When I am asked about practical matters of running group events for research supervisors, the same sorts of questions keep coming up. Although I would not suggest that I know all the answers, I do have some general views, which have developed over years of working in the area of support and resource development for postgraduate students, PhD supervisors, masters degree supervisors and management in a wide range of disciplines and institutions. These views seem to be regarded as helpful for stimulating discussion and for decision making. So I outline them here, in the hope that they will be a useful starting point for a wider audience. Of course there are always situations which may make my views untenable - and, anyway, they represent my personal experience and philosophy. You may, with good reason, think differently. |
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1. SCOPE In my experience, events on most, but not all, topics can be successfully run centrally across disciplines, provided that the considerable differences between disciplines are anticipated, respected, welcomed and built upon. It is extremely counter productive, as well as fundamentally invalid, to attempt to impose what is 'right' or common practice in one discipline upon another discipline. Total agreement across disciplines, particularly on details of what constitute good supervisory practice and sound research, is impossible to achieve and pointless to aim for. This needs to be explained early on to the participants of cross-disciplinary events or time will be wasted on fruitless and unpleasant argument. My own aim would be to help individual supervisors to establish what constitutes best practice for themselves in the light of the wide range of differing circumstances which permeate their individual professional lives. With this understanding, a mix of disciplines should produce a richer interaction and reflection, and hence a richer form of training/ development/ support. Back to questions 2. SCALE In my experience, the scale of the undertaking is best kept small in the first instance, with supervisors or departments who/which wish to participate. How the undertaking then develops can depend on the lessons learnt. It is true that a small undertaking can mean that those supervisors who most need it 'slip through the net'. However, forcing such individuals to participate can spoil the atmosphere for those who want to be there. Anyway, as resources are in short supply; it is important to use them where they can do most good. Also, there is a good chance that 'those who need it most' may, in due course, learn something from those who do participate. Back to questions 3. TOPICS On separate pages I offer two frameworks - one for an extended programme and the other for a single one-off event 4. TERMINOLOGY - training/ development/ support/ other terms Staff who are new to supervising want (and even demand) to be 'trained' - and there is nothing wrong in that. For senior staff, though, terms like 'discussion sessions' seem more appropriate. For a mix of all levels of experience, I would probably go for 'training and development'. Back to questions 5. RESOURCES In my experience and opinion, the best resources to inform the content of training or support for PhD supervisors (or supervisors of other research programmes) are likely to be: a) Codes of practice or guidelines on procedures (ie what is expected of supervisors):
b) Advice, help and support on practical issues (ie tailoring the work to suit individual situations where there are no right and wrong answers and where ways forward can and should be determined by personal preferences, according to situations). Since I formally retired from professional life - as far, that is, as has actually happened - a large number of resources on research supervision have become available, and I will not attempt to list them all here. When I originally created this page, the classics were as follows. Being classics, they will still be useful.
6. STAFFING In my experience, a programme to improve supervisory practice works best when planned and largely run by a team of home-based academics plus the administrator for research. Experts on particular topics and a staff development officer can be invited in as required. Once the programme is underway, the on-going input (or at least the short-term presence) of one or more senior academics is extremely desirable and probably essential, in order to demonstrate:
Staff development officers, working alone, - rightly or wrongly - can all too often to be regarded as lacking the necessary experience and status. Bought-in trainers, working alone, often generate the negative reaction of 'not knowing how things work here'. There are of course notable exceptions. Buying in training consultants can and does work in certain circumstances, but it can be risky for practical matters of supervisory practice. Of course a seminar presentation on a specialist topic is an entirely different matter. Back to questions 7. WHEN AND WHERE THE TRAINING SHOULD TAKE PLACE This is a matter which needs thinking about for all training at all levels and the institutional staff development officer could probably provide useful advice. Much depends on circumstances, availability of rooms and teaching schedules. The question of distance learning should be worth considering. Back to questions 8. EVALUATION The form of any evaluation should depend on its purpose, ie what questions the evaluation is to answer. Common questions are:
The influence on professional practice cannot be measured in any valid quantifiable way (at least on any normal timescale or scale of provision). However, it will be possible to gather qualitative indications through the reactions of the participants some months later, once sufficient time has elapsed for what has been learnt to feed into practice. Either informal discussion, a brief email, or an open-ended questionnaire could be suitable. Improvements for a re-run are probably best collected as soon as possible after the event. Open-ended queries are most appropriate and there is little to be gained from a lengthy list of detailed questions. If value for money has to be 'demonstrated' for administrative, quality assurance or funding purposes, a formal questionnaire with, say, 5 point scales, may have to be administered to a captive audience at the end of a session. Open-ended queries can also be included. It may be worth pondering on the fact that inputs by the 'great and the good' (such as politicians, royalty - and Vice-Chancellors) never seem to be formally evaluated. I will not dwell on the implications as they speak for themselves. Back to questions 9. BUDGET One-off departmental training days require only a very modest budget to cover duplication of handouts, as the room is normally readily available - and so, presumably, is the good-will and time of staff. More sophisticated programmes probably have to be tailored to the available budget. Back to questions 10. POINTERS FOR SUCCESS In my view: 1. The days are gone when it is appropriate to conduct basic training and development for supervisors solely by sitting around and talking about problems - ie the blind leading the blind. There is now a sound research literature on the subject which has been processed into readily digestible resources, and anyone running training for supervisors has a responsibility to be familiar with them. On the other hand, the events can fall badly flat if they are conducted solely as scholarly seminars. If the focus is to be 'training', by whatever terminology, it is important to keep the emphasis on what supervisors need to be able to DO, rather than merely what they have to KNOW. 2. The involvement of staff in research supervision has grown enormously is recent years. Training in research supervision is thus a topic in its own right, and should not be an add-on to training in teaching and learning at undergraduate level. Furthermore, a worthwhile curriculum for supervisory training should be and is as broad as that for teaching and learning at undergraduate level. If a single module on research supervision is embedded somewhere in a larger modular programme on teaching and learning generally, supervisors are not receiving a fair deal. Back to questions. This is considered on a separate page on accreditation.
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