by Dr Haidee Hicks and Associate Professor Lynelle Watts
Since completing our doctorates, we have noticed that people rarely discuss – or reflect on – their experience of supervision and learning during their candidature. We have been curious about this notable absence. In this blog, we engaged in a pair interview process of reflexive dialogue (Gilmore & Kenny, 2015; Hodgson & Watts, 2016) to better understand our own experience. We were reflecting on how we navigate new doctoral spaces as supervisors while considering what we take forward, and what we want to leave behind. We also wanted to explore what we learnt from our own experience as doctoral students, to transfer to our supervisory practices. In other words, we aimed to apply our experiential learning to this new supervisory space. We resonate with scholars such as González-Ocampo and Castelló (2019) who analysed doctoral supervisors’ current experience in comparison to their own experience as students.
This blog is partly our response to Halse’s (2011) question: how does the doctoral student experience shape their experience as doctoral supervisors? (p. 557) What emerged is a reflection on the complexity associated with doctoral supervision: students, supervisors and university research administrators are embedded in a labyrinthine network of policies and procedures, each designed to ensure a “smooth” candidature. Amongst this, there are the less visible emotional and relational layers for unpacking which can sometimes emerge, often when we least expect it. In our analysis, we were mostly surprised at the myriad of experiences and points in our narratives that intersected, particularly concerning support strategies and feedback during the doctoral candidature.
Doctoral supervision overview
Our beginning point is an agreement that supervision anchors the doctoral journey. Despite the value, we continue to reflect on the complexity of doctoral supervision and our conversations with colleagues affirm the use of diverse models and approaches. Beyond contrasting supervisory practices, the current literature points to a “changing landscape” (p. 606) in global doctoral education. Taylor (2023) suggests that “it has changed beyond recognition” (p. 609) with greater evidence of “collectivisation” (p. 609) observable across global higher education contexts. Taylor and Wisker (2023) note that in Australia two or more supervisors, or even a research team, are considered the norm (p. 786) and yet add complexity to the supervisory process. Other supervisory differences include disciplinary and program frameworks as well as ensuring compliance with institutional requirements.
Significantly less visible, however, are the many ways that each supervisor’s own experience as a PhD student might shape their own supervisory practice. How does one develop a critical consciousness of how this learning is transferred and transformed as we transition from student to supervisor/advisor? How do supervisors learn to reflect on their experience and intentionally apply these insights? These questions are especially salient when the PhD submission process is largely focused on the examiners’ reports and feedback but they also may apply to the entire candidature. Where is the space to ask what kind of supervisor/advisor will I be going forward, especially for folks on an academic track? We hope the discussion that follows resonates and inspires others to consider their own experience as both student and supervisor. We begin with a reflection on the types of support that we valued during our candidature.
Supports during the doctoral journey
One thing that has lifted up for us in our discussion has been the role of support during the doctoral journey.
Haidee: Just in relation to your last comment around peer support and how this enabled supervision…I think there is an emerging literature around, I guess the importance of this as a supplement to what’s going on in the supervisory space…
Lynelle: Yeah, well, support was certainly really important for my process. I think I also offered that support to other people as they were going through it. And I do find myself saying that to students that I’ve got now. So who are your PhD buddies? Who are you talking to?
As acknowledgement pages in a finished PhD so often movingly attest, support can be from family, friends, and colleagues but it can also come from peers. Peer support may be formal and informal. Formal support refers to support “that has a strictly professional purpose, is structured and/or monitored, and has clear goals and boundaries” (Gandy-Guedes et al., 2016, p. 325). This kind of support is sometimes referred to as peer learning networks (PLNs), which are “formal groups of “status equals or matched companions” (Miller et al., 2016, p. 361). In contrast, Gandy-Guedes et al., (2016, p. 325) portray informal support as something that is “received outside of organised structures or mechanisms” In talking about our doctoral education, we find there are both informal and formal kinds of peer support and these can sometimes cross over. For example, informal support can be offered by family, friends and indeed, peers. People participating in PLNs may experience the support as collegial, often leading to long-term collaborations and friendships. Both of us came through the experience with long-term friendships and networks. Our reflective dialogue has also reminded us that we were both proactive in establishing peer networks which enhanced our research and our well-being.
The advantages of formal supports have been discussed extensively, but in the main, the benefit is that they “maximise the opportunities for learning and support” (Christianson & Bell, 2010, cited in Miller et al., 2016, p. 361). According to Miller and colleagues (2016), and speaking from a North American context, formal PLNs have been slow to establish for various reasons. Some of these include faculty time to support their establishment and that there are few models for how to go about it. Many programs in this context rely on a cohort approach where students undertaking doctoral education move through coursework together, but once candidacy is achieved, this cohort approach has less resonance for scholars working with their supervisory panels (Miller et al., p. 362). It is as though one is pushed out of the nest to fly on one’s own!
In the Australian context, doctoral candidates primarily work with their supervisory panels from the very beginning and thus isolation can be an ongoing struggle, especially in smaller doctoral programs with less critical mass. PLNs and cohort models are less likely in the Australian context and so peer support is informally built via networks and in proximity to the candidate.
Our reflections also note the marked difference between our supervisory experience. As such we have explored our contrasting experience of the supervisory process that included supervisors who were located outside our discipline. Our institutional context differed also: one of us studied at a small rural campus and the other at a large campus located in the city. Unsurprisingly, this made a difference in terms of access to informal support on the doorstep. Social media communities emerged towards the end of Lynelle’s candidature and became a significant form of support and was critical because it connected her to a whole host of folks in the PhD Twitter community – creating many connections to others that continue today.
Unpacking feedback
Lynelle: So I had supervision with several people. Each of them gave feedback in a really different way. Some gave minute detailed feedback, others gave positive encouragement, “That’s awesome, keep going!” but with little detail. So I did not always know what else I should be looking at.
Haidee: I kind of felt like the feedback stretched me. My supervisors gave feedback that the examiner might give you, you know, they’re kind of saying “I’ve got your back”. I often say this to my Honours students and I’ll be saying it to my PhD student as well.
For doctoral researchers, feedback is a key dimension of learning and development. Often oversimplified, Chugh et al, however, acknowledge that it is a “complex sociocultural construct” that draws on “various modalities over the lifespan of a research candidature” (p. 683). There are definite tensions between its complexity and inherent value to student learning. Discussing our experience of feedback, we reflected on the different types of feedback we received – and needed – at different stages of our candidature. We are aware of the challenges associated with this process, which we see as supporting and enabling the learning process. While we affirm that doctoral supervision is a feedback-driven process, we are aware that it remains challenging for doctoral students and supervisors alike (Chugh et al., 2022). Despite this, we have reflected on the feedback we received: both the timing and process. As supervisors now, we think it is important to be conscious of how the student is receiving the feedback and the timing of the feedback provided and whether it is ongoing, formative, or, as part of the milestone process. Likewise, there are diverse ways of providing feedback: written, verbal, structured and unstructured, formal and informal. Feedback that assists, is feedback that has resonated with the student where they are in their process or journey. We suggest that this resonance makes it more likely that the student will see feedback in the spirit of sharing expertise, in the form of time and care from the supervisory team. For social work as a profession, it is important for us to explore how to incorporate feedback literacy (Nieminen & Carless, 2023) for both sides of this important relationship.
Conclusion
Like all good dialogical processes, when we started to reflect on our own doctoral experiences, we did not anticipate experiences that aligned with similar themes. We wondered if others had taken the time to have similar conversations. Where are the spaces for sharing with peers such an important transition? How might we share our insights with those we supervise and support on their doctoral journey? We would like to pose the question to others: How does your experience inform your supervision practice and pedagogy?
References
Chugh, R., Macht, S., & Harreveld, B. (2022). Supervisory feedback to postgraduate research students: a literature review. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 47(5), 683-697. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1955241
Halse, C. (2011). ‘Becoming a supervisor’: the impact of doctoral supervision on supervisors’ learning. Studies in Higher Education, 36(5), 557-570. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.594593
Gandy-Guedes, M. E., Vance, M. M., Bridgewater, E. A., Montgomery, T., & Taylor, K. (2016). Using Facebook as a tool for informal peer support: a case example. Social Work Education, 35(3), 323-332. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2016.1154937
Gilmore, S., & Kenny, K. (2015). Work-worlds colliding: Self-reflexivity, power and emotion in organizational ethnography. Human Relations, 68(1), 55-78. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726714531998
González-Ocampo, G., & Castelló, M. (2019). Supervisors were first students: Analysing supervisors’ perceptions as doctoral students versus doctoral supervisors. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 56(6), 711-725. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1531775
Hodgson, D., & Watts, L. (2016). What Can Moral and Social Intuitionism Offer Ethics Education in Social Work? A Reflective Inquiry. The British Journal of Social Work, 47(1), 181-197. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcw072
Miller, J. J., Duron, J. F., Bosk, E. A., Finno-Velasquez, M., & Abner, K. S. (2016). Peer-Learning Networks in Social Work Doctoral Education: An Interdisciplinary Model. Journal of Social Work Education, 52(3), 360-371. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2016.1174632
Nieminen, J.H., Carless, D. (2023). Feedback literacy: A critical review of an emerging concept. High Education, 85, 1381–1400 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00895-9
Taylor, S. (2023). The changing landscape of doctoral education: A framework for analysis and introduction to the special issue. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 60(5), 606-622. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2237962
Taylor, S., & Wisker, G. (2023). The changing landscape of doctoral education in the UK. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 60(5), 759-774. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2237943
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