Abstract:
This study commences with a preliminary literature review of the existing academic knowledge based on research done on the presence of emotional labour in various occupations.
The purpose of this study is to conceptualise and explore the postgraduate research supervision process and to establish whether emotional labour is present in this context. Recent literature on postgraduate supervision led the researcher to believe that there was evidence that the workload of and work pressure on postgraduate research supervisors have increased in more ways than one. To further investigate this notion, the researcher followed a qualitative approach and applied a social constructivist research paradigm firstly to construct a theoretical framework based on current literature on emotional labour and postgraduate supervision, and secondly to explore the experiences and perceptions of postgraduate supervisors, and to relate the findings to the emotional labour literature on the entire postgraduate supervision process. Purposive and convenient sampling methods were followed in order to get access to a representative sample of research supervisors who complied with the criteria of being experienced in the postgraduate supervision process. Furthermore, in-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with eight postgraduate research supervisors. These interviews produced rich data that was obtained by asking open questions in a semi-structured manner. Themes were developed from the data via thematic data analysis, and member checking was initialised to measure the trustworthiness of the data collected. The findings of this study present sufficient evidence that emotional labour, as experienced by postgraduate supervisors, is present. It also provides an understanding of how postgraduate research supervisors experience their roles as supervisors and what emotional aspects are involved when interacting with students during the postgraduate research process, especially in the South African higher education context.
The practical contribution of this study applies to the relationship between supervisor and student and the postgraduate research supervision process and the finding that the presence of emotional labour can have an effect on this supervisory relationship and the throughput process. In addition, the study contributes methodologically to the investigation of the process of emotional labour and the application of the findings to explore occupations for the presence of emotional labour.
