The skills of educated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals are in high demand in South Africa, and postgraduate students are perceived to be vehicles of crucial societal change. Accordingly, South Africa needs to increase its postgraduate production rate to build a knowledge-based economy positioned between developed and developing countries. Therefore, this exploratory study set out to identify the barriers to success and the critical success factors affecting postgraduate STEM research students' performance. By probing student perceptions, our study reports on essential factors that impact postgraduate students in two faculties at a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the Western Cape, South Africa.  

Two focus group interviews (n=4) and (n=4) were conducted with students from two different faculties (the Faculty of Applied Science – FAS and the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment – FEBE) at the HEI. Following transcription, data was thematically coded and analysed to detect themes. Data saturation and peer review were used to ensure validity in this qualitative study. Ethical clearance for this study was secured through institutional channels. The findings suggest that postgraduate challenges were aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which added another layer of complexity to an already complex postgraduate context. Postgraduate students emphasised the importance of suitable supervision mechanisms and the critical role of postgraduate student support services as key to their success. Moreover, individual characteristics of postgraduate students were also highlighted as factors that influence academic success.  

The data shows that humanising postgraduate pedagogy is a potential solution to overcome the barriers experienced by our doctoral students. It is an approach where supervision is centred on the development of the postgraduate student rather than on the production of a thesis. Humanising pedagogy in postgraduate education should not be an attempt to integrate, accommodate, or assimilate postgraduate students within the institutional structures at a higher education institution or even into social practices that could leave them feeling marginalised or discriminated against, but rather, our practices (both supervisor and postgraduate students) should facilitate the transformation of the very structures and practices that could potentially lead to exclusion, especially in the face of challenges presented by unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Keywords: Humanising pedagogy, postgraduate success, postgraduate supervision, higher education, Higher education institutions