Feedback Dialogues in Intercultural Doctoral Supervision

This book provides an in-depth understanding of doctoral students’ feedback engagement, an essential component of feedback dialogues co-constructed with their supervisors in intercultural supervision. Drawing on Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, this mixed-methods study explores, from cognitive, affective, behavioural and socio-cultural perspectives, the perceptions and experiences of Chinese international doctoral students’ engagement with their non-Chinese supervisors’ written feedback. In particular, it investigates how students engage in both external and internal feedback dialogues, and through which they (re)construct their academic voices as emerging scholars.

This book adds to our knowledge of the complex nature of feedback engagement in intercultural doctoral supervision. It offers valuable implications for supervisors, mentors, academic advisors, and academic writing teachers in terms of fostering collaborative, enabling, emancipatory, and culturally reflexive relationships with doctoral students. It also illustrates the tensions and contradictions that doctoral students, especially international doctoral students, may encounter in their studies, making overt the underlying reasons for the tensions and showcasing how their counterparts navigate these tensions. These insights help supervisors and doctoral students reflect on their perceptions and practices, and how to make such tensions productive.