Role of institutes of social sciences in enhancing the quality of postgraduate education

This study aimed to develop suggestions for the management of the Institute of Social Sciences on the effective execution of postgraduate education. A ‘mixed’ design was used. Data collection tools were applied directly to student population without the use of any sampling method. For advisors, criterion sampling was used.The participants of the study were composed of 207 postgraduate students registered at the Institute of Social Sciences and 39 instructors at Ege University. The student data were collected via the Supervisor Evaluation Scale and interview guide consisting of open-ended questions. The instructor data were collected during semi-structured focus group interviews. The participants stressed the informative, supportive and instructional roles of the institute for improving the quality of graduate education. In addition, differences as well as commonalities between the expectations of the students and those of the instructors were detected. The students’ expectations from the institute were the protection of students’ rights, mediation, ensuring the diversity of elective courses, the proper teaching of the courses in accordance with the nature of graduate education, and provision of information about career, time and stress management. Besides, the instructors’ expectations included attracting qualified candidates to programs, informing students, supporting the students with cadre and scholarship, reducing bureaucratic procedures, regulating the processes of supervisor selection and thesis proposal, providing access to resources during the processes of both course work and thesis writing, and forming colloquiums. The institute’s existing structure, authority distribution, staff and budget resources were found to be inadequate for increasing the quality of postgraduate education. Regarding the course and thesis stages, one third of the supervisors were evaluated as insufficient by the students. Many suggestions related to practice were made with respect to the findings