Predictors of Supervisor’s Support for Students Writing their Undergraduate Dissertations in Moroccan Open-Access Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

With Higher Education (HE) rapidly changing, Moroccan supervisors of undergraduate dissertations adopted online technologies in technology-impoverished open-access institutions. Online supervision, however, is hardly studied in educational settings facing technological adversities in terms of infrastructure and training, nor is the topic researched for what it tells about the supervisor’s role and the level of support students receive in such contexts. Using a regression model from questionnaire data (N = 90), the present work seeks to understand how supervisors’ role links to the support they receive from their institutions, the number of supervisees, their technological pedagogical competence, and their perception of the academic skills of students. Technological-pedagogical competence, the number of supervisees, and supervisors’ perceptions of students’ academic skills largely determine how supervisors fulfil their roles. In contrast, institutional support in terms of training and technology infrastructure seems unrelated to the process. The present work suggests a few ways UD supervision can be more effective and calls for a more in-depth understanding of all the factors that affect supervision and teaching practices in general before making decisions that will affect higher education in the future. The issue is of paramount importance as the country is poised to reform undergraduate programs and institutionalize distance learning in post-pandemic Higher Education.