Research supervision report tracks disciplinary differences
A new piece of research from the Next Generation Research SuperVision Project (RSVP) digs into the differences in experience of doctoral supervisors in different disciplines, focusing in particular on the different approaches and cultures in STEM compared to doctorates in the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS).
The wider RSVP programme – funded by Research England, and supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Crick Institute – is intending to examine the quality and consistency of supervision and to explore, and challenge, disparities across disciplines.
The new report is based on focus groups involving supervisors, 88 in total, from five universities: Nottingham, York, Coventry, Sheffield Hallam, and King’s College London.
Supervisors in AHSS disciplines stressed that doctoral candidates were expected to be independent from an early stage, in particular given that they were often responsible for proposing and instigating their research projects – the supervisory process was described as relatively hands-off. This also meant that supervisors frequently found themselves supervising projects from “far outside” their areas of expertise, a set of circumstances also driven by the generally smaller size of AHSS departments.
STEM supervisors, on the other hand, noted that the typical model was based around PGRs joining pre-funded projects, which therefore are then largely designed by the supervisors or other senior investigators. This, it was suggested, meant that doctoral student independence was developed more gradually over the research process.
Supervisors in these subject areas were also positive about the concomitant team approach to supervision, and frequent contact with supervisees, though issues around role definition, workload allocation, and intra-team communication remain. AHSS respondents noted the recent shift towards co-supervision approaches, but were clear that the traditional model remained the single supervisor “dyadic” approach – which also resulted in less regular meetings with PGRs.
As doctoral researchers in the arts and humanities were much more likely to be self-funding, supervisors in these disciplines noted challenges around finances – one said that in these cases “we don’t always anticipate or work out the best way to support them.”
The report also examines supervisor attitudes towards different doctorate formats. One participant suggested that a particular type of supervisor expertise was needed to oversee PhDs by retrospective publication, given that they involve “knitting together things that already exist into a coherent whole.” So-called “co-tutelle” arrangements, in which postgraduate research students are enrolled concurrently at two universities – often in different countries – saw a number of comments made about misalignment between institutional policy and culture.
For professional doctorates, on the other hand, one interviewee suggested that DBA programmes in particular can be a “very poor experience” for supervisors as candidates are primarily motivated by the credential itself. This comes alongside a recent report from the UK Council for Graduate Education and University Alliance, which expressed concerns that take-up of professional doctorates was plateauing and that parity with PhDs did not exist in popular perceptions.