
	How to audit and monitor one's own practice as a research degree supervisor

This page provides a personal and confidential way for research degree supervisors in all disciplines to monitor their own supervisory practice. There are the following sections:

Why audit and monitor your supervisory proficiency and development?
The basis of the tools
   Knowledge
   Skills
   Values
How to use the tools
Where next?

Why audit and monitor your supervisory proficiency and development?

The extent to which you use the following tools to to help you audit and monitor your proficiency and development as a supervisor is entirely up to you. It would not be advisable to ignore them altogether for the following reasons:

We are living in a society where litigation is becoming increasingly common and it is advisable to be able to make a robust and properly argued defence.
Feedback from students and supervisors elsewhere has shown that the use of the tools makes supervision more effective, efficient and enjoyable.

Words like 'effective', 'efficient' and 'enjoyable' do trip easily off the tongue, but each is important in its own right:

Being effective as a research degree supervisor means an improved experience for the student.
Being efficient means that your time is saved – and there are always increasing calls on it.
Being enjoyable involves the satisfaction of a job well done and a good relationship with your colleagues and students.

The basis of the tools

The tools are based on the National Framework for Professional Standards in Teaching and Supporting Learning which is set to be highly influential for all training programmes for professionals irrespective of their area of specialisation. The curriculum of any professional training programme, including one of self-development, is expected to map onto the Framework. The form of training is at the discretion of whoever provides it, and the terminology may be different provided that the intent is the same.

The three nodes of the framework can be simply expressed as:

knowledge
skills
values. (My summary)

To make your supervisory practice more effective, efficient and enjoyable, you need to bear all three in mind, and if you want to make a robust defence in the case of litigation the same is true.

Knowledge

The knowledge associated with competent research supervision is essentially as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The knowledge associated with competent research supervision

The Regulations of the institution/accrediting institution concerning research supervision
National policy documents and issues
Discipline-related knowledge.

It is the task of training personnel to bring the first two to the attention of supervisors, along with their implications and ramifications. How much or little of the second is necessary is open to question. For example the national Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education, Section 1: Postgraduate research programmes states that supervisors need not be familiar with its detail. In fact its recommendations are almost certainly absorbed into the regulations of the institution.

Discipline-related knowledge is generally assumed because academics should not be in post without it. However, all academics have a responsibility to keep themselves up to date, which will be touched on shortly in connection with professional values. Also there are codes of good practice in research for particular disciplines, normally developed by professional bodies, and supervisors should be familiar with those for their own discipline.

Knowledge does not of course imply being able to recite chunks from a document. Some aspects of knowledge ought to be at supervisors' fingertips while others merely involve knowing what is where and how to find it when the need arises.

Skills

Broadly speaking, a skill is the ability to do something well within minimal time and with minimal effort so that it seems like second nature.

For example, a skilled typist can type a report quickly and accurately, probably without even looking at the keyboard, whereas an unskilled person would have to keep looking for keys and would probably press the wrong ones by mistake. The typing would be awkward, would require excessive concentration and would take an excessive time. It might still get done eventually, but the final product would almost certainly have an amateur feel about it. Typing is an example of a skill which is largely manual, but skills can also be interpersonal, social and intellectual – to name but a few. For example a skilled speaker can comparatively effortlessly hold an audience spellbound; an unskilled speaker might have a go, but the task would consume a great deal of preparation and emotional energy and would probably not be received particularly well by the audience anyway.

The straight division of 'skilled' and 'unskilled' is of course an over-simplification, as there are varying degrees of skills-proficiency. However, just knowing what is involved in a skill is never the same as being skilled. Becoming skilled starts with knowledge of what is involved in the skill, but that is only the start. Practice is not enough either because it is all too easy merely to reinforce bad habits. What is needed is to keep getting feedback on what one is doing, to think about it and to practise again in an improved form. The feedback can come via any route and for research degree supervisors considerable personal reflection is in order.

Being skilled carries with it a sense of satisfaction at a job well done.

There is no definitive list of skills for a research degree supervisor. So what follows in Figure 2 is a 'flexible' framework. It is flexible for a number of reasons, particularly because research really is different in different subject areas. Consequently the list needs to be adapted for individual use.

Figure 2. The skills / areas of activity associated with competent research supervision

With due account of flexibility and the needs and backgrounds of individual students, research degree supervisors need to be able to:

play an appropriate part in ensuring that the student, principal supervisor, supervisory team and research topic are suitably matched
guide the student in developing a research proposal that is suitable for the research degree
agree an appropriate research supervisory and supervisory team process
use an appropriate range of teaching and supervisory skills to ensure the student's education, attainment and professional development
provide appropriate support to the student on academic and pastoral issues
use an appropriate range of methods to monitor and assess student progress and attainment
reflect on their own practice, assess and plan for their future needs and continuing development as a research supervisor and researcher.

Subsidiary skills will doubtless be identified in discussion or on reflection according to the needs of individual supervisors.

It is the task of training personnel to ensure that training is given in all these areas and to work out with supervisors what 'appropriate' means for them as individuals, their work and the norms of the institution. For example, 'appropriate pastoral support' generally means being able to direct a student who has personal or financial problems to suitable support and not necessarily having to deal with the problems themselves.

Values

Figure 3 shows the professional values expected of a research degree supervisor.

Figure 3. The professional values associated with competent research supervision

The following list should also be regarded as a flexible framework that is adaptable:

Commitment to/ concern for:

student development and achievement
student progress towards independence
one's own scholarship, academic excellence and integrity
working with and learning from colleagues
practising equal opportunities
continuing reflection on one's own professional practice.

How to use the tools

An excellent way of getting to grips with the knowledge, skills and values aspects of research supervision is to use grids along the lines shown in Figures 4 and 5. Copy them and adapt them as necessary for your own situation or requirements, subject area and student(s). Then insert ticks, crosses, question marks or comments to indicate where you think you are competent with each of the knowledge, skill/activity and value components, and where you think you need to seek advice or training. Update as your experience grows.

Figure 4
KNOWLEDGE BASE	STATUS (eg 'feel satisfied'; 'more to do', etc)
The University Regulations
National policy documents and issues
Codes of practice for research in one's own discipline

Figure 5
SKILL / ACTIVITY	STATUS	value 1	value 2	value 3	value 4	...	...	...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...

Where next?

Once you, as a supervisor, identify gaps in your supervisory proficiency, you need to decide how to fill them. You may be able to do quite a lot yourself through merely thinking about them as you go about your day to day work. Other resources include searching the web, discussions with colleagues and reading. You may though prefer to approach whoever it is in your institution who is responsible for training with the request that training be provided on a particular topic.

It is becoming increasingly common for institutions to run accredited programmes on teaching and learning, and these may include optional sections or modules on supervisor training. You may like to participate in order to enhance your professional practice and give you a qualification of some sort.

I am committed to training for research degree supervisors being accredited, and having seen a variety of support offerings for supervisors in institutions all over the world, I believe that the best way of doing so is through the development and assessment of a portfolio of work based on the tools outlined above. You may like to look at the page on how to develop a portfolio and then suggest that your own institution runs such a programme. Advice for training personnel is on the page about accreditation.

How to audit and monitor one's own practice as a research degree supervisor