A written understanding between supervisors and students about supervision expectations
Undertaking a PhD is a major time commitment by a student. Students implicitly desire quality supervision and a degree of certainty that they will receive the PhD they seek. The supervision of a PhD also requires a major time investment by an academic. Supervisors implicitly desire that their time investment is not wasted. They want a completion in an acceptable time frame, and they may also have a range of other expectations about publications, fulfillment of obligations to industry partners, etc. A good supervision process benefits all concerned. A bad supervision process can result in dissatisfaction for both student and supervisor, and at worse, can severely affect the life of a student and may cause embarrassment or difficulties for the supervisor, for example meeting the requirements of industry partners and/or funding bodies.
Like any other collaborative relationship, in PhD supervision there are expectations of the other party: student of supervisor, and supervisor of student. Sometimes these expectations are shared and understood because of the participation by both supervisor and student in some shared academic (or discipline) culture. In many cases, however, these expectations are not shared, and are frequently not discussed. Students often have little idea what they can expect of their supervisors. As with many other relationships, often dissatisfaction arises because of a lack of appreciation of the other party’s expectations.
It is the premise of this resource that there should be a facilitated discussion about expectations of supervision at various points in the supervision process, but particularly so at the beginning. It is also the proposition of this resource that, like with many other professional relationships, writing down the essence of the agreement is important – both to enable a revisiting of what was agreed at some later point; and also because the drafting of the document is a way of facilitating a discussion of issues.
The example that follows is only one of many possible written understandings of expectations around students and supervisors. It is real in that several of the author's students have signed statements just like it. The example is personal to the author, and it is not expected that other academics and/or their students use this one – they should collaboratively devise their own. Nevertheless, it is likely that the topics will cover the sorts of issues included in this example. Irrespective of the exact content of an agreement, what is most important is that there is one. Equally important is that there is a discussion process around the agreement so that there is learning (for supervisor as well as student) of each other’s expectations in the collaborative work program that will lead to the satisfactory completion of a PhD.
Introduction
Why have an agreement
Process to develop an agreement
Some comments on agreements
Example of an agreement
This resource was written by Prof Frank Vanclay of the Rural Social Research Group, Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research at the University of Tasmania.