision, as the electronic media offered students all over the globe the opportunity to register for master’s and doctoral degrees at the university of their choice. Fast growing industries such as the travel and tourism industry as well as shortages of health professionals contribute to the need for more masters and doctoral students both in practice and in training institutions. Both the greater number of students and institutional accountability for quality research outputs contribute to pressure on supervisors to produce more masters’ and doctoral students. Research supervisors find themselves under immense pressure as a result of the demands and expectations of institutions, governments, students, their profession and the workplace. The aim of the study was so identify the gap in guidelines for supervisory practices in the education of post graduate tourism students within the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) context. An integrated review was conducted to provide evidence from literature regarding supervisory practices. The research findings obtained, did not provide evidence to allow for the development of best practice guidelines, but gaps identified from current published research is recognized and discussed. There is a dire need for the publication of narratives to ensure the sharing of best supervisory practices, specifically within the ODL context.