TECHNOLOGY, TIME AND COMMUNICATION: EXPLORING POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS' EXPERIENCES OF ONLINE SUPERVISION DURING THE PANDEMIC

In response to the pandemic and resulting lockdowns, many academics had to shift their supervision of postgraduate students fully online. While there is an overwhelming number of publications addressing the shift to emergency remote teaching and learning, very little empirical research has been published in the last three and a half years on the shift to online supervision for postgraduate students, as well as the technologies and pedagogic requirements that this shift engenders. In this paper, we argue that there are gaps in our understanding of technology's role in mediating the supervisory relationship - gaps that can potentially aggravate an already complex set of issues around supervision. Drawing on data from a postgraduate student questionnaire administered at three South African universities during the pandemic, we explore entanglements between technology, time and communication in relation to students' expectations and experiences of online supervision.