Annemarie Visagie

The focus on this study is particularly motivated by the lack of studies or knowledge about the configuration of supervisors of doctoral students in South Africa. Very few studies have specifically looked at the extent of how many supervisors, supervise the same student for both Masters’ and doctoral studies and very few studies have focused on the distribution of one supervisor vs. multiple supervisors and in the case of multiple supervisors (co-supervisors) if both supervise the same student for both Masters’ and doctoral studies.
The study will also explore the publishing practices of doctoral students after they have received their degree. Very few studies have focused on the student, post-graduation, looking at how long after their graduation they publish their first article and if the student publishes with their supervisor as co-authors after the degree. Another interesting question is whether the student is then given as first author or not, because there is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic. There is a lot of prestige attached to being listed as first author, but there are also some institutions who have certain guidelines regarding this topic of who is listed as first author.