EXAMINING THESIS WRITING PROCESS IN AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PROGRAM IN TURKEY: SUPERVISOR SUPPORT AND POWER RELATIONS

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Along with the substantial spread of English in scholarly publishing (Canagarajah, 2002), there are more thesis studies in the English language. However, the already-challenging-process of thesis writing becomes harder when written in a foreign language. Considering the essence of theses in academia, it holds paramount significance to reveal how writers proceed in the process from several perspectives. Despite some studies in the literature examining thesis writing processes, little is known about supervisor support and the impact of power relations embedded in the process. The aim of this study is to explore thesis writing processes from the perspectives of supervisees and supervisors with a focus on (1) supervisor support, and (2) power relations in the supervision processes. In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four supervisors and 13 supervisees. Content analysis was used to analyse all the data collected. The findings revealed the participants’ perceptions regarding the supervisor’s role and support areas, the feedback process, and the impact of supervisor-supervisee relationships.