The student/supervisor relationship: negotiating identities

1
The student/supervisor relationship negotiating
identities

• Joan Wardrop
• with Susan Leong and Janice Baker
• j.wardrop_at_curtin.edu.au

2
development of skills

• problematising/conceptualising
• research
• writing/creating
• grant applications
• presentations
• publication

3

• Pearson and Kayrooz (2004) four roles
• Mentoring,
• Sponsoring,
• Progressing the candidature and
• Coaching
• (Pearson and Kayrooz (2004) in Nulty, et
  al.(2009)4) .

4
the context/s

• increasingly, more than one supervisor
  different areas and perspectives,
• length of project (leaving the University?),
  ASL/LSL

5
Contexts -2

• research culture/environment
• student-supervisor/s-School-Faculty-University
• student (supervisor/s) discipline/s
  (conferences, publishing)- careers

6
student comments qualities

• enthusiasm
• subject knowledge
• time given to students/accessibility
• capacity to give encouragement
• willingness to acknowledge students capacities
• appropriate levels of independence
• student as expert

7
student comments problems

• supervisors too busy - even during the
  supervision
• not good procurers of resources
• feedback too slow/too minimal

8
the sinews of the relationship

• meetings formal versus casual, email
• establish a schedule recognise the variations,
  not always necessary to meet as often
• feedback - oral/written feedback
• records of meetings reflecting/concretising
• those students more satisfied with their
  supervision tended to be those who interacted
  more frequently with supervisor or supervisors,
  and who spent more time per week on research.
  (Harman, 2003 330) (40-49 hours per week for f/t
  students)
• mutually respectful

9
helpful Curtin guidelines

• Guidelines for Supervision and the Supervisory
  Relationship
• http//research.curtin.edu.au/graduate/hdrguidelin
  es/durcand.cfmsupervision

10
select references

• Bill Green (2005), Unfinished business
  subjectivity and supervision, Higher Education
  Research Development 24, 2 151-163.
• Grant Harman (2003), PhD student satisfaction
  with course experience and supervision in two
  Australian research-intensive universities
  Prometheus 21, 3 317-333.
• Catherine Manathunga (2005), The development of
  research supervision "Turning the light on a
  private space", International Journal for
  Academic Development 10, 1 17-30.
• Duncan Nulty, Margaret Kiley, and Noel Meyers
  (2009), Promoting and recognising excellence in
  the supervision of research students an
  evidence-based framework, Assessment
  Evaluation in Higher Education 115.
• Eve Bendix Pearsen (2007), Negotiating
  academicity postgraduate research supervision as
  category boundary work, Studies in Higher
  Education 324,475 487.