dissertation on supervision

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 22 August 2019

The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study

• Leila Bazrafkan 1 ,
• Alireza Yousefy 2 ,
• Mitra Amini 1 &
• Nikoo Yamani 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  19 , Article number:  320 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Supervision is a well-defined interpersonal relationship between the thesis supervisors and their students. The purpose of this study was to identify the patterns which can explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors. We aimed at developing a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

We have conducted a qualitative grounded theory study in 20 universities of medical sciences in Iran since 2017 by using purposive, snowball sampling, and theoretical sampling and enrolled 84 participants. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Based on the encoding approach of Strauss and Corbin (1998), the data underwent open, axial, and selective coding by constant comparative analysis. Then, the core variables were selected, and a model was developed.

We could obtain three themes and seven related subthemes, the central variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the subthemes, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions during expertise process which generated the supervisors’ competence development in research supervision consisted maturation; also, seven subthemes as curious observation, evaluation of the reality, poorly structured rules, lack of time, reflection in action, reflection on action, and interactive accountability emerged which explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors.

Conclusions

As the core variable in the expertise process, accountability must be considered in expertise development program planning and decision- making. In other words, efforts must be made to improve responsibility and responsiveness.

Peer Review reports

Supervision is a well-defined term in the interpersonal relationship between thesis supervisors and students. A supervisor is designated to assist the student’s development in terms of their research project [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Faculty members supervise the students because qualified supervision leads to success on the part of the student, and it has moral, reputational, and financial outcomes for the institution. Supervisors are expected to train students to gain competence in areas such as specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills [ 4 ]. Expertise is derived from the three essential elements of knowledge, experience, and the ability to solve problems in society [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. .According to Dreyfus, acquisition of expertise or practical wisdom represents a higher level of “self-actualization.” At this point, one reaches a level in which they can flourish in their talents and abilities. This enables the teachers to function in scientific communities and multicultural environments [ 7 ].

Wiscer has identified three stages in the thesis supervision process and describes the duties of the supervisors in each of them [ 8 ]. Pearson and Brew state that maturation in specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills are the major areas that need to be promoted in the student. Moreover, these are the generic processes in which the supervisors should be involved for efficacious supervision if they aim to help the students develop in various institutional, disciplinary and professional settings; acquire appropriate expertise and features needed for employment; and make an outline of what might form a flexible professional development program for supervisors in this setting [ 3 ]. Vereijken et al. emphasized novice supervisors’ approaches to reach expertise in supervision and explained the relationship between practice and dilemmas among novice supervisors [ 9 ].

.Despite the importance of expertise in higher education and particularly research supervision, research abilities are not considered as one of the priorities in the employment of the academic staff. Furthermore, the newly employed faculty members are often involved in teaching, administrative tasks, and services in health care; this inhibits them from expertise attainment in other aspects such as research supervision [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. In this regard, Malekafzali believes that in the area of research activities, the faculty members have serious weaknesses in defining the problem, choosing the appropriate method for research, analyzing the data, interpreting the results, and publishing scientific articles. Besides, there is a lack of coherent and compiled training programs which can enhance their research capabilities [ 13 ].

One of the most important factors contributing to the thesis and research quality is the process of developing expertise in supervisors’ research supervision. Most studies in our country have focused on research abilities during the research, and fewer studies have focused on the process of expertise acquisition in thesis supervision, and no actual model has been proposed for this [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The quantitative researches could not explain exactly how and through which process the faculty members, as thesis supervisors, become experts in thesis supervision since the expertise process is multi-factorial and has many unknown aspects. Considering the effective role of qualitative research in clarifying ambiguous and unknown aspects, we chose the grounded theory approach for this study [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. This theory will be used when the investigator intends to determine the patterns of actions and social interactions needed for the development of expertise by specific groups of people in a specific setting [ 17 , 18 ].

In this study, we aimed to identify the themes that explain the expertise development process among thesis supervisors in Iran, and also to develop a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

This study was carried out in 20 universities of medical sciences with different ranks in Iran because universities are the places where supervisors and students interact purposefully to discourse the needs of experts on specific occasions and in specific conditions. In these universities, different students study with various disciplines. There are three types of universities in Iran. Type 1 universities are the ones with the most facilities, faculties, research presentations, international collaborations, and scientific outcomes. The second rank belongs to type 2, and the one with the least mentioned qualities is type 3 universities. All three types of universities were included in this study. In all these courses, writing a thesis is one of the requirements with the same role and regulation. The majority of the students in this research project were in the late stages of both undergraduate and postgraduate educational programs within the same function and regulation.

Study design

We conducted this qualitative study based on a grounded theory approach in a systematic form [ 17 , 18 ]. Grounded theory is a symbolic interaction which is derived from systematic data collection during the research process. In this strategy, collecting and analyzing data and the theory derived from the data have a close association [ 17 , 19 ]. The investigator’s purpose in using grounded theory is to describe and clarify a phenomenon in the social condition and to identify the essential processes working within [ 17 ].

Participants

In this study, 84 subjects including 56 faculty members of medical sciences, 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students (medical students, MS of Science, Ph.D. and residents), and eight managers in the field of research supervision participated. Using purposive sampling, snowball sampling with maximum variation, we selected the participants from a variety of academic ranks with different work experiences, as the key informants in thesis supervisors. Then, to continue the sampling, we used theoretical sampling and data saturation. The inclusion criterion was 5 years of work experience in thesis supervision, and the exclusion criterion was the unwillingness to participate in the study. Firstly, we collected data in Shiraz University with the help of a research supervisor who is known for his high quality of supervision and then data gathering was initiated in the university of Isfahan. There were 34 key informants from the two universities and 22 individuals from other universities. Students were selected based on their willingness to participate.

Theoretical sampling was used next to develop the tentative theory. The basis for theoretical sampling was the queries that emerged during data analysis. At this stage, the researcher interviewed the supervisor, administrators, and students. Theoretical sampling facilitated in verifying the supervisors’ responses and credibility of categories and resulted in more conceptual density. Data saturation was obtained when no new data emerged in the last five interviews. Therefore, data gathering by interviews was terminated.

Data collection

We collected the data primarily by semi-structured interviews from September 2017 to September 2018. The participants were recognized with unknown codes based on their field of work and setting, and each participant was interviewed in one or two sessions. Having obtained the participants’ informed consent, we recorded the interviews and they were transcribed verbatim immediately. The interviews began with open-ended general questions such as, “What did you experience during research supervision?” and then the participants were asked to describe their perceptions regarding their expertise process. Leading questions were also used to deeply explore the conditions, processes, and other factors that participants recognized as significant issues. The interview was based mostly on the questions which came up during the interview. On average, each interview lasted for an hour, during which field notes and memos were taken. At the end of each session, the participants were asked to give an opinion on other important topics which did not come up during the interview, followed by data collection and analysis which are simultaneously done in grounded theory; analytic thought and queries that arose from one interview were carried to the next one [ 20 ].

The data were also collected by unstructured observations of the educational atmosphere in the laboratory, and the faculty member and students’ counseling offices. These observations lasted 5 weeks, during which the faculties and students’ interactions and the manner of supervision were closely monitored. The observation was arranged to sample the maximum variety of research supervisor activity for some faculty member who is known to be a good or poor supervisor and detailed organized field notes were kept.

Also, we used the field notes to reflect emergent analytic concepts as a source of three angulations of data, frequently reconsidering the data, and referring to field notes in the context of each participant’s explanation. Analysis of the field notes facilitated in shaping contextual conditions and clarifying variations in the supervisors’ responses in each context. This led to the arrangement of several assumptions in the effect of contexts.

Data analysis

We simultaneously performed data collection and analysis. We read the scripts carefully several times and then entered them into MAXQDA (version10). We collected and analyzed the data practically and simultaneously by using a constant comparative method. Data were analyzed based on the 3-stage coding approach, including open, axial, and selective coding by Strauss and Corbin In the open coding stage, we extracted the basic concepts or meaning units from the gathered information. Then, more general concepts were formed by grouping similar concepts into one theme. The themes became clearer throughout the interviews. Then, the constructs of them were compared with each other to form tentative categories. After that, we conducted axial coding by using the guidelines given in Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) Paradigm Model [ 21 ]. The extracted themes (codes) in the previous (open coding) stage were summarized in 3 main themes during the axial coding stage, and then the core variables were selected in the selective coding stage [ 20 ]. To generate a reasonable theory to the community, a grounded theorist needs to condense the studied happenings a the precise sequence. To check the data against categories, the researcher asks questions related to certain categories and returns to the data to seek evidence. After developing a theory, the researcher is required to confirm the theory by comparing it with existing theories found in the recently available research [ 21 ]. We finalized the model after 5 days; during this time, we explained the relations between subcategories and the core category for realizing theoretical saturation and clarifying the theoretical power of the analysis explained about work as narration.

In terms of accuracy improvement, we used the Lincoln and Guba’s criteria, including credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability [ 22 , 23 ].

To increase credibility, we collected data from different universities in Iran, and their credibility was also confirmed by three reviewers and experts in qualitative research. Also, some of the participants rechecked the data and the investigators’ description and interpretation of their experiences carefully. Prolonged engagement and tenacious observation facilitated the data credibility. In this way, the process of data collection and analysis took 12 months. Data triangulation and method triangulation also confirmed credibility [ 20 ]. The use of the maximum variation sampling method contributed to the dependability and conformability of data. Furthermore, once the explanation of the phenomenon was full, it was returned for confirmation to 3 participants of each university, and they validated the descriptions. Finally, to attain transferability, we adequately described the data in this article, so that a judgment of transferability can be made by readers.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (92–6746). The participants were informed about the research aim and interviews. Informed consent for conducting and recording the interview was obtained. The confidentiality of the participants’ information was maintained throughout the study.

In this study, the mean age of the faculty members and students was 44.34 ± 14.60 and 28.54 ± 2.38 years, respectively. All the faculty members and most of the students were married. Only three students were single. Three themes and seven interrelated sub-themes emerged from the data (Table  1 ). The main variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the categories, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions of the expertise process are displayed in a model (Fig.  1 ).

The process of expertise attainment in research supervisor model

Theme 1: engagement

In this theme, the initial phase of expertise, the supervisor starts to observe the others’ behavior in the students’ supervision and guidance based on the practical and cognitive skills previously acquired. They attempt to recognize the different needs based on the amount of their motivation and previous competence so that the models become important for them, and they recognize the scope of the needs based on their importance. Then, they try to understand the needs and values of real thesis supervision in this context. In this theme, two sub-themes, curious observation, and evaluation with reality emerged.

Curious observation

In this sub-theme, several concepts such as personal interest, self-awareness, ability to meet the students’ needs, ability to detect weaknesses in research skills, and observation of role models in this area act as the impellent factors in expertise attainment in research supervision.

Regarding personal interest, a successful faculty member in the area of research supervision said:

“…In my experience, faculties must be selected from those who have curious personalities as well as being good observers, first of all. In this way, they will have the appropriate intrinsic character to acquire knowledge in guidance and supervision)…” (Faculty member N0.3)

According to our participants, the most important intrinsic motivation is the desire to update the content knowledge and skills in research supervision. An experienced professor said:

“ … The knowledge gap between the new and old generations of faculty members is what forced me to update my knowledge...and it has been detected by myself…” (Faculty member N0.3).

Another important intrinsic motivation is the ability to meet the educational and research needs of students. However, usually these needs are combined; one of the faculty members put it:

“…I would like to be an expert in this process (thesis supervision) to meet my students’ needs. Because I have seen and felt this need many times before…” (Faculty member N0.12).

Since the publication of research directly affects the promotion of a faculty, some professors seek skills that are practical in article publication such as several statistical and basic skills for thesis writing. The participants considered the self-awareness and consciousness elements as very important. Through consciousness, one can better understand their needs.

Evaluation with reality

In this sub-theme, in the initial phase maintaining academic dignity and competition motivates the faculty members to obtain expertise in research supervision. At this point, the supervisor evaluates themself and their potentialities considering more precise features and acquired information (or data), so that they can find the distance between the optimal state and the existing conditions. They also evaluate the others’ potentialities in this field realistically and compete. Good supervision is then highlighted for them. Based on the supervisors’ experience, at this stage, they are seriously engaged in evaluation and competition.

Another motivation was obtaining academic and social promotion. Although the number of theses supervised by them can affect the academic promotion of supervisors, this effect is insignificant. The real motivation is maintaining academic dignity and competition amongst peers. A member of the clinical faculties stated:

“ … To enhance academic dignity, a faculty member should master various skills such as patient care, teaching, educational skills, and last but not least, research supervision. I got involved in research and thesis supervision because I felt I should not be left behind…” ( Faculty member N0.17).

At this stage, the junior supervisor tries to increase the cognitive knowledge in research supervision such as increasing specific knowledge of the discipline, planning, directing of a project effectively, and developing good interpersonal skills presented in research supervision.

Theme 2: supervision climate

In this theme, we describe the contextual factor which changes the process of expertise attainment in thesis supervisors. The result of the study reflects some concerns about the relationship between individuals in the context in that they interact purposefully but with barriers. The supervision climate in the thesis supervision process in this theme led to the emergence of two sub-themes, challenging shortcomings and role ambiguity. These challenges include poorly structured rules and regulations which, in turn, can cause confusion and role ambiguity.

Challenging shortcomings

This report shows that contextual factor plays a significant role in promoting the quality of a thesis in a university, but the process is faced with altered challenges such as inadequate resources, inadequate time, and ineffective evaluation and rule and regulation deficit. These challenges include the following. Most faculty members and students have experienced these shortcomings.

Various inadequate resources, such as access to new and online journals, laboratory equipment were one of the challenges for supervisors in certain aspects which required more competency, and the constraints on communication with the other academic centers worldwide undermine the sense of competition and hinder the effort put in to become an expert. One of the students said: “… I see how difficult it is to gain access to a good article or laboratory materials in this situation …we try, but it just isn’t possible...” (Faculty member N0.17).

Based on our results, the sudden changes in personal life, work position, and organizational change can affect the path to expertise. These changes such as marriage, work overload, admission of students over the capacity, new rules and regulation of scholar citizenship, promotion and so on can have both positive and negative impacts, depending on whether they facilitate or restrict the professional development of faculties as supervisors. For instance, an increase in student admission causes work overload, which results in neglecting self-improvement.

“…As you know, we are over- loaded with students (they have increased the number of admissions), which is beyond our capacity. This means that most of our time will be dedicated to teaching. Self-improvement is difficult due to lack of time…” (Faculty member N0.6).

Role ambiguity

Poorly structured supervision can occur where there is an ambiguous context of supervision structure, supervisors and students’ roles. Most participants, as faculty members, managers, and students have experienced some difficulties in this regard, due to poorly structured rules(EDITORS NOTE; do you mean ‘rules and regulations ‘here) and regulations and its impact on the thesis supervision. It is not only the rules themselves but also the way they are implemented. One of the faculty members expressed confusion over the rules related to the dissertation as follows:

“…It should be made clear what I must do exactly. It is obvious regarding supervision on the work of students; there are not the same expectations from an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and a professor. Most problems occur as a result of the gap in legislation; For example, the rules imply a full Professor does not need a statistical consult, while many supervisors like me do not have enough knowledge and skills in statistical analysis...” (Faculty member N0.1).

Failure to implement the rules also increases the sense of this ambiguity, and there are no specific rules for verifying capability and audits to determine inadequate experts in thesis supervision. The role ambiguity or unclear roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and student in the thesis process were other limitations that were emphasized by the majority of participants. A faculty member stated:

“… Supervisors have different roles during the thesis process. To enhance this process, one must exactly know one’s responsibilities. For instance, in the beginning, the supervisor should guide the students through the process of finding a suitable research topic, but if the teacher's role is unclear, then instead of guiding they may actually choose the topic, and if so, the students will be prevented from exploring, using their creative thinking, and improving their problem-solving abilities…” (Faculty member N0.1).

Various performance

Based on the participants’ experiences, in this situation in which there are inadequate resources and organizational and social problems, some faculty members are well-trained in the field of supervision. One of the senior faculty members said: “It is my honor to mention that despite the existence of many obstacles, I have been able to train well-educated students, who have become researchers and contribute to the development of science in my country.”

One of the most important causes of poor performance is ineffective evaluation. Based on the participants experiences, two main problems can result in ineffective evaluation. First of all is the inadequate feedback from the supervisor which leads to unmotivated learners and the second one is lack of feedback from the stakeholders and educational institutes which in turn diminishes the supervisor’s efforts toward self-improvement. These can lead to poor performance both in students and supervisors.

In one of the Ph.D. student’s words:

“…In this system, there is no supervision on the supervisors; there is no control or evaluation of their work. Also, the supervisors don't get feedback from their students during the research process, and there is no third person who investigates whether the report is real or not…” (student N0. 7).

Evidence from data suggests that an unfair judgment and evaluation of academic theses are other problems in the process of acquiring the merit of teachers. If there isn’t proper evaluation, students and supervisors would not have the right standards to correct their performance.

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student had experienced:

“…I was so thrilled that my thesis supervisor was an experienced, older and well-known professor, but unfortunately, I soon found out that not only was his scientific knowledge outdated, but also he lacked the necessary supervision skills, so he let the students do all the work unsupervised. He did not take any responsibility during the process…” (Student N0.4).

Another point which leads to poor performance is the fact that some faculty members do not comprehend the main purpose of the thesis writing process; actually, they do not know the difference between teaching and guiding in the project or thesis supervision. One of the basic science supervisors said: “… Some faculties consider a thesis as research work and not a lesson in which research methodology should be taught...” (Faculty member N0.5).

Performing poorly along with ignoring professional ethics can also lead to increased tension and stress in student-teacher relationships. This can result in despondency and frustration in both students and teachers and create a vicious cycle of inefficient supervisors who will train inefficient students or future supervisors.

One of the students put it this way:

“...I feel the absence of a supervisor in my research; I would have been more successful, and my results would have been better if I had had more guidance.” (Student N0.6).

Theme 3: maturation

In this theme, the secondary phase of expertise, the individual is emotionally involved and feels that success or failure is important. This is a stage in which the learner needs an integrated schedule to be competent, and as a result, success or failure will follow. The supervisors frequently think about personal promotion and takes action in this way. They try out different approaches, and sometimes due to disappointment and embarrassment they fail. Some individuals quit at this stage and never reach competence, or they have what may be called an artificial competence. And this does not mean that they are not considered to be well-known supervisors; rather, they know, as do the students, that they are not competent. At this stage, the supervisor attempts to acquire the identity of a researcher and tries to enhance his availability, and be dutiful, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic in research supervision. Along the lines of this theme, three sub-themes of Reflection in action, Reflection on action, and Interactive accountability emerged.

Reflection in action

In this sub-theme, the patterns of expertise development begin, and self-directed learning, participatory teaching and learning strategies through a hidden curriculum are considered. At this stage, the supervisor tries to follow self-directed learning, and the amount of time allocated to expertise acquirement seems to be one of the most important factors. In this regard, one stated:

“…My success in this case (research supervision) is, first of all, due to self-evaluation and self-effort. For instance, to be in control and take full responsibility, I think about everything related to the guidance of the students, and I felt the need to master every aspect of research, even the statistical skills needed for analysis…” (Faculty member N0.8).

The supervisors’ activities were divided into two groups: self-directed –learning strategy and gaining experience through individual effort. Expertise requires continuous interaction and experience. They evaluate their learning, and by this, they experience the manner of managing and allocating time for effective supervision. According to participants, the amount of time allocation for expertise seems to be one of the most important factors for self-directed learning and expertise acquirement.

The formal training workshops provided an opportunity for supervisors with similar terms and the same problems in terms of learning experiences, environmental features, students, and educational problems to come together in one place. Participants also considered the formal participatory teaching necessary since it can provide an opportunity for the peers to get together and exchange their experiences. As a clinical faculty member put it:

“…Collaborative strategies can be beneficial in many ways. One of them is the facilitation of experience exchanges amongst teachers, peers, and colleagues and modeling the behavior of teachers and teaching workshops that emphasize the importance of their expertise in research supervision…” (Faculty member N0.1).

In our participants’ experience, this self-directed learning is effective if, and only if, it is done accompanied by proper training and participatory teaching. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. As an example, one of the students in this field said:

“…my supervisor was a great teacher and put in a lot of time and effort on my thesis supervision; however, due to his lack of research skills, I had to change my thesis proposal three times. However, after he participated in a training course at the University of Oxford, his progress was unbelievable and impressive…and I saw his expertise…” (Student N0.11).

One of the faculty members also quoted:

“…When the teachers feel a gap in their knowledge or skill, the university must provide a comfortable, appropriate, and easy way for learning them …” (Faculty member N0.10).

Regarding this subject, one of the Managers in this field stated:

“…Another improvement strategy is the use of interpersonal interactions among faculty members, these instructive interpersonal interactions among the faculty members in similar conditions make it possible to benefit from peers’ feedback …” (Manager N0.1).

A hidden curriculum strategy, like learning through trial and error can also affect the expertise process. One of the professors expressed:

“… Learning through trial and error is very effective; through the supervision of each thesis, we learn some of our mistakes and try not to remake them in the next one …” (Faculty member N0.3).

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student’s experience:

Reflection on action

The learner provides an integrated schedule for their competence and uses all the facilitators and facilities around them for further efficiency and promotion. This stage is named Conditional Self-efficacy by expertise experience. At this stage, the supervisor is considered a competent individual who can guide the students based on the experiences of specialized and non-specialized faculty members.

In this regard, one of the students said:

“…I can acknowledge that my supervisor functioned very impressively in this thesis, but guidance and supervision are not static; rather, it is an active process. To be a good supervisor, the faculty members should try to keep up to date and revise their attitudes, duties, and their specialty and knowledge. …” (Student N0.3).

According to the participants, at this stage the supervisors have achieved meta-competence and general characteristics or professional value; are able to guide the students and others; and develop characteristics such as acquiring specific knowledge of the discipline, especially well-organized knowledge, planning, directing of a project effectively, having good interpersonal skills, and being dutiful, knowledgeable and enthusiastic in research.

One of the PhD students states: “… My supervisor is typical of an expert. His ingenious inquiries, extraordinary attention to science and his personality have always been admired and he has been a role model for me…” (Student N0.6).

For example, the supervisors attend educational programs on scientific writing and thesis evaluation as well as ethics in research and apply them in team work. Gradually, their competency can enable them to function as a good supervisor for their students. At this stage, the supervisor develops so that they can respond due to discovery and intuition. These responses replace their dubious and unskilled reactions. The supervisor now reflects various stages of supervision and guidance. They take action, and in fact, a part of their reactions are achieved through observation and recognition. In this stage, they not only recognize what should be done but also distinguish how to achieve it with more precise discretion. A competent person does the appropriate task in the most appropriate time using the right platform.

The time period required for training or acquiring expertise varies from one person to another. Some individuals become experts very soon, whilst it takes others longer.. As one of the professors said:

“…In the beginning, I was too concerned with my responsibility as a thesis supervisor and was not sure what I should do. However, after ten years of experience, I have gained a sense of awareness which makes supervision easier for me. Of course, up to date knowledge and skill as to managing a thesis are always necessary. It took me about 12 years to reach where I am today. Furthermore, an individual who is expert at present, will not be so in two years, so I want to say that the expertise in thesis supervision in a continuum, which depends on the supervisor’s reflections on work and activity …” (Faculty member N0.15).

The continuous path of expertise in supervision can be affected by various factors. This has resulted in a range of expertise and performance in supervisors. This range and continuum is a theme that most of our participants agreed with. One of the managers revealed:

“…There is surely a continuum of expertise. We cannot deny the expert supervisors; however, the existence of those with poor supervising skills must also be acknowledged (in thesis supervision). There are those on whose ethics, honesty, and knowledge we can rely on. On the other hand, there are a few who are not as trustworthy as needed.” (Manager N0.1).

The core variable: interactive accountability

As shown in Fig. 1 , through this survey, we found that the core variable in thesis supervision process is the interactive accountability shaped by interactions of supervisors and students in an academic setting, so to enhance the accountability, each group must take responsibility and do his or her job. In this regard, one of the managers claimed:

“…When supervisors find themselves responsible, and the university officials recognize this responsibility, the supervisors are motivated to seek expertise and try to enhance their competencies and acquire learning strategies because of being accountable…” (Manager N0.2)

This means that teachers must be responsive to the needs of students, university and community. Accountability is a mutual interaction between the students and their supervisor, in other words, if the student is responsive to his duties, he creates motivation in his supervisor. One of the participants commented;

“…I've always tried to be a competent thesis supervisor, so that I have the ability to meet the needs of the community and university as well as students. I say to myself when I accept the supervision of a thesis, I should be well accountable for its results…” (Faculty member N0.32)

This study aimed at exploring the processes of expertise among thesis supervisors based on the experience of faculty members, students, and managers of Iranian universities of medical sciences. The section concludes with an explanation of how these themes are a cohesive relationship, which enables the expertise development of supervisors. It seems that the core variable in the expertise process is the concept of interactive accountability and efforts to acquire the capacity to respond to the students and academic needs. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. The importance of accountability and various types of ability in thesis supervision has also been emphasized by other studies [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. It was also mentioned as the major feature of the supervisor in other studies [ 26 , 27 ].

In this study, “accountability” emerged as the behavioral pattern through which the supervisors resolved their main concern of being an expert in being responsive to academic and students’ needs. Supervision training is complex since academic choices in the real world can depend on supervisor characteristics. The results of this study revealed that in the initial phase of supervision, observation, evaluation, and reflection in action and maturation stage in the secondary phase were the major themes that emerged. This result compared with Bandura’s social learning and self-efficacy theory was significant in similarity and difference. Bandura believes that achieving self-efficacy is one of the most important contributors to competence. In his model, he suggested four sources of self-efficacy, including previous accomplishments, vicarious experiences such as having a role model, verbal persuasion such as coaching and evaluative feedback, and emotional arousal [ 28 , 29 ]. Likewise, in this study, we found that the emotional arousals such as personal interest in cooperative learning, peer competition, meeting the needs of students, self-awareness and the need for upgrading are the significant factors for the faculties’ expertise. Also, our participants found that the utilization of previous experiences is the most effective method of achieving personal competence. However, this study indicates conditional expertise, which means if an expert’s information is not up to date and they do not make any effort in this regard, being an expert and having expertise is not a permanent condition.

This study also revealed that self-effort, workshops, and role models, as part of a hidden curriculum, are influential methods of teacher empowerment which agrees with the results of some studies such as those of Britzman et al. and Patel et al. Patel et al. have also suggested the importance of role modeling; they believe that modeling and observing other faculty members behavior is an effective tool for promoting and strengthening the sense of efficacy in learners [ 30 , 31 ].

Based on our study results, among the learning methods used in Iran, the collaborative education and problem-based learning is the widely accepted method which is preferred by most faculties. Therefore, cooperative and collaborative learning strategies can be used in educating the faculty members towards expertise in supervision, as revealed in other studies [ 32 , 33 ].

Lack of time is reported by supervisors to be one of the most common barriers in trying to become an expert and carry out respectable worthy supervision, and taking one’s time is acknowledged as a motivating factor for putting in more effort in thesis supervision [ 34 , 35 , 36 ].

The effect of contextual factors is studied in several surveys [ 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Gillet et al. state that contextual and organizational factors play a key role in the competence of teachers in research supervision [ 36 ]. This study also showed that faculty expertise in thesis supervision was significantly affected by the impact of contextual interventional factors such as sudden changes, structural shortcomings, and educational environment. Based on our and other studies’ results, among the sudden changes, increased workload due to the increase in the student population has greatly affected expertise. Moreover, while an increase in the workload can lead to more experienced faculty members, it is very time-consuming and, therefore, reduces the chance to obtain new information and skills in thesis supervision [ 33 , 37 ].

Similar to our study, other studies such as those of Al-Naggar et al. and Yousefi et al. have also found insufficient monitoring and lack of formative evaluations to be one of the main obstacles in the thesis supervision process. Studies have indicated that to improve the supervision process, careful planning and incentive rules must be applied [ 5 , 34 ]. Similarly, our participants mentioned that rules and regulations which have resulted in the positive effect of research on scholarship and promotion had truly motivated them. Like our study, other studies in Iran have also found that the amount of time allocated to learning is one of the influential factors affecting the faculty members’ expertise [ 13 , 38 ]. A malfunctioning relationship between the student and supervisors can affect both of them negatively; that is, it can compel the students to misbehave and also reduce the teachers’ motivation to develop better skills. This malfunction may be due to the lack of constructive interactions or paternalism leadership in research supervision [ 39 , 40 ]. As shown in Fig. 1 , this study provided a conceptual framework that can be used in policy making and studies of expertise development in research supervision. This framework is based on the perception and experience of the majority of those involved in the thesis process. It also provides teachers with an opportunity to compare and share their experiences.

This model has three fields of experience, which yields a comprehensive gradient of the factors used for the development and progress of thesis supervision quality. In other words, it is a rational structure that makes an effort to cover a comprehensible number of stages, of concept, achievement, and impact or consequence. In other words, this model is a combination of a great number of items that help to recognize the present and future processes of expertise in thesis supervision, and future challenges in this area which predict results and impacts of supervisor’s knowledge, attitude and research supervision. Table one offers the categories and clarifications [ 17 ].

This study is based on our overall model of expertise attainment. This model reveals that specific personal efforts such as observation of prior knowledge, evaluation or self-assessments alongside the university contextual dynamics help to figure out how supervisors select their approaches and engagements, and respond carefully to their task, which in turn impacts the supervisors’ level of expertise and, finally, outcomes such as work and perseverance, which then help them to become an expert. Similar to the social learning theory of Bandura, this model also states that there is a mutual relationship between different parts that can mutually affect one another. For instance, faculty members have shown in various studies how one’s previous academic success and failure can affect the future levels of involvement and motivation. Based on the study aims, we focused on only three of the components of the model: observation, evaluation, and self-efficacy; in terms of motivational processes, we focused on four motivational components. The first is self-efficacy, defined as students’ judgments of supervisor abilities to carry out a task, and their beliefs about their ability to do so show the highest levels of academic achievement and also engagement in academic behaviors promoting learning.

Through the use of this grounded theory, we can begin to understand the supervisors’ challenges and why it may be difficult to become an expert in research supervision in practice. The junior supervisors curiously observe and evaluate their environment by reflection and in action and do their best to attain knowledge and skills in the supervision of the theses, so that they can reach maturation. They are mainly supported by prior knowledge of the research supervision, which they had acquired when they were students. The concept of “interactive accountability” refers to the fact that if the supervisor is responsive to the students’ needs, they can be an expert in supervision. If they cannot overcome the barriers and shortcomings such as lack of time, they will not attain expertise in thesis supervision.

Strengths and limitations of the study

This grounded theory study describes the main dimensions of expertise in research supervision from straight reports of a large qualitative sample ( n  = 84) which consists of thesis supervisors, from all Iranian universities in three different data collection phases. Like other qualitative research, the results of this study cannot be generalized; therefore, it is recommended that the researchers conduct further qualitative research in other contexts to support these findings.

Despite the above limitations, we believe that this model can be useful for supervisors in the thesis supervision area, not only in analyzing the supervisors’ experience of supervision and being an expert but also in recognizing the areas of intervention or development of teacher training.

Implications of the study

The findings of the present study will help administrators to choose the supervisor with definite criteria in medical sciences institutes and facilitate the expertise in the supervision process through elimination of the shortcomings and improvement of the educational climate. The supervisor’s interest, talent, and capabilities should be assessed at the beginning of their employment as academic staff. Supervisors should attend educational workshops for updating their knowledge about supervision. It is recommended that collaborative strategies and methods should be used, so that we can contribute to the process of becoming an expert. The assessment of supervisors’ functioning in supervising and provision of feedback can contribute to the process of expertise. Feedback received from students about their supervisors will improve the supervisor’s further expertise and capabilities. For future studies survey on the impact of successful models in thesis supervision, disclosure analysis studies about student and supervisor are recommended.

In this study, we aimed to find out how thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision. The results of our study indicated that thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision in two stages of engagement and maturation. The emotional need to be responsive towards peers and students is the main motivation for the acquisition of competency at observation and evaluation phase of engagement. Through the evaluation and observation phase, the supervisors reach cognitive competence, such as research skills. Also, in the maturation phases, they reach meta-competence in research supervision such as problem-solving and resolving dilemmas by reflection in and when exposed to dilemmas. Meanwhile, the effects of supervision climate include shortcomings and role ambiguities which should be taken into account. According to this model, when supervisors are exposed to such problems, they apply multiple strategies, such as self-directed and collaborative learning; and learning by trial and error and from the role models. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. This study indicated that interactive accountability, as the core variable, can be guaranteed in thesis supervisors by making the role clear, creating a supportive context, and improving the academic competencies of staff in an ongoing fashion. Therefore, this can promote constructive expertise in supervisors and foster a deeper understanding of the supervisor’s expertise in thesis supervision.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets produced and analyzed during the present study are not publicly accessible due to participant confidentiality, but are obtainable from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

The researchers would like to thank all research participants of Medical Sciences Universities (faculty, student, and managers) who contributed to the study. The authors would also like to thank the Education Development Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for cooperation in this study and special thanks to Professor Shokrpoour for her editing.

The present article was extracted from the thesis written by Leila Bazrafkan. The design and implementation of the project was financially supported by Esfahan University of Medical Sciences (Grant No. 92–6746).

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LB developed the study design, conducted the interviews and analysis, ensured trustworthiness, and drafted the manuscript. AY, as the supervisor participated in the study design, supervised the codes and data analysis process, and revised the manuscripts. NY as research advisor participated in the study and provided guidance during the study and MA revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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LB is an assistant professor of medical education in Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

AY is Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan

MA is Professor of Medical Education in the Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

NY Associate Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

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Correspondence to Nikoo Yamani .

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This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (92–6746). The participants were justified about the research aim and interviews. Informed consent for conducting and recording the interview was obtained. The confidentiality of the participants’ information was maintained throughout the study.

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Bazrafkan, L., Yousefy, A., Amini, M. et al. The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study. BMC Med Educ 19 , 320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1739-z

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Research and project supervision (all levels): an introduction  

Supervising projects, dissertations and research at UCL from undergraduate to PhD.

1 August 2019

Many academics say supervision is one of their favourite, most challenging and most fulfilling parts of their job.

Supervision can play a vital role in enabling students to fulfil their potential. Helping a student to become an independent researcher is a significant achievement – and can enhance your own teaching and research.

Supervision is also a critical element in achieving UCL’s strategic aim of integrating research and education. As a research-intensive university, we want all students, not just those working towards a PhD, to engage in research.

Successful research needs good supervision.

This guide provides guidance and recommendations on supervising students in their research. It offers general principles and tips for those new to supervision, at PhD, Master’s or undergraduate level and directs you to further support available at UCL.

What supervision means

Typically, a supervisor acts as a guide, mentor, source of information and facilitator to the student as they progress through a research project.

Every supervision will be unique. It will vary depending on the circumstances of the student, the research they plan to do, and the relationship between you and the student. You will have to deal with a range of situations using a sensitive and informed approach.

As a supervisor at UCL, you’ll help create an intellectually challenging and fulfilling learning experience for your students.

This could include helping students to:

• formulate their research project and question
• decide what methods of research to use
• become familiar with the wider research community in their chosen field
• evaluate the results of their research
• ensure their work meets the necessary standards expected by UCL
• keep to deadlines
• use feedback to enhance their work
• overcome any problems they might have
• present their work to other students, academics or interested parties
• prepare for the next steps in their career or further study.

At UCL, doctoral students always have at least two supervisors. Some faculties and departments operate a model of thesis committees, which can include people from industry, as well as UCL staff.

Rules and regulations

Phd supervision.

The supervision of doctoral students’ research is governed by regulation. This means that there are some things you must – and must not – do when supervising a PhD.  

• All the essential information is found in the UCL Code of Practice for Research Degrees .
• Full regulations in the UCL Academic Manual .  

All staff must complete the online course Introduction to Research Supervision at UCL  before beginning doctoral supervision.

Undergraduate and Masters supervision

There are also regulations around Master’s and undergraduate dissertations and projects. Check with the Programme Lead, your Department Graduate Tutor or Departmental Administrator for the latest regulations related to student supervision.

You should attend other training around research supervision. 

• Supervision training available through UCL Arena .

Doctoral (PhD) supervision: introducing your student to the university

For most doctoral students, you will often be their main point of contact at UCL and as such you are responsible for inducting them into the department and wider community.

Check that your student:

• knows their way around the department and about the facilities available to them locally (desk space, common room, support staff)
• has attended the Doctoral School induction and has received all relevant documents (including the Handbook and code of practice for graduate research degrees )
• has attended any departmental or faculty inductions and has a copy of the departmental handbook.

Make sure your student is aware of:

• key central services such as: Student Support and Wellbeing , UCL Students' Union (UCLU) and Careers
• opportunities to broaden their skills through UCL’s Doctoral Skills Development Programme
• the wider disciplinary culture, including relevant networks, websites and mailing lists.

The UCL Good Supervision Guide  (for PhD supervisors)

Establishing an effective relationship

The first few meetings you have with your student are critical and can help to set the tone for the whole supervisory experience for you and your student.

An early discussion about both of your expectations is essential:

• Find out your student’s motivations for undertaking the project, their aspirations, academic background and any personal matters they feel might be relevant.
• Discuss any gaps in their preparation and consider their individual training needs.
• Be clear about who will arrange meetings, how often you’ll meet, how quickly you’ll respond when the student contacts you, what kind of feedback they’ll get, and the norms and standards expected for academic writing.
• Set agendas and coordinate any follow-up actions. Minute meetings, perhaps taking it in turns with your student.
• For PhD students, hold a meeting with your student’s other supervisor(s) to clarify your expectations, roles, frequency of meetings and approaches.

Styles of supervision

Supervisory styles are often conceptualized on a spectrum from laissez-faire to more contractual or from managerial to supportive. Every supervisor will adopt different approaches to supervision depending on their own preferences, the individual relationship and the stage the student is at in the project.

Be aware of the positive and negative aspects of different approaches and styles.

Reflect on your personal style and what has prompted this – it may be that you are adopting the style of your own supervisor, or wanting to take a certain approach because it is the way that it would work for you.

No one style fits every situation: approaches change and adapt to accommodate the student and the stage of the project.

However, to ensure a smooth and effective supervision process, it is important to align your expectations from the very beginning. Discuss expectations in an early meeting and re-visit them periodically.

Checking the student’s progress

Make sure you help your student break down the work into manageable chunks, agreeing deadlines and asking them to show you work regularly.

Give your student helpful and constructive feedback on the work they submit (see the various assessment and feedback toolkits on the Teaching & Learning Portal ).

Check they are getting the relevant ethical clearance for research and/or risk assessments.

Ask your student for evidence that they are building a wider awareness of the research field.

Encourage your student to meet other research students and read each other’s work or present to each other.

Encourage your student to write early and often.

Checking your own performance

Regularly review progress with your student and any co-supervisors. Discuss any problems you might be having, and whether you need to revise the roles and expectations you agreed at the start.  

Make sure you know what students in your department are feeding back to the Student Partnership Committee or in surveys, such as the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) . 

Responsibility for the student’s research project does not rest solely on you. If you need help, talk to someone more experienced in your department. Whatever the problem is you’re having, the chances are that someone will have experienced it before and will be able to advise you.

Continuing students can often provide the most effective form of support to new students. Supervisors and departments can foster this, for example through organising mentoring, coffee mornings or writing groups.

Be aware that supervision is about helping students carry out independent research – not necessarily about preparing them for a career in academia. In fact, very few PhD students go on to be academics.

Make sure you support your student’s personal and professional development, whatever direction this might take.

Every research supervision can be different – and equally rewarding.

Where to find help and support

• Research supervision web pages from the UCL Arena Centre, including details of the compulsory Research Supervision online course. 
• Appropriate Forms of Supervision Guide from the UCL Academic Manual
• the PhD diaries
• Good Supervision videos  (Requires UCL login)
• The UCL Doctoral School
• Handbook and code of practice for graduate research degrees
• Doctoral Skills Development programme
• Student skills support (including academic writing)
• Student Support and Wellbeing
• UCL Students' Union (UCLU)  
• UCL Careers

External resources

• Vitae: supervising a doctorate
• UK Council for Graduate Education
• Higher Education Academy – supervising international students (pdf)
• Becoming a Successful Early Career Researcher , Adrian Eley, Jerry Wellington, Stephanie Pitts and Catherine Biggs (Routledge, 2012) - book available on Amazon

This guide has been produced by UCL Arena . You are welcome to use this guide if you are from another educational facility, but you must credit UCL Arena. 

Further information

More teaching toolkits  - back to the toolkits menu

Research supervision at UCL

Connected Curriculum: a framework for research-based education

The Laidlaw research and leadership programme (for undergraduates)

[email protected] : contact the UCL Arena Centre 

Download a printable copy of this guide  

Case studies : browse related stories from UCL staff and students.

Sign up to the monthly UCL education e-newsletter  to get the latest teaching news, events & resources.  

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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Students' experiences of undergraduate dissertation supervision.

• School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

Increasingly, students completing undergraduate dissertations in Australia are expected by their supervisors to produce publishable research. Despite this, limited resources are available for supervisors of undergraduate dissertation students on how best to supervise students toward this aim. Building on our previous research on the perspectives of supervisors and dissertation coordinators of what constitutes good undergraduate dissertation supervision, we present here the findings on student perspectives of good supervision. Twenty-five students (seventeen students who were currently completing an undergraduate dissertation and eight who had recently completed an undergraduate dissertation) were interviewed about their experiences in being supervised. A critical incident methodology was used to invite students to reflect on times when supervision had gone well, and times when it had not. Interviews were recorded and transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Key themes to emerge were that students viewed “good” supervisors as those that were supportive and empowering, directed learning, and whose style and interests aligned with those of the students. Challenges in supervision related to lack of clarity and inconsistencies, perceived power imbalances between students and supervisors, and perceived inequities in the amount of supervision provided across students. Whilst the publication of undergraduate research is a worthy aim, the pressure to publish for some students resulted in feelings of inadequacy and perceptions of supervisors losing interest when findings were not deemed publishable.

Introduction

Undergraduate dissertations are capstone experiences that provide students with an opportunity to answer a research question within a disciplinary framework under supervision ( Ashwin et al., 2017 ). They form an essential component of many undergraduate degrees, provide a transition between course work and independent research, and may result in publishable research. Publication of findings can benefit both student and supervisor in the “publish or perish” culture of neoliberal universities ( Besley and Peters, 2009 ) which function on a market-driven corporate governance model ( Enright et al., 2017 ). However, this drive to publish also potentially positions students as research assistants completing research tasks proscribed by the supervisor to further their own research rather than learners developing independence in designing and conducting research ( Kiley et al., 2011 ). Despite these tensions, limited research has examined supervisory practices or the experiences of undergraduate dissertation students. The plethora of research on doctoral students (see Bastalich, 2017 for a review) cannot be readily applied to undergraduate dissertation students as undergraduate students have no or limited previous independent research experience ( Cook, 1980 ), may have lower interest in conducting research ( Cook, 1980 ) and need to complete their research in a shorter timeframe ( Rowley and Slack, 2004 ).

Research conducted with supervisors of undergraduate dissertation students indicates that supervisors perceive they contribute to good supervision through providing directed and clear advice, supporting and instilling confidence in students and fostering student independence and growth ( Roberts and Seaman, 2018 ). However, in this and previous studies examining supervisors' perspectives (e.g., Todd et al., 2006 ; Wiggins et al., 2016 ), the paucity of training and resource materials available for supervisors of dissertations at this level has been noted.

Previous research with students indicates that while they valued the increased autonomy, support of supervisors, and authenticity of completing an undergraduate dissertation, they faced uncertainty and challenges in collecting data and managing time ( Todd et al., 2004 ). A recent quantitative exploration of students' experiences of undergraduate dissertation supervision ( Vera and Briones, 2015 ) suggests that upwards of a third of students may not be satisfied with the supervision they receive. In the research presented here we further explore students' perceptions of undergraduate dissertation supervision.

The current research is situated in a large university that is repositioning as a research-intensive university within the Australian higher education sector, where government financial assistance to universities increases with research output ( Heffernan, 2017 ). Reflecting the increasing emphasis on research outputs, the format of honors dissertations in some disciplines has changed from a traditional dissertation to a journal article format 1 , a strategy intended to increase the number of publications resulting from honors research projects.

Participants

Twenty-five students from health science disciplines (including psychology and speech pathology) within one Australian university were interviewed for this research. At the time of the interview, 17 students were currently completing an undergraduate dissertation and eight had recently completed an undergraduate dissertation (five within the last year; not all within the same university) and were now enrolled in a masters or PhD program. Seventeen students discussed their experiences in undertaking an honors dissertation (ten current and 6 completed), while 8 students discussed completing an undergraduate dissertation in the pass stream (non-honors) of a program (7 current and 1 completed). The majority of students (56%) were aged between 20 and 29 years, and all but three of the honors students were female.

Students experienced a range of supervisory arrangements. Honors students received individual supervision (although for some this occurred in a group setting) while pass stream students worked together in groups and received group supervision. Six of the female students had one female supervisor, five had one male supervisor, and ten had two supervisors (six had two female supervisors, 1 had two male supervisor and three had one female and one male supervisor). One male student had a female supervisor and two had male supervisors. Supervision arrangements changed for some students over time with supervisors leaving or being added, or in one case being replaced altogether.

A semi-structured interview guide was developed based on critical incident methodology ( Flanagan, 1954 ; Butterfield et al., 2005 ). Preliminary questions asked the student to describe their dissertation project, the supervisory arrangements for their project and their relationship with their supervisors. Critical incident methodology questions asked students to identify and describe times when from their perspective supervision had gone well, and not so well. Prompts invited students to reflect on contributing factors to these situations. The final question invited students to make any further comments about their supervisory experiences.

This research was approved by Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval No. PSYCH SP 2013-13). Interviews were conducted by the first author, audio-recorded, transcribed and entered into NVivo (v.10), a qualitative data analysis computer software package, for analysis. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted, following the procedures outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) . Both authors read all transcripts as part of the familiarization phase. The first author conducted a preliminary analysis. As a form of respondent validation, a summary of findings from the preliminary analysis was returned to participating students and comments invited. This was followed by the second author coding all transcripts independently and developing themes. Good concordance was found between themes developed in the two analyses.

From students' discussions of good supervisory practice, three key themes emerged: supportive supervisory relationships, directing learning to empower students, and an alignment of student-supervisor interests and approaches. Each of these themes, along with definitions and example quotes is presented in Table 1 . While each of these themes places the emphasis on the role of the supervisor, students acknowledged that good supervisory experiences also required effort on their part. Good supervision was enabled by students taking ownership of the research project and preparing for supervisory meetings. Where supervision meetings went well, students reported feeling re-motivated, with increased focus and clarity about the project.

Table 1 . Themes underlying students' perceptions of good supervision.

Whilst most students reported positive supervisory experiences, some experienced difficulties in the relationship. From students' discussions of times when supervision did not go well, five themes emerged: lack of clarity, inconsistencies, power imbalances, inequities and overworked supervisors who are under pressure to publish. Each of these themes, along with definitions and example quotes is presented in Table 2 . Underlying these themes are differences in expectations between students and supervisors.

Table 2 . Themes relating to students' perceptions of supervisory challenges.

The key differences emerging between honors and pass stream students related to the group composition. Honors students choose their own supervisor(s) and topics (at least to some degree) while pass stream students were assigned to groups and had limited choice of supervisor or topic. Overall, pass stream students expressed less passion about their topics (at least in the early stages) and sometimes experienced conflict with other group members (e.g., social loafing, dominant group members).

This research aimed to explore students' conception of good supervision of undergraduate dissertations. Encouragingly, all but one student were able to highlight a time when supervision had gone well, with students able to identify both the supervisors and their own contribution to positive experiences. In accordance with previous research in this area ( Todd et al., 2004 ) students valued the support of supervisors and their increasing autonomy.

Most students were also able to describe a time when supervision had not gone so well, and these experiences were characterized by differences in expectations between students and supervisors. Consistent with Todd's (2004) finding of students experiencing uncertainty, lack of clarity and inconsistences were key themes to emerge in this research. However, unlike Vera and Briones (2015) finding of upwards of a third of students not being satisfied with their students, a more nuanced picture emerged in this study with students able to identify both times when supervision was going well, and times when it did not.

Of concern, the findings indicate that the pressure to publish experienced by academics within a neoliberal university setting is in some cases being transmitted to students and has the potential to impact upon supervisory experiences for undergraduate students. While only a minority of students interviewed referred to this tension, the findings highlight the need for supervisors to not let their own disappointment translate into poorer supervision when students' research is not publishable. One participant reported “fishing” for significant results, aligning with recent research reporting that supervisors shape students' attitudes toward questionable research practices ( Krishna and Peter, 2018 ). Student engagement in questionable research practices has also been documented earlier in the undergraduate degree ( Rajah-Kanagasabai and Roberts, 2015 ), further highlighting the need for supervisors to clearly articulate best practices and demonstrate these in their own research. The primary purpose of the undergraduate dissertation is the research learning experience for the student, and potential publication needs to be viewed as a bonus rather than an expectation. Whilst publication in high impact peer-reviewed journals may be a priority for supervisors, students can also benefit from other avenues of dissemination, such as presenting findings at conferences or publishing in student research journals.

This research was conducted within one university that is repositioning as a research-intensive university. Supervisory practices may vary across universities according to the focus of the university (teaching vs. research) and the resources provided, and may also vary across disciplines. Given the range of supervisory arrangements (single vs. multiple supervisors, single vs. multiple students) and gender mixes within these arrangements, it was not possible to tease out potential differences in perceptions of supervision according to gender concordance/discordance between supervisors and students. This is an area that warrants further research.

Despite these limitations, the findings provide insight into what students' value and find challenging in their undergraduate dissertation supervisory relationships, and may have some transferability across different academic settings. The findings from this research, along with interviews with new supervisors and workshops with experienced supervisors (see Roberts and Seaman, 2018 ) informed the development of a range of supervisory resources. A guide for supervisors and a range of supervisory tools for use by supervisors are feely available from http://www.dissertationsupervision.org/ , and provide advice on some of the issues raised here, such as the student-supervisor relationship, co-supervision and managing your supervisory workload. A guide for students is also freely available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286239145_Guide_for_Honors_and_Coursework_Dissertation_Students/download . This guide covers preparing for supervision, forms of supervision and getting the most from supervision, along with advice for specific stages of the project from the first supervision meeting through to data collection, analysis and interpretation, with a section on overcoming difficulties in managing a research project. We encourage readers to access and use these materials.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this manuscript will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

Author Contributions

LR was responsible for designing the research, conducting the interviews, reviewing the analysis, and leading the writing of the paper. KS analyzed the interview data.

This research was funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching [OLT 2013 National Teaching Fellowship] awarded to LR.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: undergraduates, dissertations, student perceptions, supervision, undergraduate research

Citation: Roberts LD and Seaman K (2018) Students' Experiences of Undergraduate Dissertation Supervision. Front. Educ . 3:109. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2018.00109

Received: 13 September 2018; Accepted: 23 November 2018; Published: 04 December 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Roberts and Seaman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Lynne D. Roberts, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Center for Teaching

Dissertation supervision.

This article was originally published in the Spring 2001 issue of the CFT’s newsletter, Teaching Forum.

By Peggy Thoits, Professor of Sociology

During her career, Peggy Thoits has worked with graduate students at three major universities- Princeton, Indiana, and Vanderbilt- and supervised numerous dissertations. She has also been honored for her effectiveness as a mentor to women at Vanderbilt. Here, she describes her approach to working one-on-one with students during the dissertation process.

Dissertation supervision is one of the most enjoyable forms of one-on-one teaching. Dissertation students are working on interesting questions that really matter, and for me, this makes it intrinsically more enjoyable than other forms of independent study.

Dissertation supervision differs in other ways from other forms of independent study. With other individual study formats, the process is guided by me. I know what happens next. I know what the student should do next. But in the dissertation stage, it’s really much more mutual. Other kinds of individual supervision are graded, so there’s an explicit contract and an explicit product and an explicit process. In contrast, dissertation guidance is absolutely open ended; it depends on the dissertation student. In a way, it’s really student-initiated and student-directed. I provide information and guidance when it truly is missing, but more often I am responding to the next stages that the dissertation student has reached.

In deciding whether or not to supervise a dissertation it’s important for there to be some familiarity between the graduate student and the advisor and some sort of connection between the student’s topic and the advisor’s areas of expertise. Otherwise, I don’t think the supervision goes very well. In my experience, students who’ve never taken a seminar with me and whose interests may or may not fit within my general areas may need to be gently guided to some other potential advisors.

Once the advisor and the student are satisfied they have a good match, the work of the dissertation can begin. Because of my philosophy that dissertation work is largely student-directed and student-initiated, my personal involvement can vary widely and is based on the needs of individual and the phase of the dissertation research itself.

When the graduate student is early on in his or her development of a topic, my involvement varies from weekly meetings to occasional conferences, depending on how far along the student’s thinking has moved. If the topic is coming out of a prior research project, then the topic may be a natural extension of the preliminary work and there’s less need for frequent meetings to hammer out what the dissertation is going to do. If the student is starting cold with a new idea or an area in which she or he hasn’t done a lot of work before, then my advice usually is to have frequent meetings, one a week, until both the advisee and the advisor feel like they’re on the same page in terms of the topic, its importance, and its suitability as a topic for dissertation research.

When the student begins working on a written proposal, there may be a hiatus in the meetings because the graduate goes off to write. Here is an area where the variability on the whole process starts to emerge. There are folks who go away for two months and come back with 35 pages of rough draft that are in reasonable shape and there are people who go off and write five pages and come back and discuss the next section and then go off and write those five pages and return for more discussion.

This is an example of letting the graduate student lead. Whatever he or she needs, at the proposal writing stage, I’ll do. People have different writing styles, different paces, and different needs at that stage and I try to work within that.

Once the proposal is defended, a whole new stage of relationship emerges. The student is off doing the instrumental tasks of the dissertation and I may not see him or her but once a month or once every two months. I might even just get e-mail reports from graduate students at various stages of the data collection process when questions or issues arise that haven’t been anticipated. Sometimes we’ll have a periodic update meeting just to keep me informed of where things are and what decisions are being made in the process of doing the research. But again, that varies from person to person. I accommodate whatever style a person needs, because these needs are really variable. The analytical stage is fun, we end up having conversations more often and talking in more detail. Once the writing begins, my advisees and I often barely see one another. We are communicating through paper. I get a written, hard copy of a chapter, and I give written feedback both in terms of things that need to be fleshed out, and alternative arguments that could be tested and rebutted here. I may suggest redoing the analysis so that the findings may be simpler and easier to present.

For me, the key has been to let the relationship between me and the graduate student ebb and flow with the phases of the dissertation research and the individual needs of that student.

Preparation for both the proposal defense and the dissertation defense is a final area in which the one-on-one teaching relationship can be very helpful. Some faculty may forget that students don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s useful for the advisor and advisee to meet before the dissertation defense (and also the proposal defense), and talk through what the student should expect.

My best advice about both a good dissertation defense and a good proposal defense is that they are the only two times in a person’s career when people will sit around and concentrate on his or her work only. It’s important students know that the committee’s goal is not to stop them or to hurt them or to show them up. Their goal is to help make the student’s research be the best it can possibly be. If the faculty member, the committee, and the dissertation student have done the work they needed to do prior to the defense, it can be an exhilarating capstone experience in the process.

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Resource Guide to Dissertation Supervision on Taught Undergraduate and Postgraduate Programmes

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Faculty Advice for Supervising Dissertations

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There is a lot of guidance out there about how to provide academic supervision to students writing dissertations (see References). Much of the advice relates to studying for, or supervising, the PhD degree. Clearly a dissertation being prepared as part of a third-year undergraduate course is a more modest affair, but even here, a "contract" exists between the student and the supervisor which needs to be understood. Little that follows is original; it is gleaned from the various sources listed, with a small amount of added personal experience.

Reasonable expectations

Supervisions can be conducted in person or online - which format is used will depend on how comfortable each of the participants is with the proposed format as well as the need to adhere to requirements to maintain the safety of both parties.

A supervisor can expect a student preparing a third-year undergraduate dissertation to: 1. Turn up to appointments, prepared for them. 2. Write regularly, and share the draft material - but not too often! 3. Tell the truth about work done and not done. 4. Keep in touch - practically (holidays, sickness, change of address etc.) and academically. 5. Most importantly, do the [research] tasks that have been mutually agreed and scheduled.

In return, students can expect from their supervisors : 1. Regular supervision: a student can reasonably expect to see his or her dissertation supervisor up to four times (and at least twice), for a private one-to-one discussion of the dissertation. 2. Written feedback: a student can expect to have draft material read, and returned with written comments within two weeks.

Recommendations from one source, with annotations

Students expect to be supervised A truism, but it important that you are clear and explicit about stating that it is you, and nobody else, who is responsible for providing the student with supervision for his/her dissertation. Clearly, if there are colleagues to whom the student can be referred for further specialist advice - well and good - but ultimately, if you are the named supervisor, you (and the student, of course) are where the buck stops.

Students expect supervisors to read their work well in advance You must establish an agreed programme - making clear what you will read (and reading that promptly), but not raising expectations that you will promptly read innumerable different drafts.

Students expect their supervisors to be available when needed These days, e-mail is the preferred mode of contact for most students and most supervisors. Respond reasonably promptly to messages from students, and make yourself available reasonably promptly if a student wants to see you. If you plan an absence from Cambridge of any length, tell the student whose dissertation you are supervising about your plans.

Students expect their supervisors to be friendly, open and supportive. Students may feel quite uncertain and vulnerable when presenting their work; beware of confidence-sapping measures.

Students expect their supervisors to be constructively critical. Presented in the right spirit, criticism is much more welcome than bland uninformed approval. Discussions about dissertations can be an opportunity for real dialogue.

Students expect their supervisors to have a good knowledge of the research area. This is true of a PhD supervisor, but need not be so much the case for the supervisor of a third-year dissertation. If a student is really keen to follow up some particular enthusiasm - on which there may be no great expert locally available - that's OK - just as long as the student is left in no doubt about the kind of support that the supervisor can provide. Writing a dissertation is as much about presentation and organisation as it is about getting all the facts and their interpretation "right"; if you don't know a lot about the topic, say so, and focus on helping the student to find out how to find out.

Students expect their supervisors to structure the tutorial so that it is relatively easy to exchange ideas. Again a truism - the student should reach a stage quite early on the process when he/she knows more about the topic than the supervisor. So let the interaction be two-way.

What the student needs to write a good dissertation

• The most authoritative sources. Read around the field, and don't rely on the first source you find. Find out which authors' work is referred to most commonly by other leading authors in the field. Remember not to regard photocopying as a substitute for reading.
• The most up to date references. Searches using computers can help you to find if the prominent people in the field have written things which may not yet have appeared in libraries - or are in fairly new copies of journals which are "at the binders" (a regular bugbear!).
• Accurate references. It is amazing how often references are incorrectly cited by other authors. Write out the reference in full when you find them. Refer to references accurately, and in the correct way.
• Confidence that you have covered all the necessary work in your chosen field, and have not failed to refer to some important contribution that the person assessing your work may know about. If you have an external examiner, it's worth discovering what their area of expertise is, and knowing what they have done in it.

Stages of the process

The initial stage

My starting point for students is to say "What is it in four (or however many) months' time you'd like to give to me, because it's something that interests you?" There's a question there that you don't know the answer to and you want to spend time answering, so that you can give me something written which, if I asked you that question, you could confidently say "Read my dissertation".

The first stage involves the student preparing a rough draft that sets out "This is what I think, and what I want to explore". There can be no reason, these days, for most of the work on a dissertation not to be performed electronically. Reinforce the importance of keeping enough up-to-date backup copies of computer files. A dissertation may be chosen from a menu of titles offered by the course organiser, or the title/topic may be one of the student's own choosing. This preliminary planning is a very important stage. The scope of the dissertation, given the word limit, will need to be narrow in focus. If it is broad, it could turn out simply as a re-hash of an article in a Trends journal, New Scientist or Scientific American. It should normally draw mainly on original scientific papers, and should not be synthesis of secondary sources (books, review articles and the like).

The structure

There needs to be a clear "setting out of the stall" in the dissertation, making clear what is to be discussed, why it is important, and broadly how the dissertation is to be structured. In a research-based scientific subject there needs to be space left for a reasonably full section in which "future research" should be discussed. Students can be encouraged to think themselves into the position of someone preparing a Wellcome Project Grant Application, setting out a feasible programme of work over the coming five years - setting out what needs to be done, how and why, and the insights that might be expected to emerge.

Locating and reading the literature

One can search Pub Med, Medline or whatever using keywords, progressively refined - clearly a necessary step. Adding the word "REVIEW" to the search terms can be helpful. It may well be possible to identify a paper written within the last 10 to 15 years which has been absolutely critical to the development of the chosen field - so much so that anyone writing in the area since then is virtually bound to have cited that earlier paper in their reference list. This is where citation searching is particularly useful. Identify that early key paper, and see who has cited it subsequently; this feature is available using BIDS.

The rough draft

After the student has become acquainted with the literature (and should by now be more expert on it than the supervisor), the student should construct rough draft with topic heading, and some summary of what each section will consist of. A meeting should be arranged to discuss the rough draft. This will be an important session. The plan of the dissertation will need to be discussed, and joint decisions taken about what should be attempted, and how long it should take.

The major effort of assimilating and writing

It is between the rough draft and the penultimate draft that the student can be expected to make the greatest strides in terms of becoming an authority on the subject matter, and developing independent ideas about how to interpret what has been achieved in the area, and what further work is needed. The penultimate draft should be a polished piece of work - with a proper summary, bibliography (set out in accordance with proper publishing rules). Such disciplines should not be left to the final draft. Decide on a "house style" - from an appropriate established Journal, and encourage the student to stick to it. Make sure that cited works are given full references. Students may need to be reminded of the adage: "The excellent is the enemy of the good." There will always be improvements that can be made to a dissertation, but remember the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Reading the penultimate draft

Supervisors are not expected to read and comment on more than one draft of any student's dissertation. Students should be expected to produce a penultimate draft of a reasonably high standard. This draft should:

• be free of spelling mistakes
• include appropriate diagrams (diagrams can be reproduced from published work with appropriate acknowledgement of their source)
• be within the number limit, explaining the chosen topic in a way that does not require a very highly specialised reader
• include, if need be, a glossary of terms when specialist language is being used

At this stage, the supervisor should point out examples of sloppy work, but should not feel obliged to correct all errors of spelling, grammar etc. After all, it is the student whose work is being assessed, not the supervisor.

The dissertation must be handed in to the Examiners by the first week of the Easter Term. The supervisor should, therefore, aim to have read and provided written and verbal feedback on the penultimate draft, by the time the student leaves Cambridge for the Easter vacation - or by one week after the end of Full Lent term, whichever is the earlier.  The supervisor must stress to the student that the dissertation is marked by an examiner and not the supervisor, and therefore cannot provide an estimated final grade/mark for the dissertation.

The final draft

It is helpful to students, if possible, to offer them Departmental facilities for binding their work; expensive "posh" methods of binding are not necessary and should not be encouraged.

Administrative matters

The notification form

Each student in NST Part II Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) is individually responsible for submitting their Dissertation Notification of Title form via the Moodle site by the Division of the Michaelmas term. This title should be agreed with the supervisor.  The Faculty Office will then contact the supervisor to confirm their approval.

Payment for supervision

The Senior Tutors' Committee have indicated the importance of Colleges continuing to receive reports on the progress of students in their third and/or final years of study. Such reports are essential for monitoring the progress and wellbeing of those students and also for use in any appeals that may be made to the Applications Committee. There are already arrangements for project supervision in some subjects, such as Engineering and certain of the Arts and Humanities. It is not intended to change these existing arrangements. There are certain science subjects in which dissertation and project work is supervised within the department and for which, currently, no report is issued to the Colleges. The Committee have agreed that, in these subjects, Colleges will pay for a nominal one hour of supervision, in a group of one, for a report on the dissertation or project work of students. Such reports should be submitted through CamCORS to the Colleges and payment will be approved in the normal way.  For NST II BBS the Committee have agreed to pay for up to four supervisions for the dissertation element.

1. Supervising the PhD: a guide to success by Sara Delamont, Paul Atkinson and Odette Parry (1997) (The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham).

2. Chapter 11 ( How to supervise ) from How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors by Estelle M. Phillips and D.S. Pugh (2nd ed., 1994), Open University Press, Buckingham.

3. Chapter 3 ( Going for gold in assessed coursework ) from How to get a good degree: making the most of your time at university by Phil Race (1999), Open University Press.

4. Chapters 8 ( Dissertations (I): starting ) and Chapter 9 ( Dissertations (II): analysing and writing ) from Successful study for degrees by Rob Barnes (2nd ed., 1995), Routledge.

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Resources for Dissertation Writers & Advisors

• Dissertation Project: What to Expect
• Guide to Dissertation Writing
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• For Dissertators & Mentees: Seeking Support & Self-Care

About This Page

A checklist for phd supervisors, selected books on doctoral supervision & mentoring, web resources: for faculty.

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The provision of effective dissertation supervision significantly enhances the quality of your student's dissertation and contributes to its successful completion. This page presents resources for faculty members, including both first-time dissertation supervisors and seasoned supervisors. 

• Are you careful to limit the number of students you accept for supervision to a manageable number? Thesis supervision is demanding of time and effort, and it is far worse for students to be cheated out of their legitimate expectations of their supervisor than to be turned down at the start.  
• Have you developed an understanding with your doctoral students concerning the mechanics of supervision, the kind and amount of advice you are able and willing to offer, the frequency and regularity with which you expect to see them, a “plan of campaign” (e.g., the timing of submission of a dissertation outline, of draft chapters), and your mutual expectation concerning the quality and originality of the completed dissertation?  
• Has the topic of research been refined in the initial stages of work? Is the scope of the dissertation project excessively ambitious? Too narrow? Are satisfied with the student’s progress and background knowledge of the subject?  
• Do you inform your students when you plan to be on research leave or absent for an extended period of time from the university? Have you made satisfactory arrangements for supervision of the student during this time?  
• Is your student aware of university, faculty, and program requirements and standards to which the dissertation is expected to conform?  
• Do you support your students in their effort to acquire external funding, to publish scholarly articles or to present conference papers?  
• Do you give top priority to returning work swiftly and commenting on it thoroughly? (A turn-around time of a couple of weeks for a chapter is usually reasonable unless a different understanding exists; a turn-around time of two months is professional negligence.)  
• When your students’ dissertations are complete or nearly complete, do you actively support their efforts to get a job, advise them on how best to sell themselves, and use your professional contacts to provide what help you can? Source: Graduate Supervision Guideline from Univ. of Toronto

Guidelines for Effective Graduate Student-Faculty Mentorship from the University of Missouri - Kansas City Best Practices and Mentoring in Doctoral Education from Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies Who wants Einstein? Supervision of PhD students  from Science-Network.tv  The first two parts of the three-part videos are about the supervision of PhD students.  # Part 1 - The Good Example (41:45)    1. Ensure student work is fun   2. Clarify expectations and structure    3. Often no truth, just choices    4. Realize that student grows    5. Talk openly about disagreement    6. Have the right amount of supervisors    7. Students should decide pretty much    8. Supervisor must encourage and support # Part 2 -- Disagreements are OK (33:05)    1. Students lack of influence    2. Supervisor is not up to date    3. Sometimes bad advice is given    4. Student needs to mediate between supervisors    5. Personal chemistry and emotions    Supplemented by a research article:   Gunnarsson, R., Jonasson, G., & Billhult, A. (2013). The experience of disagreement  between students and supervisors in PhD education: a qualitative study.  BMC medical education ,  13 (1), 134.  Retrieved from  http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/13/134   

Halbert, K. (2015). Students’ perceptions of a ‘quality’ advisory relationship. Quality in Higher Education ,  21 (1), 26-37. Retrieved from  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13538322.2015.1049439 

Halse, C. & Bansel, P.  (2012). The learning alliance: ethics in doctoral supervision, Oxford Review of Education 38(4),  377-392, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2012.706219  Retrieved from  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2012.706219    Polkinghorne, M., Taylor, J., Knight, F., & Stewart, N.(2023). "Doctoral Supervision: A Best Practice Review." Encyclopedia 3 (1), pp. 46-59. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia3010004

Seeber, M. & Horta, H. (2021), "No road is long with good company. What factors affect Ph.D. student’s satisfaction with their supervisor?", Higher Education Evaluation and Development, 15 (1), pp. 2-18. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1108/HEED-10-2020-0044   

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Dissertation supervision.

A dissertation supervisor provides regular guidance and support to a student undertaking a dissertation.

The supervisory relationship is built on clear communication and mutually agreed expectation in terms of progress. Working in partnership with the student a supervisor assists in the definition of a research topic the design of a programme of study and the implementation of this. They also provide expertise at the writing stage and support in the face of deadlines.

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Supervisors’ emotion regulation in research supervision: navigating dilemmas in an accountability-based context

• Open access
• Published: 18 May 2024

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• Jiying Han 1 ,
• Lei Jin 1 &
• Hongbiao Yin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5424-587X 2  

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Given the complexity and high demands of research supervision and the intricate emotional experiences of supervisors, there is a need to explore how they regulate their emotions, particularly across various disciplinary backgrounds. The current study explored the emotion regulation strategies employed by research supervisors during the process of supervising graduate students. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, and documentation from six research supervisors in different institutions in China, seven emotion regulation strategies employed by research supervisors were identified and further categorized into two groups, that is, antecedent-focused (prevention, intervention, reinterpretation, reconcentration, and detachment) and response-focused (suppression and expression) emotion regulation strategies. The findings shed light on the dilemmas faced by supervisors and the paradox aroused from the context-dependent and non-standardized nature of research supervision within an accountability-based managerial context. The implications for supervisors’ emotion regulation in authentic supervisory situations are discussed, and insights for universities’ policy-making are offered.

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Introduction

Since the 1990s, educational research has undergone an “affective turn” as a result of the critique of the long-standing Cartesian dualism between emotionality and rationality (Zembylas, 2021 ). Over the following three decades, the dynamic and complex nature of teacher emotion has been explored from various perspectives and approaches (Agudo, 2018 ). Since emotion can significantly impact various stages of the teaching process, either facilitating or hindering it (Yin, 2016a , 2016b ), opportunities for emotion regulation can be identified in educational contexts at any time (Taxer & Gross, 2018 ). In higher education, although emotion regulation has been proven significant to teacher development and well-being (Xie, 2021 ), the majority of research has been conducted within the context of classroom instruction (Tao et al., 2022 ), leaving that of research supervision in graduate education unexplored.

In graduate education, emotion plays an important role in the supervisory process and relationship building which involves a series of emotional interactions essential for both supervisors and graduate students. The existing research has demonstrated an increasing need for supervisors to develop emotion regulation skills to cope with the challenges and provide emotional support in research supervision (Wollast et al., 2023 ). On the one hand, supervisors need to employ emotion regulation strategies in the challenging supervisory contexts, as accountability-based policies and the blurring of personal and academic relationships between supervisors and graduate students may trigger complex emotional experiences such as anxiety and worry for supervisors (Xu, 2021 ). On the other hand, the provision of support from supervisors is strongly linked to the emotional well-being and research success of graduate students (Janssen & Vuuren, 2021 ; Wollast et al., 2023 ). Specifically, supervisors’ emotion regulation plays a crucial role in providing emotional support to graduate students, which in turn has a positive impact on graduate students’ well-being and their belief about their further academic pursuits (Han & Xu, 2023 ; Wollast et al., 2023 ).

Of the limited research on emotion in graduate education, much has been conducted to investigate the influence of graduate students’ emotion regulation on their mental health and academic engagement (Saleem et al., 2022 ). However, there is a paucity of studies which have researched supervisors’ emotions and emotion regulation during the supervisory process. With the aim of unpacking how research supervisors employ emotion regulation strategies in real supervisory scenarios to effectively fulfill their roles, and to gain insights into the nature of research supervision, this qualitative study explores the emotion regulation strategies used by supervisors in the process of research supervision.

Literature review

Teacher emotion and emotion regulation.

Emotion, once considered inferior to cognition, has gained increasing attention in the social sciences, including in educational research (Han & Xu, 2023 ). The current recognition of the intricate interplay between emotion and cognition in teaching and learning highlights the importance of emphasizing teacher emotion in both teacher development and teacher well-being (Chen & Cheng, 2022 ). Emotion is complex and difficult to define (Chen & Cheng, 2022 ), and the connotation of emotion has shifted from an intrapersonal perspective to a relational one, emphasizing interactions between individuals and their environment during emotion generation (Campos et al., 2011 ).

Under the relational view of emotion, individuals can achieve social goals in most jobs involving interpersonal interactions through emotion regulation (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002 ). Emotion regulation refers to “the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experienced and expressed their emotions” (Gross, 1998 , p. 275). In the educational field, a growing interest of research in emotion regulation has emerged since the 1990s (Yin, 2016a , 2016b ; Zembylas, 2021 ), as teaching has been viewed as “an emotional practice” (Hargreaves, 1998 , p. 835). Due to the importance of emotion in teachers’ professional lives, it is crucial for teachers to regulate their emotions to achieve improved teaching and learning outcomes. Specifically, enhancing positive emotions can foster better teacher-student relationships, promote creativity in teaching, and strengthen students’ learning motivation; inappropriately managed negative emotions can have adverse effects on these aspects (Hargreaves, 1998 ). Although teachers’ emotion regulation has been widely examined (e.g., Taxer & Frenzel, 2015 ; Yin, 2015 , 2016a , 2016b ; Yin et al.,  2018 ) most studies, influenced by the concept of emotional labor, have mainly focused on two types of emotion regulation strategies: deep acting (the act of internalizing a desired emotion, matching expressed emotion with felt emotion) and surface acting (the act of altering emotional expression without regulating inner feelings) (Grandey, 2000 ; Hochschild, 1983 ). Comparatively, Gross’s ( 1998 ) process model of emotion regulation provides a more nuanced framework to examine teachers’ employment of a wider range of emotion regulation strategies. According to Gross ( 1998 , 2015 ), emotion regulation could be achieved through two main approaches: the antecedent-focused and response-focused approach. The former entails strategies that seek to avoid or regulate emotions by modifying the factors triggering emotion generation, which include situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, and cognitive changes. The latter modifies an individual’s expressions and responses after the emotions have fully manifested, directly influencing physiological, experiential, or behavioral responses.

In recent years, the predominant focus of studies, guided by Gross’s ( 1998 ) process model, has been on investigating the motivations, strategies, and outcomes of teachers’ intrapersonal emotion regulation (e.g., Taxer & Gross, 2018 ; To & Yin, 2021 ; Xu, 2021 ). Teachers’ motivations for emotional regulation stem from their diverse teaching goals, including managing the impressions that various parties have of them, adapting to intensive educational reforms for survival, and enhancing students’ concentration levels (Hosotani, 2011 ; Xu, 2021 ). As for emotion regulation strategies, the existing literature has mainly been conducted under Gross’s ( 2015 ) model, and revealed a series of antecedent-focused (e.g., situation selection, attention deployment, and cognitive change) and response-focused strategies (e.g., suppression, relaxation, and avoidance) to cope with the ambivalent demands and enormous workload faced by teachers. Remarkably, certain strategies that reflect the unique nature of teachers’ work, such as genuine expression (Yin, 2015 ; Yin, 2016a , 2016b ) and interpersonal strategies (To & Yin, 2021 ), have been identified. Regarding outcomes of emotion regulation, genuine expression of emotion and cognitive appraisal strategies were found helpful to improve the effectiveness of classroom teaching and to maintain a balance between teachers’ professional and personal dimensions of their identities (Yin, 2016a , 2016b ). In contrast, suppressing, pretending, and restraining emotions may cause emotional dissonance and less received social support (Yin, 2015 ).

Emotion regulation and research supervision

In graduate education, supervisors’ emotional experiences are triggered by the complexity and high demands of research supervision (Han & Xu, 2023 ). The conflicting roles of taking responsibility for both supporter and supervisor simultaneously, the contradiction between supervisors’ high expectations of students’ learning autonomy and graduate students’ unsatisfactory performance, and the blurred boundaries between supervisory relationship and friendship (Han & Xu, 2023 ; Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ) are major challenges encountered by research supervisors. These challenges lead to various emotional experiences on the part of supervisors, including positive emotions, such as joy and love (Halse & Malfroy, 2010 ), and more prevalent negative emotions, such as anger, and disappointment (Sambrook et al., 2008 ). Given the diverse range of emotions that emerge during the supervision process, it is necessary for supervisors to employ various emotion regulation strategies to accomplish effective research supervision.

According to literature, emotion regulation is strongly associated with research supervision in three areas. First, effective research supervision requires a constructive and supportive supervisory relationship, which is facilitated by supervisors’ emotion regulation. As poorly managed supervision relationships contribute to low academic completion rates, supervisors are required to establish a respectful and caring relationship with their students (Halse & Malfroy, 2010 ). However, creating and maintaining such relationships can be challenging. Specifically, during the interactions with graduate students, supervisors are expected to offer emotional supports, including encouragement, motivation, and recognition based on students’ individual needs while ensuring that any critical feedback is delivered constructively (Lee, 2008 ). However, excessive emotional engagement or close relationships with students may hinder their ability to provide constructive criticism (Lee, 2008 ). As such, supervisors must strike a balance between offering emotional support and providing constructive feedback, thereby developing a successful educational partnership with their students.

Second, the emotional support provided by supervisors plays a positive role in facilitating graduate students’ research productivity and emotional well-being (Han & Wang, 2024 ; Wollast et al., 2023 ). In terms of research success, supervisors who encourage critical thinking and support constructive controversies tend to produce higher achievement and retention rates than those who adopt a directive and authoritarian approach (Johnson, 2001 ). Furthermore, emotional support from supervisors has been linked to higher levels of research self-efficacy and emotional well-being among graduate students (Diekman et al., 2011 ). Specifically, structure and autonomy support strongly influence graduate students’ feelings and expectations about their future academic success. Thus, in academic settings, supervisors should adopt effective emotion regulation strategies, offering constructive feedback, close guidance, and attentiveness to maintain graduate students’ motivation and mental well-being.

Third, effective emotion regulation is also critical for the well-being of research supervisors themselves. When faced with repeated frustrating events such as a lack of student progress and demanding requirements in accountability-based supervisory contexts, supervisors may experience feelings of exhaustion, particularly when they perceive their supportive efforts as being ineffective (Xu, 2021 ). Failing to regulate these negative emotions with effective strategies can lead to the accumulation and intensification of undesirable feelings, resulting in detrimental effects on supervisors’ well-being and job satisfaction, which may ultimately lead to their emotional burnout and disengagement (To & Yin, 2021 ).

So far, the very limited research on research supervisors’ emotion regulation in medical and scientific disciplines found that although supervisors use instructional strategy modification (e.g., directly pointing out students’ writing deficiencies), cognitive change (e.g., reappraising the relationship between students’ underachievement and their supervision), and response regulation (e.g., lowering their voice to calm themselves) to deal with negative emotions (Han & Xu, 2023 ), they still have difficulties in stepping out of negative emotions (Sambrook et al., 2008 ). Meanwhile, supervisors from different disciplines may use different emotion regulation strategies due to disciplinary differences in occupational challenges, societal expectations, and specific work environments (Veniger & Kočar, 2018 ). Therefore, it is necessary for researchers to investigate the emotion regulation of supervisors with different disciplinary backgrounds.

Based on the literature, underpinned by Gross’s ( 2015 ) process model, the present qualitative multi-case study aims to investigate the emotion regulation strategies employed by research supervisors from different disciplinary backgrounds. Specifically, the study seeks to answer this core research question: What strategies do research supervisors use to regulate their emotions during the supervision process?

As the in-depth understanding of supervisors’ emotion regulation strategies relies on the narratives of their journey of research supervision, we used narrative inquiry to explore supervisors’ lived experiences in supervising graduate students. Narrative inquiry emphasizes the co-construction of specific experiences by the researcher and participants (Friedensen et al., 2024 ; Riessman, 2008 ), which allows us to co-construct the meaning of emotion regulation with participants through qualitative data including interviews, observations, and documents.

Research context: Emphasizing the accountability of research supervision

The Chinese research supervision system has its roots in the nineteenth century, evolving alongside the development of graduate education (Xie & Zhu, 2008 ). Within this system, research supervisors play a crucial role in research-based master’s and doctoral education. In 1961, a supervisor accountability system was formalized, placing the responsibility on supervisors for overseeing students in research projects, journal publications, and dissertation completion. Under the guidance of supervisors, students engage in specialized courses, master the latest advancements in a specific field, and conduct research (Peng, 2015 ).

In recent years, with the rapid growth of graduate education in China, both supervisors and graduate students have expressed concerns about the quality of research supervision (Xu & Liu, 2023 ). Thus, national policies have been introduced to stipulate supervisors’ responsibilities and enhance the overall supervision quality, with a particular emphasis on the accountability of research supervisors. In 2020, the Accountability Measures for Educational Supervision, released by China’s Ministry of Education ( 2020 ), outlined a code of conduct for supervisors, emphasizing that supervisors bear the primary responsibility for cultivating postgraduate students. Specifically, supervisors are held accountable for various aspects of graduate students’ academic progress, including the quality of dissertations, academic conduct, and the appropriate utilization of research funds. Failure to fulfill these responsibilities may result in serious consequences, such as disqualification from supervising students or the revocation of teaching credentials.

Participants

To explore a wide range of emotional experiences and emotion regulation strategies that arise when supervising students at various stages of their academic journey, participants were purposively selected based on the following three criteria: (1) doctoral supervisors with the qualifications to oversee research-based master’s students and PhD candidates were considered, which allows us to gain insights into their emotions in supervising students at different academic stages; (2) supervisors with a minimum of 5 years of supervision were selected, as their long-term experience would provide a comprehensive understanding of the depth and evolution of emotion regulation strategies; (3) supervisors of both hard and soft disciplines were involved, as disciplinary features may significantly shape supervisors’ styles, potentially leading to their diverse emotions and emotion regulation strategies. Finally, six doctoral supervisors from four universities in China agreed to participate in the study voluntarily and were informed of the research purpose and ethical principles before the study. Table 1 provides a summary of the demographic information for all participants.

Data collection

The positionality statement is essential as the authors’ roles may influence the data collection process. Specifically, two authors are doctoral supervisors with rich experience in research supervision, and one author is a doctoral student. Participants for this study were recruited from the authors’ colleagues or recommendations from friends. In the spirit of self-reflexivity, we acknowledge our positions in research supervision and recognize that our relationships with participants may impact our collection and interpretations of the data. However, the authors had attempted to minimize the possible influence through continuous reflection, crosscheck, and discussions during the data analysis and interpretation.

To produce convincing qualitative accounts, collecting data from multiple sources including semi-structured interviews, observations, and documentation was employed in the current study from November 2022 to April 2023.

The primary source of data was individual interviews with each participant. To gather participants’ narratives of critical events in their research supervision, an interview protocol was designed according to our research purpose, but the interview questions were sufficiently flexible to enable the interviewer to adapt the content according to the specific interview situation. The interviews lasted between 120 and 150 min, during which the participants were asked to describe critical events in their research supervision, their emotional experiences, and whether and how they regulated their emotions. Follow-up questions were asked to gain a more profound understanding of their emotion regulation strategies when they provided surprising and ambiguous responses. Sample interview questions included “What emotions do you typically experience as a research supervisor?” and “Do you regulate your emotions induced by research supervision? If so, how?” All interview questions were presented in Chinese, the participants’ first language, and were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Observation was used to complement the data obtained from interviews. Before the observation, all supervisors and their students were informed about the research purpose and ethical principles. Then non-participant observation during their group and individual meetings proceeded only with their voluntary participation. Supervisors’ supervisory methods, activities, meeting atmosphere, and emotions of meeting members were recorded to supplement and validate the data collected through the interview. A short follow-up interview was then conducted with supervisors, focusing on their reflections on emotional events that occurred during the observed group and individual meetings.

Documentation was also used as a supplementary method. With the consent of the participants and their students, supervisors’ annotations and feedback on graduate students’ manuscripts, unofficial posts about supervision on social media (e.g., WeChat moments sharing), and chat logs between supervisors and students were collected to obtain additional information about the participants’ emotional experiences and supervisory practices. Table 2 presents the interview durations, the total minutes recorded during observations, the length of follow-up interviews, and the specific number and types of documents reviewed by both supervisors and students.

Data analysis

The analysis involved a three-level coding process (Yin, 2016a , 2016b ). First, interview transcripts were repeatedly read to label data excerpts that addressed the research questions. Initial codes were based on participants’ original perspectives and then iteratively refined and combined. Second, the coding system was organized according to Gross’s ( 2015 ) process model of emotional regulation, which distinguishes between antecedent-focused and response-focused strategies. Meanwhile, the study also remained open to other emotion regulation strategies that were evident in the empirical data. Third, the coding system was distilled to capture the nature of the identified strategies, resulting in three types of emotion regulation strategies. During the analysis process, the data were classified and organized using the NVivo software.

To strengthen the credibility of the data analysis, the interview transcripts were carefully examined multiple times to ensure that the data were accurately reflected in the coding scheme. Moreover, the coding scheme was collaboratively developed by the authors, and any discrepancies in classification were thoroughly deliberated to achieve mutual agreement. The final coding system, along with sub-categories and patterns, is presented in Table 3 .

In sum, seven emotion regulation strategies in research supervision emerged from the empirical data, which can be grouped into two categories, namely, antecedent-focused strategies and response-focused strategies.

Antecedent-focused strategies

Supervisors used antecedent-focused strategies to regulate the external situation and their internal cognition before the emotions were generated.

Prevention involves the prediction and avoidance of situations that may lead to undesirable emotional experiences during supervision prior to the generation of emotions. Prevention strategies were frequently utilized in the graduate student recruitment process and early stages of supervision, as a means of avoiding undesirable situations. On the former occasion, supervisors identified multiple recruitment indicators, such as research experiences and GPA, to avoid supervisory situations that may lead to negative emotions. This is commonly related to their former supervisory experience: “It was frustrating to supervise a student who was not invested in her work, so I have to implement a rigorous recruitment process to prioritize candidates who are truly interested in research, rather than rashly recruiting students” (P1-interview).

Supervisors remain vigilant once a supervisory relationship was established, as they are required by accountability-based policies to be responsible for students’ research performance and safety. Many supervisors stressed the significance of “establishing rules and regulations” (P4-interview) in the early stages of supervision to avoid infuriation and disappointment with students’ academic misconduct. Therefore, establishing an academic code of conduct is an effective prevention strategy for supervisors: “I’m frustrated by academic misconduct among students, as discovering data falsification in student-published articles holds me accountable, risking serious consequences for my academic career. So I frequently emphasize the need for high academic honesty and integrity standards” (P2-interview, observation).

Another concern that worried supervisors, especially those of science and technology, is student safety: “Whenever I hear about a laboratory explosion that causes student injuries, it makes me very nervous” (P3-interview, documentation). It is crucial for the institutions and supervisors to establish comprehensive laboratory safety rules and educate students on safety protocols before conducting experiments: “I told my graduate students: Failure to obey laboratory rules and lack of safety awareness can lead to immediate accidents that not only affect yourself but also pose a risk to other students” (P3-interview).

Intervention

Intervention is the most commonly employed strategy by supervisors to enhance the effectiveness of their supervision once a supervisory relationship is established. They employed various intervention strategies to improve students’ academic attitude and develop their academic ability.

Specifically, supervisors improved their students’ engagement and altered procrastination either by scaffolding their research or enforcing discipline and prohibitions. On the one hand, our participants acknowledged the importance of instructional scaffolding in the supervisory process.

We need to cultivate students’ interest so that they can actively engage in research. For instance, I often demonstrate interesting phenomena between the English and Chinese languages to generate my students’ curiosity. Then I am delighted to see their willingness to immerse themselves in linguistic research. (P5-interview)

On the other hand, some supervisors emphasized the enforcement of discipline in supervision. One supervisor expressed disappointment and dissatisfaction with the lackadaisical research atmosphere within the entire research group. In response, she implemented strict discipline and prohibitions to restrict students from engaging in activities unrelated to research in the office (P2-observation).

Finding a student watching a movie in the office angered me as it may disturb other students trying to focus on their studies. So, activities like watching movies and listening to music are not allowed in our office. By rigorously enforcing these rules, our research group was able to collaborate more effectively and ultimately achieve satisfactory results. (P2-interview)

Furthermore, intervention strategies were also used to enhance graduate students’ academic competency. Modifying supervisory activities was considered as a useful method. One supervisor shared: “We used to read literature in our group meeting together, but it was not effective. I felt frustrated and decided to change our meeting activities this semester.” As a result, the supervisor organized students to provide feedback on each other’s manuscripts in weekly group meetings, because “it was very effective in improving their writing abilities” (P1-interview, observation).

Interestingly, some supervisors opted to micromanage students’ research processes when they were disappointed with their research performance

At first, I encouraged students to independently identify research topics, but I later realized with disappointment that it was challenging for them to identify gaps in the existing literature. To make things more efficient, I started assigning research projects directly to help them complete their dissertation and meet the graduation requirements. (P5-interview)

Reinterpretation

Reinterpretation refers to the process of cognitively reappraising a supervisory situation from different perspectives to change its emotional impact. Supervising a graduate student who lacks interest in research was described as a “prolonged and painful undertaking” (P4-interview). However, one supervisor noted that: “Dwelling on negative emotions can be unproductive as it does not necessarily solve problems. Despite the challenging experience, I have gained valuable insights and will be better equipped to handle such situation” (P4-interview).

In addition to explaining the meaning of the situations from supervisors’ viewpoints, they reconsidered the events from graduate students’ perspectives to rationalize their unsatisfactory performance and procrastination. For example, supervisors understood students’ time arrangements when they procrastinated: “I used to become annoyed when students failed to submit assignments punctually… Now I know that students need a balance between work and rest. They need adequate time for rest” (P5-interview).

On occasion, supervisors reappraised the connection between students’ misbehaviors and the effort they invested from the perspective of the teacher-student relationship.

I felt angry when things happened, but I wouldn’t let that emotion affect my life. I see myself as a supervisor to students, not a parent, so I don’t hold high expectations for them. If students choose not to follow my guidance, it’s not my concern anymore. (P6-interview)

Reconcentration

Reconcentration is the strategy by which supervisors focus on another aspect of supervision or divert attention away from supervision with the intent of changing emotional consequences. Specifically, during the supervisory process, supervisors prepared themselves to be optimistic by reminding themselves of their students’ strengths: “I was anxious about a student who always made slow progress in research. But when I later realized that his incremental results were consistently good, indicating that he was very meticulous, I felt much better” (P2-interview, observation).

Apart from diverting attention during supervision in working environments, the participants highlighted the importance of balancing personal and professional life to manage negative emotions that may arise during supervision.

After giving birth, I realized that caring for a child demands a considerable amount of time and energy. Then I redirected my attention from supervising students to my family. Thankfully, my family provides a supportive environment, and the pleasant moments shared with my family members helped me overcome negative emotions associated with work. (P4-interview)

Detachment refers to the act of separating from or terminating the supervisory relationship to disengage from negative emotions. This strategy was often employed when intervention, reinterpretation, and reconcentration strategies were ineffective. When supervisors found that various proactive measures failed to resolve the challenges in research supervision, they experienced enduring feelings of helplessness, confusion, and distress. One supervisor expressed deep frustration, stating, “I’ve exhausted all efforts—careful communication with her and her parents, and providing my support during her experiments. Yet, she continued to resist making progress with her experiments and dissertation. I felt lost in supervising this student” (P4-interview). As a result, they have to release themselves from the emotionally harmful supervisory relationships.

Some supervisors chose to disengage, meaning they no longer actively push the student: “Continuing to push a student who refused to participate in research despite all my efforts would only increase my frustration. I have decided to let him go and will no longer push him” (P5-interview).

In some extreme cases that evoke negative emotions, supervisors even terminated the supervisory relationship.

Supervising this student was a painful experience as his inaction negatively affected the entire research team. Other students started following his behavior and avoided conducting experiments. It made me feel suffocated. I had to terminate my supervision to avoid any further negative impact on the team and myself… I felt relieved after he left. (P3-interview)

Response-focused strategies

Response-focused emotion regulation involves the use of strategies after an emotion has already been generated.

Suppression

Suppression involves consciously attempting to inhibit behavioral and verbal emotional responses. Although supervisors experienced negative moods during research supervision, some refrained from expressing these emotions to students. Certain supervisors believed that criticism hinders problem-solving. One participant explained, “While interacting with students, I found some are genuinely fearful of supervisor authority. In such cases, venting emotions on students only heightens their fear, makes them hesitant to express themselves or their confusion in research, and ultimately hinders their progress” (P1-interview). In addition, some supervisors believed that expressing anger or disappointment toward students could harm their self-efficacy in research. One supervisor stated, “Obtaining a master’s degree is a challenging journey, especially for novice researchers. Confidence is crucial for their success. As a supervisor, I refrain from expressing negative emotions as it can hurt students’ feelings and even damage their confidence” (P3-interview).

As mentioned by the supervisors above, expressing anger and disappointment to graduate students may not resolve issues but damage their self-efficacy. In challenging situations where negative emotions were hard to suppress, supervisors opted to temporarily suspend supervision activities or introduce new tasks to regain composure: “Sometimes revising students’ manuscripts can be a painful task. To avoid the risk of expressing negative emotions to them, I often temporarily suspend the revision. Sometimes I take a walk until I feel calmer and more collected” (P1-interview).

In supervision, expressing emotion is another effective strategy for regulating supervisors’ emotions. Although supervisors were aware that expressing negative emotions may sometimes negatively affect students’ feelings, the importance of their own emotional well-being was emphasized, as “expressing feelings helped me recover from negative moods faster” (P6-interview). However, supervisors had different expressive styles when interacting with their students.

Some supervisors expressed their anger and dissatisfaction to their students directly, through behavioral or verbal emotional responses. A supervisor recounted an incident, “During a phone call with her, I lost my temper because of her terrible attitude, and ended up throwing my phone” (P4-interview).

Interestingly, given that “graduate students are all adults” (P6-interview), some supervisors expressed their emotions more tactfully, taking care not to lose their temper and cause distress to their students. One supervisor “felt angry with a student’s poor writing.” However, instead of scolding the student directly, he made a joke during a one-to-one meeting, saying “It’s not that you wrote poorly. It’s that I am not clever enough to comprehend your writing.” The student laughed, and then the supervision was conducted in a relaxed atmosphere. The supervisor explained: “I do not hide my emotions but prefer to avoid losing my temper and instead use humor to guide my students better” (P5-interview, observation).

This study contributes to the existing literature on emotion regulation by providing detailed insights into how emotion regulation strategies were utilized by research supervisors. It also sheds light on the dilemmas supervisors encounter and the paradox between the context-dependent nature of research supervision and the accountability-based managerial context.

Supervisors’ dilemmas in research supervision

Our study demonstrated supervisors’ capacity to proactively employ diverse emotion regulation strategies when coping with difficulties in research supervision. It also revealed some paradoxical phenomena within the supervisors’ utilization of these emotion regulation strategies, highlighting the dilemmas they encountered in the context of research supervision.

In general, supervisors in our study demonstrated a higher tendency to employ antecedent-focused strategies for emotion regulation rather than response-focused strategies, which can alleviate their emotional burnout and enhance their well-being. Specifically, participants utilized intervention strategies as antecedent-focused strategies to improve the effectiveness of research supervision, rather than seeking consolation to alleviate generated emotions. Previous research has indicated that antecedent-focused strategies were associated with increased life satisfaction (Feinberg et al., 2012 ). By intervening in the emotion generation process at an early stage, these strategies can potentially alter the emotional trajectory, contributing to improved well-being among supervisors (Gross & John, 2003 ).

While supervisors displayed a strong inclination to utilize diverse strategies to enhance the effectiveness of their supervision, our findings unveiled two paradoxical phenomena in their emotion regulation strategies, indicating the dilemmas that supervisors faced in authentic supervisory situations. First, in antecedent-focused strategies aimed at modifying situations that may trigger negative emotions, numerous interventions and detachments highlighted the conflicts supervisors encountered as they strived to balance adequate assistance and excessive interference. Specifically, while participants in our study “inspired students through scaffolding” or “encouraged students’ autonomous learning,” they also “micromanaged students’ research process” or “enforced discipline” to enhance supervision efficiency. This pedagogical paradox concerning the choice between intervening and non-intervening approaches has generated ongoing debate in existing research (Janssen & Vuuren, 2021 ). Both approaches have the potential to evoke negative emotional experiences for supervisors and graduate students. Research found that a highly intervening approach has negative implications for both supervisors and graduate students (Lee, 2020 ). Students who have encountered autonomy-exploitative behavior from their supervisors, such as being restricted to specific research topics and methodologies, have reported experiencing negative emotions (Cheng & Leung, 2022 ). For supervisors, the burden of an intervening approach, the dissonance between supervisors’ expectations and students’ actual research progress, as well as students deviating from conventional practices (Han & Xu, 2023 ), all contribute to feelings of frustration, sadness, and exhaustion. Nevertheless, non-intervening approaches do not always fulfill the expectations of both parties either. Supervisors who encouraged graduate students’ autonomous action acknowledged the value of promoting their independent thinking, which has been identified as a significant predictor of students’ research self-efficacy (Gruzdev et al., 2020 ). However, students who initially expected their supervisors to play a leadership role felt dissatisfied and disappointed when supervisors were reluctant to offer explicit guidance (Janssen & Vuuren, 2021 ). This misunderstanding of supervisors’ intentions can ultimately generate negative effects on supervisors’ emotional experiences (Xu, 2021 ).

Another evident paradoxical phenomenon arises in the response-focused strategies employed after emotions have already been triggered. Although supervisors opted to suppress their negative emotional expression to safeguard the confidence and self-esteem of mature learners, there were instances when they outpoured their disappointment and anger to students, aiming to swiftly step out of their negative moods. The act of expressing and suppressing emotions highlights the dilemma of cultivating a mutually beneficial relationship that promotes emotional well-being for both supervisors and students. On the one hand, the existing literature emphasizes the importance of supervisors being sensitive to students’ emotional experiences (Bastalich, 2017 ). The inherent power imbalance in supervisor-student relationships may create a sense of student dependency on their supervisors (Friedensen et al., 2024 ; Janssen & Vuuren, 2021 ). Excessive criticism from supervisors can potentially lead to feelings of loss, and alienation throughout students’ academic journey, which highlights supervisors’ responsibility to manage their emotional criticism in supervisory interactions (Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ). On the other hand, although pursuing a research degree is a challenging journey for graduate students, it is important to acknowledge the vulnerability of research supervisors and their need for support (Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ). Power dynamics within supervisory relationships, particularly when students challenge or disregard supervisors’ advice, can lead to repression and disengagement for supervisors if negative emotions are not effectively regulated (Xu, 2021 ). Thus, recognizing supervisors’ needs and allowing for emotional expressions are also essential in developing a relationship that is mutually beneficial and conducive to the well-being of both parties (Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ).

The conflicts between research supervision and institutional policies

The dilemmas present in supervisors’ emotion regulation strategies inherently illustrate the context-dependent and non-standardized nature of research supervision. However, as modern higher education institutions move toward implementing accountability-based policies that aim to standardize and quantify research supervision (Jedemark & Londos, 2021 ), conflicts between the nature of supervision and these institutional policies not only place an emotional burden on supervisors, but also endanger the quality of graduate education.

The dilemmas observed in supervisors’ emotion regulation strategies highlight the divergent understandings between supervisors and graduate students regarding their respective responsibilities and the boundaries of the supervisor-student relationship. This divergence is influenced by context-dependent factors in research supervision, including the beliefs, motivations, and initiatives of the individuals involved (Denis et al., 2018 ). Due to the difficulty in achieving a perfect agreement on these context-dependent factors, it becomes challenging to establish a standard for what constitutes an ideal beneficial research supervision (Bøgelund, 2015 ). In authentic supervisory situations, the relationships between supervisors and graduate students can range from formal and distant to informal and intimate in both academic and social interactions (Parker-Jenkins, 2018 ). Therefore, research supervision is a highly context-dependent and non-standardized practice that relies on the capabilities of supervisors and students, which are shaped by their individual experiences and personalities.

This nature of research supervision underscores the significance of avoiding standardization and a “one size fits all” approach. However, as higher education institutions move toward a corporate managerial mode, research supervision is increasingly perceived as a service provided within a provider-consumer framework, and the fundamental aspects of research supervision are being reshaped to align with a culture of performance measurement, control, and accountability (Taylor et al., 2018 ). In modern academia, universities and institutions have established specific guidelines and protocols for research supervision, which require supervisors to follow diligently and take accountability in the supervision process (Figueira et al., 2018 ).

The presence of extensive external scrutiny or accountability ignored the context-dependent and non-standardized nature of research supervision, leading to adverse effects on both supervisors and graduate students. On the one hand, supervisors face significant pressure within an accountability-based context. They are expected to serve as facilitators of structured knowledge transmission, which is enforced through the demanding requirements and time-consuming tasks associated with supervisory practices (Halse, 2011 ). However, the distinctive characteristics of various disciplines and the interdependent relationship between the supervisory context and graduate students’ learning process are neglected (Liang et al., 2021 ). Such a narrow focus on knowledge transmission may pose potential threats to supervisors’ autonomy and academic freedom, generating their feelings of self-questioning, helplessness, and demotivation (Halse, 2011 ). Supervisors in our study reported many examples of emotion regulation strategies utilized to cope with performative and accountability pressures in their workplace. Specifically, the responsibility to ensure timely doctoral completions, prioritize students’ safety, and maintain accountability for those experiencing delays or violating research codes evoked feelings of nervousness, pressure, and insecurity among supervisors.

On the other hand, interventionist supervision within accountability-driven supervisory contexts is perceived as detrimental to students’ academic innovation (Bastalich, 2017 ). The prevailing environment of heightened performativity and accountability alters supervisors’ attitudes toward academic risk-taking, thereby influencing their supervisory practices (Figueira et al., 2018 ). For example, participants in our study utilized prevention and intervention strategies to mitigate potential negative occurrences. This included adopting a directive approach to supervise students’ work and dissuading them from undertaking risky or time-consuming methods to ensure timely completion. However, such micromanagement may stifle innovation, thereby inhibiting doctoral students’ development as independent researchers (Gruzdev et al., 2020 ). Providing pre-packaged research projects or excessive support may hinder students’ acquisition of essential knowledge, skills, and expertise required for their future pursuits, potentially obstructing their progress toward independent thinking (Gruzdev et al., 2020 ).

The conflicts between the prevailing shift from autonomy to accountability in higher education and the context-dependent and non-standardized nature of research supervision highlight the necessity for practice-informed evaluations for research supervision. This finding resonates with previous studies on policy-making in graduate education (Taylor et al., 2018 ), which emphasized the challenges of establishing evidence-based institutional policies to capture the intricate realities of supervision in practice.

Limitations

This study contributes to the understanding of research supervisors’ work by examining their emotion regulation strategies in authentic supervisory situations. However, certain limitations should be addressed for future research. First, the small sample size is a significant limitation, as only six supervisors participated. Future studies may increase the sample size and enhance diversity within the sample. Second, as our study only involved perspectives from research supervisors, future studies may consider incorporating the perceptions of both supervisors and graduate students and analyzing the level of convergence and divergence between the obtained results to enhance the validity of data collection.

Implications for practice

Despite being situated in China’s supervisory accountability system, our study holds broader implications in the global context. As the shift toward corporatized management models in higher education worldwide reshapes research supervision to align with performance measurement and accountability culture (Jedemark & Londos, 2021 ), our results offer implications for research supervision and policy-making beyond the Chinese context.

First, for research supervisors and graduate students, the intricate and dynamic nature of research supervision revealed in our study makes it challenging to offer direct recommendations for optimal emotion regulation strategies. Instead, supervisors are encouraged to adaptively employ a range of emotion regulation strategies in different supervisory situations to enhance their emotional well-being. Additionally, recognizing the context-dependent nature of research supervision, both research supervisors and graduate students are urged to take into account factors such as each other’s beliefs, motivations, and initiatives in their research and daily interactions.

Second, in light of the discrepancy between the current standardized accountability measures in higher education and the context-dependent nature of research supervision, it is imperative for universities and institutions to develop practice-based policies that are tailored to supervisors’ and students’ academic development, avoiding generic and assumed approaches. To effectively address the distinctive requirements of research supervision, policy-makers are strongly encouraged to implement multi-dimensional, discipline-oriented evaluation systems for supervisors in the future.

Data Availability

Data from this study cannot be shared publicly because participants may still be identifiable despite efforts to anonymise the data. Therefore, data will only be made available for researchers who meet criteria for access to confidential data.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants who made this publication possible.

This work was supported by the Project of Outstanding Young and Middle-aged Scholars of Shandong University, Shandong University Program of Graduate Education and Reform (grant number XYJG2023037) and the General Research Fund of Hong Kong SAR (grant number CUHK 14608922).

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Han, J., Jin, L. & Yin, H. Supervisors’ emotion regulation in research supervision: navigating dilemmas in an accountability-based context. High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01241-x

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