Improving doctoral support through group supervision: analysing face-to-face and technology-mediated strategies for nurturing and sustaining scholarship

Abstract

Improving doctoral support through group supervision: analysing face-to-face and technology-mediated strategies for nurturing and sustaining scholarship AbstractThe challenges of the doctoral journey can create social and academic isolation. Student support is normally facilitated through the supervisory team and research training programmes. There is little empirical evidence on the role group supervision and peer learning can play in nurturing and sustaining doctoral scholarship. This article explores group supervision processes, analysing student experiences of face-to-face and technology-mediated (Tm) strategies in a professional doctorate programme, to address the question of what factors in group supervision help or hinder scholarship. Findings illustrate how group supervision can nurture mutual and sustained support and how Tm encounters can add value, affording location-independent interactions to facilitate participation, and reduce isolation. Key dimensions of a pedagogical support framework for doctoral supervision will be identified, which give priority to nurturing relationship development and sustaining connectedness through group supervision. This form of nourished scholarship can support and sustain the doctoral journey and improve completion rates. . Doctoral education is characterised by increasing provision of nontraditional routes and growth of professional doctorates in a wide range of disciplines geared to developing 'researching professionals' rather than 'professional researchers' (Gregory 1995;Doncaster and Thorne 2000;Bourner, Bowden, and Laing 2001;Usher 2002;Galvin and Carr 2003). The development of these programmes has generated 'creative tensions' (Malfoy 2005) and 'issues of validity' (Costley and Lester 2012) associated with their scope and delineation, particularly when compared with the conventional PhD. These tensions impact on students and supervisor relationships, highlighting the need to consider alternative, more innovative and enabling pedagogic support strategies that can address these challenges and create opportunities for more collective and collaborative research cultures and environments (Delamont, Atkinson, and Parry 1997;Cousin and Deepwell 2005;Malfroy 2005;Samara 2006;Wisker, Robinson, and Shacham 2007) focused on 'nourished scholarship' (Carr, Galvin, and Todres 2010). KeywordsProfessional doctorate students can experience particular challenges associated with being professionally experienced, mature and part-time students while sharing with all doctoral students the essentially personal and individualised nature of the doctoral experience, routed in the goal of undertaking and successfully completing a sustained in-depth investigation of a problem or issue in order to make a significant contribution to knowledge. This experience can 2 Reference this paper as: . Improving doctoral support through group supervision: analyzing face-to-face and technology-mediated strategies for nurturing and sustaining scholarship. Studies in Higher Education, 2015 http://dx

Exploring perceived support of postgraduate medical science research students

“…In addition, doctoral students are expected to develop generic research, leadership and management skills to equip them for a future contribution to the knowledge economy (Hutchings 2015). The PhD is recognised as an intense learning experience and the journey is likely to transform the individual (Barnacle and Mewburn 2010).…”

Learning together, learning apart: integrated action learning through a socio-technical systems lens

“…In a recent feedback session, a DBA student highlighted 'opportunities for peer support are beneficial to combat the natural isolation that occurs between [taught] workshops'. Students continually highlight that collaboration and social support are important for their doctoral experience (Hutchings 2017;Parker 2009). The importance of the individuals within the action learning sets to support DBA learning can be seen through the commitment of others to the group, the opportunity for questioning from others and the development of learning communities.…”

“…Although the integration of technology has positively influenced experiences, there are hindering issues around 'extra-technology' (Hutchings 2017). We have noticed challenges for students in being able to connect and interact with the technology.…”

Should first-year doctoral students be supervised collectively or individually? Effects on thesis completion and time to completion

“…24-25). Furthermore, it has been noted that students perceive peer learning as creative and reflexive (Hutchings, 2017), more so than with individual forms of supervision (Fenge, 2012). What is more, the formalisation of peer learning makes it easier for doctoral students to engage outside planned formal teaching in terms of research (Wisker et al, 2007), thereby counteracting the oft-cited experiences of social and academic isolation among doctoral students (see, e.g., de Lange et al, 2011;Fenge, 2012;Hutchings, 2017;Samara, 2006).…”

“…In recent decades and in many parts of the world, however, individual supervision appears to have lost ground to supervision models in which several students working on related but different research projects are supervised at the same time by one or several supervisors. This latter situation defines what we and other scholars refer to as collective supervision (Enyedy et al, 2003;Hutchings, 2017;Nordentoft et al, 2013;Robertson, 2017;Samara, 2006;Wisker, Robinson, & Shacham, 2007). An important species of collective supervision is cohort supervision, which consists of collective supervision of students who have been admitted to a teaching program at the same time and which are expected to follow a similar planned development (e.g., de Lange, Pillay, & Chikoko, 2011).…”