Advice Resistance in Undergraduate Supervision Meetings: The Competing Relevance of Expertise and Experience

Abstract

This study uses conversation analysis to explore advice delivery, resistance and its management in undergraduate face-to-face supervision, an under-explored setting. Its main focus is the tension between two different forms of knowledge: the supervisor's expertise and the student's experience. While the supervisor's efforts to help the student see where he has made a mistake succeed, when the student pushes back by invoking a vague authority or with his own perspectives, the supervisor backs down. An important contribution is its analysis of the teetering between advice delivery and joint orientations to preserving the student's competence, and the use of question tags and lived stories to resist rather than deliver advice. One implication is for supervisors to reflect on when persisting with advice, and when desisting with advice, is in the best interests of their students.