How to respond to dissertation supervisor's feedbacks with the agile literature review approach: an example

How to respond to dissertation supervisor's feedbacks with the agile literature review approach: an example:

This student refers the following supervisor's feedback to me and seek for my advice:

"My supervisor said that my questionnaire survey research design is not sophisticated enough and not up to MBA level. He asked me to revise it. I have attached the survey questionnaire herewith; pls give me some advice".

My advices are as follows:

"First of all, I am not your supervisor, so I will not review your survey questionnaire. You need to discuss with your supervisor for more specific advice on how to improve your questionnaire survey design. What I can offer are some suggestions on how you could proceed to improve your questionnaire design using the agile literature review approach. Try to do the following to make your survey research design "more sophisticated":

1. Review your theoretical framework level-1c to understand your present questionnaire survey research design (QSRD) in terms of what research objective your QSRD tries to address, as well as what academic ideas have been chosen to inform the QSRD. It is also useful to review your present questionnaire survey research design to refine it via more study on the topic of questionnaire survey research (e.g. via YouTube videos).

2. Try to uplift the level of sophistication of your QSRD (and possibly the overall research design) by doing the following 5 steps:

Step 1: review the management-concerns diagram to provide a more complicated understanding of the management concerns of the organization under study, especially on those management concerns closely associated with the present QSRD-linked research objective (as derived from specific management concerns). This may implies increasing more management-concerns items as well as using more complicated management-concerns item in your management-concerns diagram.

Step 2: review the theoretical framework level-0 to uplift the sophistication level of intellectual response to the management-concerns as depicted by the management-concerns diagram, especially on those items related to the QSRD.

Step 3: review the QSRD-linked research objective in the revised ("more sophisticated") theoretical framework level-0; and use this revised theoretical framework level-0 to conduct additional literature review such that the QSRD-linked research objective now has additional academic ideas to use and probably more complicated academic ideas to use in the theoretical framework level-1a (i.e. a more sophisticated theoretical framework level-1a to use now). [note: if the QSRD-linked research objective does not belong to the core-focus domain, then it is undesirable to uplift its sophistication level, notably in theoretical framework level-1a and 1c].

Step 4: review the theoretical framework level 1c to see if the questionnaire survey design can be enhanced to achieve a higher level of intellectual sophistication that is up to MBA level (as required by your project supervisor). Bear in mind that, a more sophisticated questionnaire survey design does not imply more questions, especially more open-ended questions to use in your QSRD, because a more complicated survey questionnaire can become so time-consuming that fewer willing respondents to participate in your questionnaire survey. Thus, consider step 5.

Step 5: consider if it is useful to employ one more research method, e.g. interview research, to address your QSRD-linked research objective. Bear in mind that different research method has different strengths and weaknesses; thus using an additional research method of a different kind with your questionnaire survey will uplift your sophistication level of research design to address the QSRD-linked research objective.

Finally, bear in mind that the sophisticated level of research work, including research design, is very much determined by your intellectual competence; thus, you (the researcher) should engage in your intellectual learning to strengthen your intellectual competence. In this regard, you may be interested in my research topic on managerial intellectual learning (which is grounded on critical systems thinking).

Now, after performing steps 1-5, discuss with your supervisor again to see if your strengthened research design, including that of the questionnaire survey, is up to your supervisor's perceived MBA level. IF you find that the situation remains unclear and worrying, and that the supervision relationship between you and your supervisor still works quite poorly, do not seek for my help; discuss with school admin direct.

References
1. KKH Folder of Learning and Development

2. An article "thinking systemically about complex systems" (free pdf download)