Supervision of research students: responding to student expectations

Abstract

This paper is primarily intended to assist individual supervisors of research students to discern their students' expectations and to respond appropriately to these expectations. It is not intended to be prescriptive; issues are canvassed and possible approaches are suggested, but it is assumed that readers will formulate their own responses within their departmental and institutional constraints. The material in this paper is largely derived from my experience as inaugural Dean of the Graduate School at The Australian National University, Canberra (ANU), from 1990 to 1998. It is based mainly on comments made by individual PhD students in 150 confidential "exit interviews" conducted from 1994 to 1998 inclusive, and on matters raised in approximately 100 meetings requested throughout my term by graduate students from a variety of courses.Other activities involved in the role of Dean have also contributed, including regular meetings with the President and Council of the ANU graduate students' association, formal and informal meetings with students and staff from all of the University's Graduate Programs, 8 years as Chair of the University's Graduate Degrees Committee, and participation from 1991 to 1993 in a substantial study of PhD supervision at the ANU funded by the Australian government (ref.1). My views are inevitably influenced by my own experience in supervising research students in nuclear physics from 1961 to 1991, mainly at the ANU. Nevertheless, my Graduate School activities have provided a comprehensive overview of the concerns and expectations of research students from a wide variety of disciplines. I have also profited greatly from reading the now extensive literature on supervision, some of which is listed under "further reading". The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 describes some general approaches to the supervisory task, Section 3 discusses commonly expressed student expectations, Section 4 canvasses possible responses to these expectations, and, by way of epilogue,Section 5 considers some of the privileges and responsibilities inherent in supervising research students. The text includes numerous (anonymous) quotations from individual students. Although these reflect the ANU situation, I am sure that they represent the more or less universal experiences of research students.