Edited by Dr Kay Guccione
This is a guest post by Dr Ali Padyab, Associate Professor of Cybersecurity, and Dr Martin Lundgren, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity, both at the University of Skövde, Sweden. This article draws on their recent research paper: Stress in doctoral supervision: A perspective on supervisors. Stress, from a physical perspective, is something that challenges the body …
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This is a guest post by Dr Lesley McLean, Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Edinburgh Napier University. The journey towards gaining a doctoral degree can be laborious, enlightening, frustrating, revelatory, tearful and joyful. It must also be transformative! Not just for the student putting in the hard yards, but also for the supervisors, reviewers and …
This is a guest post by Associate Professor Robyn Barnacle, academic lead for research training and supervisor development, in the School of Graduate Research, RMIT University. When establishing a new PhD candidate, the adage ‘start as you mean to continue’, or something along those lines, is salutary. Discussing mutual roles, responsibilities and expectations helps build …
Continue reading "Community Acuity (36): Expectation and Boundary Setting in 3-steps"
This is a guest post by Professor Nick Hopwood, University of Technology Sydney and Professor Liezel Frick, Stellenbosch University. Supervisors are important role players within the constellation of people that support and guide students through research degrees. This blog post summarises a paper (Hopwood & Frick 2023) in which we were asked to respond to …
This post is by Dr Ahmad Akkad Postdoctoral Researcher in the Education Department at the University of Oxford, and Dr Emily F. Henderson Reader in Gender and International Higher Education and Director of Doctoral Education and Academia Research Centre (DEAR) at the University of Warwick. Image credit: Yara Aboasfour If you are a doctoral supervisor, …
This is a guest post by Dr Yukari Seko, Assistant Professor in the School of Professional Communication and Asmaa Malik, Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. This post is based on their 2023 paper Towards solution-focused graduate supervision: Developing a research-based live simulation for graduate supervisors. “I wish my supervisor …
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This is a guest post by Martina Angela Caretta, PhD. Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography, Lund University Fieldwork, whether in a far away location or in the same city where the institution you are working at is located, is a corner stone of several natural and social sciences disciplines. Through fieldwork, PhD …
“Of course, bad supervisory behaviour does occur, but many poor PGR experiences, as here, are results of mismatched expectations and unclear boundary lines or occur when people aren’t sure about their rights and responsibilities or feel an inferred pressure (sometimes unreal) to perform in a certain way.”
By Steve Hutchinson, Director ofHutchinson Training & Developmentspecialising in Leadership, Communication and Personal Effectiveness; and co-author of ‘Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development’.
If you meet postgraduates you’ll hear horror stories about supervisors. For example recently I encountered a furious PGR with “a terrible supervisor” who, it transpired, “only sees me once per week!” (!) Of course, bad supervisory behaviour does occur, but many poor PGR experiences, as here, are results of mismatched expectations and unclear boundary lines or occur when people aren’t sure about their rights and responsibilities or feel an inferred pressure (sometimes unreal) to perform in a certain way.
For intellectual balance, supervisors tell horror stories too. Like the candidate who radically underestimates what a doctorate entails and is mentally spent through trying to hold down a job and a family and produce a thesis but who simply isn’t coping. Or the international…
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This is a guest post by Professor Kimberly Griffin, Dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland, Dr Terra Hall from Pepperdine University, and Di-Tu Dissassa, Ashley Clarke, & Joakina Stone, all from the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education at the University of Maryland. They work together as part …
Laetitia Rispel is a Professor of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she holds a Research Chair as part of the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI). This post is based on her 2023 paper: Relationships, power and accountability: Reflections on transformative postgraduate supervision workshops at a South …
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A community blog, on doctoral supervision relationships and pedagogies 