Characteristics of student-supervisor interaction in public Universities in Kenya

Student-supervisor interaction is an important aspect in graduate studies supervision. This is because when something goes wrong with the interaction process, many aspects of the graduate student's life affects completion time. The purpose of this study was to look the characteristics of student-supervisor interaction. The study was guided by socialization theory. The target population in this study were 310 participants comprising of 60 supervisors and 250 supervisees from the school of education. The study used stratified sampling to sample universities, simple random sampling to sample graduate students and heads of departments, while purposive sampling was used to sample the supervisors and deans. The study adopted descriptive survey research design which enabled the researcher to explore and describe student-supervisor interaction. The study employed the use of questionnaires and interview schedules to collect data for the study. Data were presented using frequency tables.The study findings indicated that 28(50.9%) of the supervisors and 112(46.7%) of the graduate students agreed that professionalism and respect was exercised. Further, qualitative results deans and heads of departments reported that rules and regulations in graduate studies should be adhered to. Policies guiding graduate student-supervisor interaction should be revised to meet up-to-date challenges facing student-supervisor interaction.The universities should provide seminars, workshops and trainings to both supervisors and graduate students to enhance student-supervisor interaction. The findings of the study will be useful for the university managements in understanding the student-supervisor interaction in graduate studies. The findings will also provide information to interested researchers in related topics in graduate studies.