Supervision Feedback and Development

How much feedback should I give on a student's chapter?

Two or three priorities, with everything else explicitly marked as not required this round. The constraint is not your time, it is the student's capacity to change several things at once. A draft returned with two hundred comments has no hierarchy in it, so the student fixes the surface and the structure survives untouched.

What should I write instead of "needs more critical analysis"?

Name the missing operation and where it is missing. For example: "you describe each study's findings but never say whether you find its method convincing; for the four studies you rely on most, add one sentence each on what its design can and cannot establish." The test is whether a competent student could act on the sentence without asking what you meant.

How do I tell whether a student has a writing problem or a thinking problem?

Try to restate the passage's claim in plain language. If you can, and the claim is sound, the problem is expression. If you cannot, or the restated claim collapses, the problem is the argument, and editing will not fix it. Tell the student which diagnosis you reached, because "this is unclear" leaves them unable to tell whether to rewrite the sentences or rethink the case.

When should I tell a student that their progress is not adequate?

As early as the evidence supports it, in writing, in its own dated message rather than buried in draft comments. A student told in month nine can recover; the same student told near submission cannot, and will reasonably ask why nobody said so. The message states the standard, what has been produced against it, what must change, and by when.

Can I use an AI system to help with feedback on a student's work?

Check your institution first. Using AI on student work may be restricted by policy, and it involves processing an identified person's personal data and unpublished work. Where the position is unknown, do not upload identifying or unpublished material. In every case the supervisor reads the draft themselves, and nothing reaches the student unread.

Can this skill mark the work or say whether the thesis will pass?

No. It never assigns a mark, never makes a progression or examination recommendation, and never issues feedback the academic has not read. Those decisions belong to the named academic and to institutional regulation. For assessment against stated criteria, the related skill is Thesis Examination and Marking.

My student keeps making the same mistake after I correct it. What am I doing wrong?

Probably correcting the instance rather than teaching the principle. A recurring error usually means the earlier feedback fixed a location rather than transferring a rule. Lead with the general principle, use one or two located examples as illustration, and check at the next submission whether it transferred to places you did not mark.