A Study On Postgraduate:the Impact Of Supervisor-Psotgraduate Interaction To Study Engagement And Its Influence Mechanism

As the continuous expanding of graduate student, the number of our national postgraduates becomes bigger and bigger. So the nation attaches more and more importance to the supervisory of postgraduate. With the most intimate contact with postgraduates, their supervisors have significant influences on the quality of their education. However, literature on the interaction between supervisor and postgraduate is deficient. Previous researches were mostly confined on the description of phenomenon or critical thoughts. There were few empirical studies on this topic, let alone the influencing mechanism of interaction between supervisor and postgraduate. Based on the concurrent researches, this study described the situation of interaction between supervisor and postgraduate and study engagement of them in detail by means of interview and questionnaire survey, it also discussed the influencing mechanism of basic psychology need satisfaction between supervisor-postgraduate and study engagement.This study interviewed 20 postgraduates from 6 universities in Wuhan about their interaction with supervisor and study engagement; involved 497 postgraduates in the questionnaire, and the study drew the following conclusions.In study 1, we presented the situation of supervisor-postgraduate interaction and study engagement about the research objects by methods of qualitative and quantitative research. The factors influence postgraduates’study engagement mainly included: motives of them preparing for postgraduate entrance examination, the difference between postgraduate life in reality and expectation, "compulsive initiative study", supervisor-postgraduate interaction and atmosphere in supervisor group, and so on. The level of study engagement among our national postgraduate was moderate, postgraduates who from "211 Project" universities engaged more than from "985 Project" universities significantly, the study engagement of students who had regular meeting whether execute strictly or not is higher than who had no regular meeting. The situation of supervisor-postgraduate interaction was:a supervisor guided too many students, the frequency of meet was low between supervisor and postgraduate, the approach and content of communication was monotonous, the students’expected supervisor-postgraduate interaction way was master also friend. Postgraduates in our country scored above average at the following types of supervisor-postgraduate interaction:Leadership, Help/friendly, Understanding, Student responsibility/freedom, Strict; they scored below average at Admonishing, Dissatisfied and Uncertain.In study 2, we investigated whether the hypothetical mode of supervisor-postgraduate interaction got verified or not, and we discussed the relationship and mechanism between supervisor-postgraduate interaction and study engagement. The results showed that the two dimensions mode of supervisor-postgraduate interaction of "Influence" and "Proximity" didn’t verified in our study, however the two dimensions we got was "Positive interaction" and "Negative interaction"; The "Positive interaction" concluded the type of Leadership, Help/friendly, Understanding, Student responsibility/freedom and Strict, also they had positive predict on study engagement. On the contrary, the "negative interaction" concluded the type of Admonishing, Dissatisfied and Uncertain, and they had no significant influence on study engagement. By the way, we founded that competent psychological need satisfied partially mediated the relationship between positive supervisor-postgraduate interaction and study engagement; competence and relation psychological need satisfied partially mediated the relationship between negative supervisor-postgraduate interaction and study engagement(suppressing effects).Finally, we analyzed the results of our study, and indicated the limitations and the direction for future research.