POSITIVE ACADEMIC SUPERVISION: A CASE STUDY IN A TOURISM UNDERGRADUATE COURSE AT A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN THE STATE OF PARANÁ, BRAZIL

This report of experience describes took place in the academic context and aimed to study the relationship between an academic advisor and their student. The research problem emerged from the positive and negative experiences of two of the authors, during their timeas students under supervision at the university. In 2018, these authors had the opportunity, as advisors, to apply techniques to carry out positive supervision. The objective of this report was to present positive experiences of academic supervision for the production of a thesis for the undergraduate course of Tourism of a public university in the state of Paraná, Brazil. This study was carried out in 2018, and involved the supervision of two students, with thirteen steps, as described in this report. The results of the supervision were two undergraduate theses that were approved and received praise, and two students who were satisfied with the process. As practical implications, we observed that when the advisor and student are bothclear as to the student's role as the protagonist of the process, the teaching-learning process generates results in terms of knowledge construction and application of this knowledge in the studied context. Thus, positive supervision can improve the student's professional and/or social context. In the cases studied here, the students and their advisors worked together from the start of development of the undergraduate thesis; and shared their empirical and scientific knowledge. Aceito 09/Dez/2020 Publicado 26/Ago/2021 a Master in Science – USP and Master in Technology, Management, and Sustainability UNIOESTE anaolive407@gmail.com b Post-doctorate in Business Management from Universitédu Québec `a Montréal UQAM c Master's student on the Graduate Program in Technology, Management, and Sustainability UNIOESTE DOI: https://doi.org/10.14210/at.v6n2.p23-29 ©2021 autores. Publicado por Univali Esse artigo é de livre acesso sob a licença


INTRODUCTION
This work reports an experience that took place in the academic context and aims to study the relationship between advisor and student. This relationship is a complex one, as it involves people with different personalities, ages, and experiences. Being full of subjectivities, this relationship requires a clear demarcation of the rights and duties of each subject and their role inthe academic supervision process.
But what does an advisor do?
The advisor's role should be that of an educator who shares his/her more mature experience with the advisee in a joint process of knowledge construction.
Two parties interact in a dialogue process, respecting the autonomy and personality of each party. The advisor is neither a father, nor a mentor, nor a defense lawyer, nor an analyst; but neither is he/she an overseer, a colonel, or anything like that. The advisor is an educator establishing an educational relationship with the advisee, with all that it means in terms of scientific production (SEVERINO, 2006, p. 77-8).
Based on Severino's (2006) explanation, we can assume that the advisor shares his/her knowledge and experience with the student during the process of constructing scientific knowledge, so that the student, in turn, can mature and learn through the processes of acquiring and sharing knowledge. The aim of this report was to present positive experiences of academic supervision for the production of an undergraduate thesis carried out as a requirement of the undergraduate course in Tourism at a public university in the state of Paraná, Brazil.
The supervisory process can be understood as the actions that take place within the scope of the relationship between the advisor and the student or advisee, from the verbal contract between the parties through to delivery of the final version of the undergraduate thesis. It may be extended to monitoring the publication of the research results, the selection of a postgraduate program, or professional guidance, depending on the parties' interests.
This report was structured in four sections, besides this introduction. The sections are:Research problem and relevance, Methodology, Results, and Practical implications and conclusions.

RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RELE-VANCE:
We addressed the research problem of the report based on the needs that emerged from the experience of two of the authors, who had at least five different advisors each during their academic education. In sharing these experiences between 2009 and 2018, these researchers identified positive and negative aspects of the supervision they had received, which did not always contribute to the students' performance in the development of research.
The invitation to act as advisor and co-advisor for two undergraduate theses in a Tourism undergraduate course at a public university in Paraná arose in 2018.
The problem, at that time, was: How to promote a positivesupervision experience in the writing of undergraduate theses for a Tourism course at a public university in Paraná?
Why is a positive supervision experience so important?
When reflecting on these questions, we should consider all fields of knowledge, not only tourism or other areas of applied social sciences, and the opportunity that an undergraduate thesis represents for the student, to build scientific knowledge that can contribute to society. Furthermore, the student may sometimes develop an interest in research, improve his/her skills, and increase his/her potential to make academic or practical contributions to their community or country.
The advisor's role is to lead the student during this Then, we moved on to the next activity.
-Support for the free choice of topic: the student does not always have a clearly-defined research topic in mind when looking for an advisor, as was the case here. To start a positive supervision experience, the first step was to help the students identify a topic of interest that they could relate to and that they felt would be useful for them. For this, it was necessary to look at the students' personal and professional characteristics. Had the topics been imposed on the students by the advisors, the development of the research, which requires a lot of dedication, would probably have been torture for the students.
The advisor can suggest that the student writes down topics of interest and presents them in the next meeting, or sends them in a few days. These topics may be related to some professional activity that the student is already involved in. The student must choose the topic, so that he/she feels the research is his/her own and takes full responsibility for it.
-Research problem and delimitation of the research: a difficulty that many students have is having a "researchable" idea. They may have lots ofvery good ideas, but it is hard for them to extract a problem and an objective that will lend itself well to research.
This difficulty may be due to a lack of practical experience, since this exercise is not often encouraged in the first years of undergraduate courses. Thus, when the students first arrived with their ideas, it was necessary to translate them into academic language.
Next, we had to think about the scale of this idea, and whether it would be possible to execute it within the time available. In this case, the answer is usually negative, but the advisors must reason with their students, and help them come to the right conclusion rather than concluding for them, even if they already know the answer. Clearly, intervention is necessary when students are unable to reach this conclusion by themselves.
In our experience, the advisors explained the research paths according to the problem and objective proposed by the students, as well as the type of research required, the timeframe, and the need for availability and dedication, checking that the students agreed and were comfortable with what was to come. In case of a negative answer, the advisors would have to adjust the problem and objective to the student's ability and availability. After all, proposing something the students could not do would be extremely frustrating for all parties.
Next, the problem and objective were adjusted to form an achievable reality for the students.
-Outlining the project: the university required a written paper in the form of an undergraduate thesis.
Thus, once a problem and an objective of a performable research project had been validated by the students, it was time to outline the project. This consists in building a structure that shows how each part of the paper will be developed: -introduction, theoretical framework, methodology, data analysis, final considerations -and most importantly, what should go in each section, according to the study to be elabo-Applied Tourism ISSN: 2448-3524 https://siaiap32.univali.br/seer/index.php/ijth/index report, the students had to elaborate data collection instruments -and psychography would not help . The elaboration of the collection instrument must come out of the theoretical review, based on the experience of other researchers, and must be adapted to the research context. The advisors helped the students consider the methods and period for the data collection,to avoid rework.
-Data collection: Advisors must teach best practice guidelines for data collection, depending on the research context.
-Data treatment and analysis: Many students have never treated or analyzed data before. This may, therefore, be a phase when students need more support from their advisors. In addition to this difficulty, the fact that it usually getting close to the end of the term by this time can put additional pressure on the students. In the case of the two students of this case study, the advisors subjectively verified the students' level of autonomy for this activity and identified their difficulty in analyzing the data. This process was there- -Writing the final remarks: By this stage, the students were more relaxed. They followed the topics as developed in the outline, while the advisors made corrections and adjustments.
-Final review: The advisor must give a critical review concerning whether the research has adhered to the rated. The outline helped the students have a vision of the whole, and of the work required, which reduces anxiety in the advisor's perception, as anxiety is caused by a fear of the unknown.
Regarding the theoretical framework, the advisors suggested including only topics that were directly related to the study objective and that would be useful for discussing the results found during the development of the research. The advisors explained how and where the students should look for sources.
Regarding the theoretical framework, the advisors suggested including only topics that were directly related to the study objective and that would be useful for discussing the results found during the development of the research. The advisors explained how and where the students should look for sources.
-Academic writing: students usually have difficulty with academic writing. What is the best way to teach them? Encouraging practice, making constructive corrections, not underestimating what they have produced, and not using adjectives that devalue the student or his/her production. Advisors are supposed to suggest how to write or how to improve arguments, and not only indicate what is wrong, so that the student can improve it. If the student has difficulty with grammar, the text can be sent for professional proofreading. At this point, the focus should be on the research and not on the correct spelling. After all, there is already a lot of pressure on the student. This difficulty arises from the lack of practice during the undergraduate course, so the advisor must be aware of students' understanding of how to improve their academic writing. the students must feel comfortable asking the advisor questions. However, if the advisor tells the student off for their mistakes, the production will lose quality and deadlines may be missed, as the stages of theoretical review and writing may take longer under these conditions.
Corrections and feedback should be given as quickly as possible, ideally within a week, so that the students do not lose their train of thought and pace. This also allows the student a a period to distance themselves from the text, regain a sense of critical awareness, and then return to the text and improve it.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CON-CLUSIONS
This report of experience presents information collected from two supervision experiences with two tourism undergraduate students at a public university in Paraná, initially proposed problem and objective, and analyze whether any general adjustments are needed, to ensure the success of the thesis defense.
-Preparing for the thesis defense: As it was the students' first thesis defense, they were anxious. In this case, knowing more about how it works, or watching other thesis defenses, can help reduce that feeling. Also, structuring the necessary content helped the students prepare their presentations so that they wouldn'tforget anything. Rehearsing the presentation with the students, checking that all the allotted time is filled, and checking posture and communication also helps students feel more self-confident. Thinking about the possible questions that might arise, and the possible answers, also helps in the student's preparation.
-Adjustments and corrections: the thesis defense committee usually suggests some adjustments and corrections. After the defense, the advisors should meet with the student to discuss any changes will be made to the final version of the work.
In all stages of the research -highlighted above and summarized in Appendix A -, the advisors valued mutual respect, trust, and consideration in all dialogues.
Also, the positive communication of mistakes helped a lot in building the research, as the advisors not only point out the errors, but also suggested how to fix them. Reassuring the students was essential since the undergraduate thesis is normally a terrifying topic for undergraduate students.

Results
The positive supervision experience took place during the academic year of 2018, with two undergraduate tourism students at a public university in Paraná, Brazil.
We have described all thirteen stages of the supervision that were the object of this experience report: from the definition of the topic, problem, and objective through to the final stages of preparation for the thesis defense, and final adjustments.
The results achieved were two undergraduate theses that were approved and praised, and two happy, satisfied students, fulfilled with their research experience.
Thus, we validated the techniques needed for positive academic supervision. But how can we be so sure? In This experience can promote discussion and reflection among teachers, who must acknowledge their responsibility to lead students through a process of producing scientific knowledge that can contribute to their areas of knowledge, the community, and the country as a whole.