UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Nguyen Thi Ha THE EFFECTS OF SUPERVISOR'S INTERPERSONAL STYLE ON POSTGRADUATE STUDENT'S SKILL DEVELOPMENT, RESEARCH SATISFACTION, AND QUALITY OF LIFE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Nguyen Thi Ha THE EFFECTS OF SUPERVISOR'S INTERPERSONAL STYLE ON POSTGRADUATE STUDENT'S SKILL DEVELOPMENT, RESEARCH SATISFACTION, AND QUALITY OF LIFE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM ID: 22130018 MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) SUPERVISOR: Dr. NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this study represents a significant milestone in my life. It has been a long time when I come back the academic journal and it demands plenty effort. This thesis could not have been completed without the valuable support and kind encouragement of many people.
Firstly, I would like to express my genuine appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her precious time, countless advice, professional guidance, as well as her valuable comments in every stage of doing my research. I could not have completed this research without her teaching and assistance. I would also like to express my great gratitude to the committee members, Dr.
Nguyen Dinh Tho, Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan, Dr. Nguyen Thi Nguyet Que and Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang.
Their valuable comments and constructive suggestions contributed significantly for me to complete this thesis with best results. My special thank is extended to all instructors and staffs of School International School of Business – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their great support and experience sharing during the last two years. In addition, lots of other professors, classmates, friends, and bosses motivated me in the long journey of postgraduate program. Finally, the deepest and most sincere gratitude are for my beloved family and my husband who always facilitate great conditions and kindly encourage me to pursue and complete MBA program.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The concern about postgraduate non-completion and time taken to completion has attracted to explore recently and supervisor is designated to facilitate the student’s academic development either in terms of coursework or research projects. To address this problem, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of supervisor’s interpersonal style on research skill development and subsequently, on research satisfaction and quality of life in the context of Vietnam postgraduate studies. Additionally, it investigates the moderating role of student’s intrinsic motivation in the relationship between supervisor’s interpersonal style and skill development. Qualitative research by in-depth interview is managed to make the adopted scales to be appropriate for the context of the study.
Following, quantitative research or main survey is conducted to test the measurement models and the hypothesized model. With Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach, the research findings indicate that supervisor’s interpersonal style has a strongly positive impact on student’s skill development, research satisfaction, and eventually happiness in life. In addition, intrinsic motivation is highlighted to moderate the relationship of supervisor’s interpersonal style and skill development during supervisory process. Thus, these findings will be useful for universities, or scientific research institutions to identify and address implementation issues related to effective supervision in enhancing postgraduate research studies.
Keywords: effective supervision, supervisor’s interpersonal style, skill development, quality of life, intrinsic motivation LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 1.6 Research Structure --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES ------------------------------ 13 2.1 Quality of life and research satisfaction --------------------------------------------------------- 13 2.3 Supervisor’s interpersonal style ------------------------------------------------------------------ 15 2.4 Moderating effect of intrinsic motivation ------------------------------------------------------- 17 2.5 Conceptual model ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY ------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 3.1 Research process -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Page | 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 The purpose of qualitative research ----------------------------------------------------- 26 3.2 Sample of qualitative research ----------------------------------------------------------- 26 3.3 The conduct of qualitative research ----------------------------------------------------- 26 3.4 The outcome of qualitative research ---------------------------------------------------- 27 3.2 The purpose of quantitative research --------------------------------------------------- 30 3.4 Data analysis method --------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 CHAPTER 4 – DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS --------------------------------------------- 33 4.3 Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of reliability test ------------------------------------------------ 36 4.4 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)-------------------------------------------------------------- 40 4.5 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) ----------------------------------------------------------- 42 4.2 Reliability and Validity Check ----------------------------------------------------------- 44 4.3 Discriminant Validity ----------------------------------------------------------------- 44 Page | 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.6 Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) ----------------------------------------------------------- 45 4.7 Testing the moderating effect of intrinsic motivation ----------------------------------------- 48 CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS ----------------- 50 5.1 Conclusions and discussion of the findings----------------------------------------------------- 50 5.3 Limitations and future research ------------------------------------------------------------------ 56 REFERENCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57 Appendix A: Guidelines for in-depth interview --------------------------------------------------- 62 Appendix B: Final measurement scales ------------------------------------------------------------- 68 Appendix C: Questionnaire (English version) ----------------------------------------------------- 70 Appendix D: Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) ----------------------------------------------- 73 Appendix E: KMO and Bartlett's Test and Total Variance Explained ---------------------- 76 Page | 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Conceptual model --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Figure 3.1 Research process ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Figure 4.5 Confirmatory factor analysis (Standardized estimates) -------------------------------- 43 Figure 4.6 Structural results (Standardized estimates) ---------------------------------------------- 46 Page | 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Scale items of supervisor’s interpersonal style .2 Scale items of skill development .3 Scale items of intrinsic motivation .4 Scale items of research satisfaction .5 Scale items of quality of lify .1 Source of data collection .3 Cronbach’s Alpha Rule of thumb .4 Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for each measurement scale – first round .5 Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for each measurement scale – final round .7 Key goodness-of-fit indices .8 Construct correlations, squared correlations and AVE .9 Fitness of conceptualized Model .10 Unstandardized Regression Weights (SEM) .11 Summary of hypotheses testing result .12 Difference between variance and partial invariance model .13 Estimating for moderating effects of intrinsic motivation. 49 Table D1 KMO and Barlett’s Test. 76 Table D2 Total Variance Explained in Exploratory Factor Analysis. 76 Page | 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background The relationship between research students and supervisors plays a critical role in the success of postgraduate thesis.
Doing research or thesis is the process involving selecting a research topic, planning the research, identifying the necessary resources, managing the project, actively conducting the research, carrying out the literature review, data analysis and interpretation of the data, writing the thesis, and defending it (Ismail, Abiddin & Hassan, 2011). Obviously, students’ commitments with their studies and their endurance in pursuing academic path have been addressed as key factors in ensuring completion of their postgraduate program (Sakurai, Pyhältö & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2012). Postgraduate students can be listed into three main programs including research, coursework and research - coursework. Thus, the concern about higher degree non-completion and time taken to completion has attracted many scholars to explore, especially in overseas, for example in Canada, Australia and Malaysia.
Recent research on postgraduate study experience has shown that stress, frustration and attrition rates among students are high and the number of postgraduate students leaving their programs is alarming, ranging from 40% to 70% (Gardner, 2007). The study by Elga (2003) in Canada indicates that the completion rates vary from 45% to 77% in subject to the major (Arts and humanities: masters 67.7%; Social sciences: masters 72.5%; Natural & Applied sciences: masters 74.7%; Life sciences: masters 77. In Australia, the completion rates for research degrees have increased remarkably since the 1980s to between 80% and 90% in the mid 1990s (Colebatch, as cited in Ismail et al. Further, based on the data gathered by Graduate School of Studies (GSO) of one public university in Malaysia, graduate students with thesis (research and coursework) complete their Masters averagely within 2.69 years and Ph.D student complete their Ph.84 years averagely in 2005 whereas they can complete it earlier than that (Abiddin & Ismail, 2011).
Page | 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In Vietnam, since the economic liberalization “doi moi” in 1986, the higher education system has expanded in both scale and scope - driven by strong household and labor market demand. By the early 90s of XX century, it has an outbreak that the postgraduate enrollment and training numbers have increased remarkably, which creates a leap in Vietnam postgraduate program. Especially, in recent years, the scale postgraduate training has increased speedily. In the period 2000 - 2005, the number of master students increased by 51.9%/ year and doctoral students increased by 61.1%/ year and by early 2014, there are more than 130 institutions for doctoral degree and 150 training facilities for master's degrees (Đỗ Đức Minh, 2014).
Not only public universities or scientific research institutions specialize in postgraduate training task, but also the private universities with qualified quality assurance are tasked with postgraduate training. Yearly, the higher education sector provides 20,000-25,000 masters and thousands of doctoral (Đỗ Đức Minh, 2014). In addition to the achieved results, the postgraduate training in Vietnam also reveals some challenges to address. Firstly, the efficiency and scale of postgraduate program are not in conjunction with the quality of training.
According to many experts, the quality of postgraduate training is worrying and far from expectation. Hence, the quality of thesis and research is low, not yet meets international standard in both content and form, especially reference, data analysis and students neither perform independent research capability expectedly nor keep up with the development level of science, technology and not associated with life (Đỗ Đức Minh, 2014). Secondly, very few faculties appear actively engaged in research and publications. Students are limited to associate with scientific research, self-study capacity, self-practice and research skill development.
The World Bank (2008) reported that there seem very few publications in Vietnam, but the majority of these are published domestically, rather than in international peer-reviewed scientific journals while publishing in international peer reviewed journals is an important test of the quality of research, and an important tool for improving quality. Thirdly, research projects at many universities are behind schedule or postponed, with about 70 percent of research projects yet to be evaluated one to Page | 7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com seven years after their stipulated duration completion, as shown in the report (The World Bank, 2008). Likewise, numerous research findings have pointed out variables that affect postgraduate studies completion within the stimulated timeframe and the major problem tends to approach the research and supervision process (Hammick & Acker, 1998; Ssegawa & Rwelamila, 2009; Ezebilo, 2012; Sakurai et al. Correspondingly, supervision is interpreted as a complex social encounter and a two-way interaction that requires both the student and the supervisor to consciously engage each other within the spirit of professionalism, respect, and open-mindedness (Ismail et al.
An empirical study by Hammick and Acker (1998) revealed that the supervisor gender affects upon the supervision of research through its influence on the knowledge flow and power between student and supervisor. Further, major reasons for high postgraduate attrition rate include student research deficiencies, particularly lacking of research skills and failure to develop a credible and sound research definition and design (Ssegawa & Rwelamila, 2009), challenges associated with research process and student’s confidence in presenting research works to the scientific community (Ezebilo, 2012) or supervision process and departmental issues (Sakurai et al. Research also shows that supervision schedule, students' interest, and predisposition towards research work as well as student's skill in conduct of research and availability of needed research resources are major attributive variables to delay research or thesis completion (Ngozi & Kayode, 2014).