Terry,
I meant to respond sooner to your provocation, but have been
[ironically] in the thick of doctoral training -- we have our annual
collaborative communications workshop (last week) followed by a
training conference in 3 weeks time (the event you kindly attended a
year or two ago).
Unsurprisingly, I see that you had no responses online, so thought I
might add something.
On 6 May 2009, at 12:27 pm, Terence Love wrote:
> There is extensive damning research (see below) on the quality of PhD
> examination and examiners understaning of 'what is a PhD'. PhD
> examination
> is mainly done by supervisors so it reflects badly on supervisors
> understanding of doctoral study.
Thank you for the extensive references. It's good that researchers are
identifying these problems. I can see there is much that I will want
to peruse.
> To some extent, failures of supervision is a fault of universities'
> academic
> management. In particular, it is a problem where insufficient time is
> allocated academics either for PhD supervision, op for other work
> such that
> supervision is short-changed.
I can only talk from first hand experience of the UK. This is not the
whole story. It does seem to be the case that some universities
allocate too few hours or possibly none at all for PhD supervision,
though often there is space within an academic timetable for a small
amount of supervision. The problem really becomes noticeable when
supervisors take on more than one or two students. I believe many HEIs
set a limit of 6 fulltime PhD students per supervisor, but without
some serious remissions of teaching load, even this small number
becomes untenable. One hears stories of people claiming 10 or more
student supervisions -- that begins to sound like a fulltime job!
> A quick test. How many PhD supervisors on this list provide 1 hour
> face to
> face supervision with all their PhD students each week?
Nobody has taken your test. I wonder why?
This is however the wrong question.
Why one hour? Why not 30 mins, or 1.3 hours? Or two hours? If there is
a justification for 1 hour, I have yet to see it.
Also, supervision time will vary depending on whether the student is
full or part time. Supervision load also varies hugely over the
duration of the study. There are times when the student will want to
work independently and I may not expect to see them for a formal
supervision meeting for some weeks. Often, there are chance 'corridor'
meetings, and a surprising amount can be decided in just a few
minutes. There are coffee breaks, and occasional lunchtime discussions.
There will be times when a supervisor will read drafts, or possibly co-
author a paper with a student. Conference presentations may be
commented upon, and I have even known coaching for oral presentations,
or for vivas.
Formal supervision meetings, when all the team meet, might happen
every few weeks, and are recorded and a note made of actions on both
sides. These days there may have been much contact by email and
telephone between times. A recent completing student of mine is
located overseas, so over Easter we spent much time transferring final
thesis drafts by internet, followed by much video discussion. Indeed,
I am due to conduct my first viva as an external examiner by videolink
over the summer.
So - the question is probably not answerable, though I would be very
interested in others' experiences of best supervision practice,
presumably with the students they have taken to successful completion,
and the amount of time it takes.
David
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David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel
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