The Changing Role of the Supervisor

Location: The University of Reading

Summary of Content

The first presentation, “What students want from Supervisors” was given by a group of recently completed or near completion PhD students, who set the scene for the rest of the days proceedings. Anne Lee spoke about her research carried out with PhD supervisors and students in both the arts and sciences, and contrasted supervision theory with practice. She addressed issues such as working with supervisory teams, ethical dilemmas, authorship and giving careers advice. Alistair McCulloch was unable to attend, so Pam Denicolo presented his work on “Supervising the Growing Number of Part Time Students.” Jerry Wellington spoke about supervision and supervisor training for new contexts, and concluded that the underlying characteristics of a PhD training remained largely unchanged. In his presentation “The Recalcitrant Supervisor”, Jeremy Bradshaw identified a number of different type of supervisor and suggested that all had valuable characteristics.

Key Points of Discussion

The morning and afternoon discussion sessions were chaired by postgraduate students. The topic for the morning discussion session was “How much should we seek uniformity in the student experience, what should be common to all and in which areas is flexibility to be encouraged?”

Common features of a good experience were deemed to be:

• Effective induction by the supervisor, with clarity at enrolment;
• A framework with milestones;
• Support mechanisms there for both parties
• Willingness to communicate expectations clearly; indeed, clarity in communication from both sides is key;
• Willingness to negotiate on accessibility at an early stage and to revisit throughout the programme;
• The supervisor should be a visible, approachable person, with a broad knowledge of the field of research;
• Equality of access and opportunity e.g. to resources, courses; requirements to be reflexive and to develop autonomy; being realistic;
• Flexibility and willingness to adapt as a supervisor e.g. to changing areas of knowledge/ practice.

The afternoon discussion session addressed the question “How do we ensure that acceptable standards of supervision are maintained across our universities?” Suggested ways of achieving this included:

• A national code (QAA guidelines);
• Having a school Director of PG Studies (or equivalent), who is bale to ensure that procedures are followed and records are kept;
• Empower students to drive the agenda, including student reporting and student ratings of their supervisors;
• Incentives for excellence in supervision (rather than imposition);
• Recognition of supervision in appraisal, workload and promotion procedures;
• Training for new and continuing supervisors to tease out common issues;
• Supervisory teams, which compensate for the inexperience of one supervisor with the experience of another;
• Universities should get tough with individual supervisors.

Evaluation of Outcomes

The workshop provided an opportunity to take stock of the current climate in postgraduate supervision in the context of the ever-evolving student experience. New styles of PhD have appeared in recent years, including the PhD by publication and the professional doctorate, the numbers of mature and part-time students have increased, and the nature of the training itself has been shaped to meet increasing student expectations and the broader and more-structured training requirements of the research councils and other funding bodies. For many academics, the supervisor’s role is now very different to what they experienced as a student.

The student experience was central to the day’s discussions; the workshop opened with a presentation by a group of PhD students, who also chaired the discussion sessions.

Recurring themes in the discussion sessions included the fact that clarity and communication were seen as the most important characteristics of a good supervisor; students wanted to know what was expected of them and to receive clear assessments of their progress.

While the context and experience of a PhD education continues to evolve, the workshop concluded that the underlying principles remain unchanged. Although supervisor training needs to adapt to include the particular requirements of part-time study, mature and international students and new styles of doctorate, the fundamental qualities of good supervision should be recognised, encouraged and rewarded by our institutions.

Report Authors: Professor Jeremy Bradshaw & Professor Pam Denicolo

Presentations