In Norway, teacher education programmes at master level were introduced in 2017 (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2016a, 2016b). The transition to master level is a demanding enterprise for TEIs (Teacher Education Institutions). The challenges will in particular concern supervision capacity, as well as supportive structures for master’s thesis work. Teacher education at master level plays into the ambition of research based initial teacher education. The aim is to increase the quality in both teacher education and teaching. There is a strong political emphasis that master’s-theses have to be profession oriented and relevant for practice. The theses need to be anchored in strong and systematic collaboration between schools and TEIs. Moreover, the master’s thesis is meant to contribute to increased scientific inquiry in schools, thereby stimulating to teacher driven school development (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2017). As such, an International Advisory Panel in Teacher Education (NOKUT, 2018) recommends TEIs to collaborate with the practice field. TEIs are encouraged to develop group supervision and supervisory partnerships with schools. The panel emphasizes that such collaborative supervision may be linked to school development.

In 2017-2018 a Norwegian university piloted a collaborative model for master’s thesis supervision. This model concerned supervision anchored in a school based research group. The school based research group consisted of master students, school supervisors, university supervisors, as well as school management. Within the context of this group, supervision was organised as a collaborative process. This paper presents a study of the participants’ experiences with the supervision model. The purpose is to contribute to new knowledge about collaborative master’s thesis supervision and how this may play into school development and the development of future TEIs. Research questions are:

• What do participants report about the supervision in the school based research group?
• How may the participants’ narratives contribute to a new supervision practice?

The empirical field of the study is a 2-year master’s program in educational sciences. Data consists of texts, generated by the participants throughout the supervision period.

The supervision model Supervision in the school based research group stretched over eight months with a total of six meetings: a) an introductory meeting with university supervisors and school management focussed on the students’ work with the project proposal, b) four supervision meetings with the whole research group, and c) a final meeting disseminating research findings to the school staff. Supervision meetings lasted 90 minutes and followed a set structure: 1) a short, joint gathering in the research group aiming at clarifying the meeting’s theme, 2) individual supervision of each master’s project involving student, school- and university supervisor, and 3) a joint exchange of experiences, preparing the next meeting. As such, the school based supervision was conducted in the established research group as well as in the smaller supervision groups where students, school and university supervisors collaborated on the master’s project.

Theoretical framework Notwithstanding the rich body of literature concerning PhD supervision, research on master’s thesis supervision is scarce. This study draws on Fancourt et al. (2015) who emphasize that school –university partnerships provide opportunities for new forms of collaboration, stressing the meaning of building common narratives and understandings as well as synthesizing what is at stake within each practical context. These common narratives are described as a discursive resource for collaboration (Fancourt et al., 2015). In this study, the focus is on the participants’ experiences on the collaborative supervision, how these play into a common narrative and a discursive resource for new supervision practices.

Data consist of a text collection developed in the period from November 2017 to June 2018. The texts were collected in a file on the school’s internet platform in an ongoing process. All participants had access to all texts during the project period. The text collection holds records from collaboration between university and school in the planning phase, ongoing reflections on the project written by the four participants, minutes of planning -, evaluation - and supervision meetings, student reflections on supervision meetings, final presentations of the master theses for the school staff, as well as the students’ reflections in their master theses on the supervision process in the project. A thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) was conducted. According to Braun and Clarke, thematic analysis provides a flexible and systematic procedure for generating codes and themes from qualitative data. «The aim of thematic analysis is to identify and interpret key (…) features of the data, guided by the research question» (p. 297). The analysis is conducted in close collaboration by the authors of this paper and involves a combination of deductive and inductive strategies. Preliminary questions to the data involved three issues that lie at the core of the supervision model: 1) profession oriented and practice based master theses, 2) uncertainty about the university’s supervision capacity, and 3) master theses’ contribution to local school development. In concert with Fancourt et al. (2015), the analysis is centred around three reference points: actor, event and setting. Actor refers to the four participants who take part in the supervision: master student, school supervisor, school principal and university supervisor. Event refers to occurrences during supervision. Setting refers to the place where the master supervision takes place: the school and the university. The thematic analysis has focussed on the actors involved and what they talked about, as well as what events and settings were brought to the fore. This has led the way towards three dimensions in a common narrative (Wertsch, 2002; Fancourt 2015) about the supervision. These dimensions are: 1) MA-supervision: new supervisor and supervision roles, 2) MA-research: new knowledge relevant for school development and development of TEIs, 3) MA-thesis: clear structure and progression.

1) MA-supervision - new supervisor and supervision roles: A central condition for collaboration has been that the two supervisor roles (school supervisor and university supervisor) are distinctive and equal. As such, the students express their satisfaction with having two supervisors and describe their roles as different, whilst complementing each other. Each distinct role creates room for different contributions to the supervision; 2) MA-research - new knowledge relevant for school development and development of TEIs: The school’s motivation for participation in the supervision project is linked to the premise that participation will contribute to school improvement. The overall experience by the students as well as school supervisors and management, is the conviction that the master’s theses play into school development. The students describe the reception of their thesis by the school staff and management - as a useful contribution for school improvement - as extremely satisfying. The school principal expresses that the master’s theses provide valuable knowledge to the school’s development, especially because the theses offer a fresh perspective on a number of challenges. Similarly, the university supervisors express that the new knowledge about collaborative supervision offers a valuable contribution to the teacher education programme at the university. 3) MA-thesis - clear structure and progression: When supervision is organised according to a school based setting, a tendency emerges enhancing a tight structure that contributes to a clear progression in the students’ research. As such, the collaboration with the school provides conditions for effective use of available resources. This advantage is emphasised by all four participant groups in the project: school management, school supervisors, university supervisors and not in the least by the students themselves. The results are discussed in light of the following three themes: i) New supervision roles, ii) A new master’s thesis genre, and iii) Enabling structures for partnerships.

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