Introduction

Fit in supervisory relationships matters in doctoral supervision. Supervisor-student fit in supervisory relationships is crucial to doctoral students’ satisfaction with learning experiences, retention or attrition, and academic progress (Cardilini et al. 2022; van Rooij et al. 2021); it also influences supervisory practices, supervision effectiveness and quality (Cardilini et al. 2022; Orellana et al. 2016). In this sense, promoting fit in supervisory relationships is important to improve the quality of doctoral supervision.

Moreover, ‘fit is fluid; it is influenced by contexts’ (Baker and Pifer, 2015, p. 308), especially in cultural and disciplinary senses. Firstly, supervisory relationships in doctoral education are embedded in historically constructed and layered contexts of national culture (Carter et al. 2018). For example, the origins of doctorates stemmed from the mediaeval paradigm of training teachers, while Von Humboldt’s ideal of nurturing future researchers has reshaped the nature of doctoral education worldwide since the early 19th century. Following the Humboldtian ideal, traditional supervision relationships (especially in Europe), embedded in an unstructured doctoral education process, have adopted a ‘master-apprentice’ model where doctoral students and their supervisors are in one-to-one private relationships aiming toward dissertation completion (Taylor, 2012). Although a global convergence of doctoral education towards standardized structures involving coursework and supervised research following the US model has emerged recently, national characteristics still exist (Shin et al. 2018).

Taking China as an example, supervisory relationships in China have been embedded in Confucianism, where traditional teacher-student relationships are compared to father-son relationships, characterized as rigidly hierarchical and authoritarian (Ho and Ho, 2008). Although teacher-student relationships are changing, core values of Confucianism have been sustained in modern China (Ho, 1994).

Secondly, supervisory relationships bear disciplinary differences (Barnes et al. 2012; Kyvik and Smeby, 1994). Specific to STEM disciplines (sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics), high social connectedness and interdependence exist between faculty and their supervised students in natural sciences and engineering (Becher et al. 1994; Delamont and Atkinson, 2001; Golde, 2005; Lovitts, 2001); and doctoral students work closely with their supervisors, who tend to include their supervisors as co-authors more often than their counterparts in social sciences and humanities (Delamont and Atkinson, 2001; Heath, 2002; Lovitts, 2001). This is because faculties in STEM need graduate students to work as assistants in laboratories to generate scientific findings (Kyvik and Smeby, 1994; Liang et al. 2021). In this sense, graduate students act as a source of the labour force to advance their supervisors’ research projects (Zhao et al. 2007). Meanwhile, faculties in science departments are likened to ‘the center of a small solar system’, where doctoral students’ learning and research rely heavily on interconnections with faculties and other research peers (Golde, 2005, p. 677). Also, doctoral students depend on their supervisors’ supply of resources and spaces for their learning and degree completion, which can eventually facilitate their professional development within and outside academic contexts (Delamont and Atkinson, 2001; Maher et al. 2020). Such close supervisory interactions suggest that investigating the dyadic fit or misfit between supervisors and doctoral students bears significance in understanding supervisory relationships and doctoral supervision in STEM.

However, few investigations have been conducted regarding how cultural and disciplinary contexts influence supervisory relationships in doctoral supervision. Furthermore, despite the increased number of scholarships in Chinese doctoral education (Bao et al. 2018; Huang, 2017; Zheng et al. 2018), limited research has specifically examined fit or misfit in supervisory relationships in the Chinese context.

Echoing emerging interests in understanding Chinese doctoral education, as well as features of modern doctorates and the supervision process (Lee, 2018), and acknowledging the shortage of research examining supervisor-student perceived fit or misfit in China’s supervisory relationships, this article explores Chinese doctoral students’ and their supervisors’ perceived fit or misfit in supervisory relationships in STEM through the lens of person-supervisor fit (Kristof-Brown et al. 2005). In so doing, this article answers the following main research questions:

How can we understand supervisor-doctoral student perceived fit or misfit in STEM supervisory relationships in China?

In order to answer the main research question, two sub-research questions need to be explored:

How do doctoral students and supervisors in supervisory pairs perceive fit or misfit in supervisory relationships in China?

How can we understand such perceived fit or misfit in cultural and disciplinary contexts?

In what follows, the literature on fit or misfit in doctoral supervision will be reviewed first. Discussions on teacher-student relationships in a Confucian cultural context will be followed by the presentation of theoretical framework of person-supervisor fit and its application in doctoral education. After presenting the qualitative research design, the main findings will be interpreted and discussed.

Literature review

In summary, research has revealed conceptual and practical dimensions of fit or misfit in doctoral supervision. The conceptual dimension refers to individuals’ beliefs concerning why supervisors and students behave in certain ways; and the practical dimension focuses on what actual supervisory practices are.

In terms of the conceptual dimension, a seminal work by Murphy and his colleagues (Murphy et al. 2007) shows that doctoral students and supervisors in engineering hold four orientations concerning two broad distinctions regarding doctoral supervision: (1) whether the focus of supervision is for the completion of the research tasks (task-focused) or the candidate’s professional and personal developments (person-focused); and (2) whether the supervisor leads and directs the research (controlling) or monitors and guides the research (guiding). A follow-up study (Murphy, 2009) found that supervisors are engaged more in guiding and person-focused orientations while students’ conceptions are characterized by controlling and task-focused orientations. Specific to supervisory relationships, four categories are distinguished: supervisor dominant under the controlling and task-focused orientation; supervisor dominant but encouraging under the controlling and person-focused orientation; supervisor guiding and checking under the guiding and task-focused orientation; and supervisor guiding, and sharing under the guiding and person-focused orientation.

Additionally, doctoral students and supervisors differ in their views of supervisors’ roles (Orellana et al. 2016). Individuals with a controlling orientation regard supervisors as hierarchical controllers of the doctoral research while those with a guiding orientation consider supervisors as doctoral students’ equal collaborators (Murphy et al. 2007). Some students expect supervisors’ academic, practical, intellectual, and social support while supervisors find the extent and range of students’ expectations of their role demanding (Pole et al. 1997). Also, some authors suggest that doctoral students and supervisors hold different perceptions of resources and challenges during doctoral processes (Pyhältö and Keskinen, 2012). For example, doctoral students believe that interactions with academic communities are vital for completion of their degrees (Basturkmen et al. 2012) while supervisors tend to stress the funding students received, students’ motivation and self-orientation (Gardner, 2009). Thus, their conceptions of factors contributing to successful doctoral completion differ. Specifically, supervisors think students’ overall development and their independence during their paths to successful completion of degrees are important. Contrarily, the priority for students tends to be the completion of their project quickly and effectively, which requires a high volume and quality of supervision (Murphy, 2009).

In terms of the practical dimension, firstly, students’ preferences for supervision styles may not match what supervisors are willing or able to offer (Mainhard et al. 2009). For example, doctoral students expect direct answers from supervisors while supervisors are apt to pose questions, expecting students to learn from making mistakes (Hu et al. 2016). Secondly, support offered by supervisors may be at odds with students’ needs, i.e., supervisors’ motivation and personal support versus students’ needs regarding performance in relation to their goals and targets (Deuchar, 2008).

Although previous studies are enlightening, they are less than clear about what factors influence doctoral students’ and supervisors’ perceived fit or misfit in supervisory relationships. In addition to disciplinary contexts, this article recognizes national culture as a deep yet persuasive force that shapes students’ perceptions. Specific to the Chinese context, the cultural context usually refers to Confucianism (Hayhoe, 1996), which bears a unique relationship with attitudes towards teacher-student relationships.

Teacher-student relationships in a Confucian cultural context

It is widely posited that Chinese teacher-student relationships have been significantly shaped by Confucianism (Elstein, 2009; Ho and Ho, 2008). In the Confucian doctrine, teacher-student relationships are modeled after father-son relationships, where teachers are called shi fu and students are called di zi. Here Shi means teacher and Fu means father. In this sense, teachers and students are quasi-families. Teachers are expected to play both affective and instrumental roles, as both ‘fathers’ and ‘instructors’ (Ho and Ho, 2008). while Chinese students are also expected to act as sons. A traditionally held belief is ‘one day as a teacher, a lifetime as a father’, encompassing the ethic of xiao jing (filial piety) which traditionally has been pervasive in teacher-student relationships in China. This means that students should not only love and respect (xiao) teachers, but also be obedient, humble, and deferential (jing) with them.

In addition to familial ethics, the hierarchical status between teachers and students in Confucianism has also greatly shaped Chinese learners’ learning styles and students’ expectations of teachers (Elstein, 2009). It is commonly held that a Chinese supervisor is the ‘patriarchal leader’ in doctoral students’ eyes (Zheng et al. 2018). Students rarely disagree with their teachers’ teachings, being afraid of challenging teachers’ authority to ask challenging questions, and only daring to adopt passive resistance when teachers’ demands are too great. Owing to status disparity, students generally keep an affective distance from their teachers, leading to unidirectional communication from teachers to students. Thus, certain conflicts can remain potential and unresolved, being masked by superficial harmony (Ho et al. 2001). For example, empirical studies have shown that supervision content in China ranges from academic to nonacademic issues relating to doctoral students’ learning and lives. However, supervisors felt that this led to a heavy burden of ‘family responsibility’ in supervision (Zheng et al. 2018).

This article is not ‘culturally pre-set’ (Cheng, 2000, p. 435). However, given that there is insufficient understanding of how doctoral students and supervisors perceive supervisory relationships and whether their perceptions align with each other in the Chinese context, especially in STEM disciplines, this article will explore Confucian cultural traditions towards student-teacher relationships to consider potential fit or misfit in supervisory relationships in STEM.

The person-supervisor fit as the analytical lens

The perspective of person-supervisor fit is a sub-perspective within the broad person-environment fit theory, which refers to the degree of congruence or alignment between individuals’ attitudes, values and behavior and their working environments (Kristof-Brown et al. 2005). Scholars have identified two types of person-environment fit: supplementary fit and complementary fit. The former stresses similarities of fundamental characteristics between people and their environmental contexts, such as compatibilities in terms of values, goals, and attitudes (Kristof-Brown et al. 2005). This is more of a conceptual dimension. The latter indicates that certain characteristics of a person make the whole of an environment more or less effective because one deficiency or demand in the environment or person can be offset by another. Two subgroups exist within complementary fit: demands–abilities fit (individuals’ abilities meet environmental demands) and needs–supplies fit (individuals’ needs are met by environmental supplies) (Kristof-Brown, 1996). This is more of a practical dimension.

Baker and Pifer (2015) remind readers of the strong potential for use of fit theory in examining doctoral education: ‘the use of fit theory in doctoral education research may shed light on the multiple points at which students form perceptions of fit, the antecedents of those processes, and the corresponding outcomes.’ (p. 297) Building on this, Ward and Brennan (2018) constructed a student-doctoral education fit analytical model to assess influential factors for doctoral completion. Both Baker and Pifer (2015) and Ward and Brennan (2018) call for empirical research to apply the theory of fit to examine students’ lived experience involving doctoral education, where supervisors were regarded as one part of doctoral students’ working environment. However, these authors only stressed the macro dimension of student fit to doctoral education, such as student-environment fit and student-vocation fit.

They first ignored supervisors’ voices. Supervisory relationships are dyadic, which might otherwise be impossible. As such, both Baker and Pifer (2015) and Ward and Brennan (2018) did not pay enough attention to potential supervisory fit or misfit in both conceptual and practical dimensions found by previous studies, as discussed above. Second and closely related, this led to a lack of application of fit theory in relation to a shortage of detailed examination of the supervisory pairs’ perceived fit or misfit in their supervisory relationships.

Thus, this article aims to: (1) investigate supervisory pairs’ perceived fit or misfit by listening to both supervisors’ and students’ voices; and (2) examine potential supervisory fit or misfit in the cultural and disciplinary contexts through locating this article in China and in STEM disciplines.

Methodology

This study is a qualitative inquiry with the fieldwork conducted in one of China’s research-intensive universities which specializes in STEM disciplines. According to Biglan-Becher classifications of subject matters (Biglan, 1973; Becher et al. 1994), sciences and mathematics of STEM disciplines belong to the hard-pure cluster while technology and engineering belong to the hard-applied cluster. To gain sufficient and rich information and ensure the representativeness of participants, we first adopted a purposive sampling strategy to search for doctoral supervisors in each cluster with different academic ranks and years of experience in supervising doctoral students. With the fieldwork ongoing, more doctoral supervisors were recruited through a snowball sampling strategy. Two supervisors from hard-pure disciplines and three from hard-applied disciplines participated in this study. Two of them are associate professors while another three are professors. Their experience in supervising doctoral students ranges from 3 to 21 years. Supervisors introduced their doctoral students to us. We were able to contact nine doctoral students, whose stage of doctoral learning ranges from the first to the fifth year. Eventually, participants formed nine supervisory pairs. See Table 1 for participants’ brief profiles relevant to this article.

Table 1 Participants’ brief profiles relevant to this article.
Full size table

To explore doctoral students’ and supervisors’ perceived fit or misfit in supervisory relationships, we conducted semi-structured interviews with participants in December 2021. An interview guide was designed for the systematic exploration of: (1) participants’ perceptions of and practices in supervision; and (2) their self-accounts of fit or misfit in supervisory relationships and reasons for their views. Follow-up and probe questions were raised flexibly when puzzling, unclear or unanticipated answers emerged in individual interviews. The longest interview took one hour and 58 min and the shortest lasted one hour and one minute. Each interview was audio-recorded based on participants’ informed consent. Confidentiality was assured to ensure supervisors and doctoral students could speak freely. Chinese Mandarin was used as the language of interviews and all transcriptions are verbatim. Participants’ names were anonymized in the following presentation of data.

For data analysis, we conducted a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2013) with the assistance of NVivo 12. The entire analysis process was a mixture of inductive and deductive approaches. As discussed above, previous insights into people-supervisor fit theory (Kristof-Brown et al. 2005), and its application to doctoral education (Baker and Pifer, 2015; Ward and Brennan, 2018) have inspired this article. We, therefore, draw on these established constructs to interpret data deductively. Meanwhile, we aimed to explore potential fit or misfit between doctoral students’ and their supervisors’ perceptions of supervisory relationships in cultural and disciplinary contexts, where there has been a dearth of research. This required us to be open to emergent themes from the data. In this sense, we also interpreted our data inductively.

Findings

Driven by informed theoretical constructs, previous literature and our research questions, we finally identified doctoral students’ and their supervisors’ perceived supervisory fit or misfit in both conceptual and practical dimensions in this study. The conceptual dimension consists of supplementary fit and misfit; and the practical dimension consists of complementary fit and misfit. Specifically,

  1. (1)

    the supplementary fit is illustrated as three conceptual congruences

  2. (2)

    the supplementary misfit as regards supervisors’ familial roles, which demonstrates contradictions between sustained traditional cultural influences and modern academic profession

  3. (3)

    the complementary fit, consisting of needs–supplies fit and demands–abilities fit, bears disciplinary characteristics in STEM

  4. (4)

    the complementary misfit regarding supervisors’ strict requirements meeting students demands on autonomy, where sustained cultural influences contributes to superficial supervisory harmony.

Supplementary fit: congruent perceptions in three dimensions

The data shows that the nine supervisory pairs generally shared three congruent perceptions regarding the nature of doctoral learning, students’ dispositions and supervisors’ roles. First, they regarded doctoral learning as ‘a developmental process with progressive phrases’(D4-2). Ideally, doctoral students will grow from the status of ‘with few experiences [in research]’ to ‘achieve something under guidance, such as publishing conference papers’, or further to ‘be an independent researcher.’ (S5)

Based on such perceptions regarding doctoral learning as a gradual development process, supervisory pairs in this study believed that it is important for doctoral students to maintain a positive mental attitude which was explained by one of the participants as the ability of - ‘knowing that doing research is not easy, then stay calm and move on’. (D3) Here, our data shows the second conceptual congruence between doctoral students and supervisors in relation to doctoral learning: certain students’ dispositions are vital for successful doctoral completion in addition to a positive mentality. The most frequently mentioned dispositions include, passionate and exploratory, engaged and persistent, and independent and autonomous.

Third and closely related, supervisory pairs in our study shared similar perceptions about the vital modelling and nurturing roles of supervisors with students’ formation of dispositions necessary for successful doctoral completion during their developmental process in doctoral learning. Interestingly, all five supervisors in this study quoted a traditional Chinese saying when talking about the roles they played in doctoral students’ learning process: ‘to be a teacher is to act as an exemplar’ (xuewei renshi, xingwei shifan). Student participants in this study echoed this, commenting that,

He [the supervisor] came to the laboratory earlier than us but left later than us. You can feel his enthusiasm and see how engaged he was. This was a tacit influence on us. (D-3)

And further;

She[supervisor] believed in trial and error. She always encouraged us to just explore, and never give up. I now understood that replication needs persistence. (S-4)

Laboratory- or field-based work takes up a large proportion of the doctoral learning processes in STEM (Golde, 2005), where experiments are full of uncertainty regarding replications. Supervisors in this study recognized their exemplary roles in doctoral students’ formation of ‘doctoral dispositions’, such as being engaged and persistent. Echoing previous research (Becher et al. 1994; Delamont and Atkinson, 2001; Lovitts, 2001), supervisors in our study kept close working relationships in laboratories with doctoral students. The functions of role models were effected through daily supervisory practices, and tacit and verbal interactions between supervisors and students.

In addition to the modelling role, our data also shows that both supervisors and students believed that supervisors are responsible for nurturing students’ interests in scientific research and guiding them to achieve high academic standards. Thus, supervisors altered their specific strategies and practices during students’ different developmental phases.

I won’t refuse any academic questions during their first several weeks or months in the laboratories, and no silly questions at the early stages. However, after the first term, I will not answer questions which I think they should or could know through searching literature or just google. (S1)

Supervisors in this study tended to use a ‘scaffolding’ approach to ‘empower’ students’ independence with more supervisory support at the initial stages but allowing this support to ‘fade’ later on (Hasrati, 2005, p. 558). This resonates with the guiding orientation regarding the supervision process proposed by Murphy et al. (2007) in engineering. Such dynamic practices result from supervisors’ perceptions that students’ ability to think independently is a vital quality which should be nurtured gradually during doctoral studies. This aligns with students’ concept that they will not ‘absorb knowledge from supervisors all the time. Otherwise, the supervisor is a loser.’ (S4)

Supplementary misfit: ‘I am only a supervisor’

Our data also shows that there are incongruent perceptions of supervisors’ familial roles between doctoral students and their supervisors, which are considered as the supplementary misfit in this article. Doctoral students in this study expected their supervisors to play both affective and instrumental roles. However, supervisors in this study also agreed with the position ‘I am only a supervisor’. For example, the supervisory relationship should be intimate beyond the relationship between an instructor and a learner for D1. She expected that S1 cared about her life like ‘families and friends’. However, S1 tended to keep a clear boundary from their students ‘in private lives’. S3 and S2 felt that the primary bond between students and themselves exists in the academic scope, similar to the position of S1. Therefore, ‘it is unnecessary and impossible for supervisors to be students’ fathers.’ (S5) S4 also illustrated why it is ‘impossible’ for supervisors to play familial functions in supervisory relationships, as follows;

Indeed, I am a supervisor, but I am also a dean of the department, and I also have to teach. Supervision is only part of my responsibilities. My role as supervisor is to ensure their obtaining of [doctoral]degrees. It is a moral kidnapping to let me be their parents to take care of everything. (S4)

In modern academia, academic professions are not just ‘academic’. Instead, academics must take on the multiple responsibilities of teaching, research and sometimes, management (Teichler et al. 2013). This is the case of supervisors in our study. The above quotation demonstrates that being a supervisor is only one part of S4’s professional roles in addition to their roles in teaching and management. Such multiple roles mean heavy workloads so that looking after doctoral students’ academic and non-academic lives in a ‘quasi-parental’ way was regarded as a ‘moral kidnapping’ for S4. However, doctoral students thought supervisions without affective intimacy between doctoral students and supervisors are not complete (D4-1; D4-2; D4-3). It can be seen that the incongruence between students’ and supervisors’ perceptions of supervisors’ familial roles partly demonstrates a contradiction between traditional beliefs in relation to teachers’ functions and modern practices as regards academic professions.

Complementary fit: Needs–supplies fit and demands–abilities fit

Aligning with previous studies on two subgroups within complementary fit: needs–supplies fit and demands–abilities fit (Kristof-Brown, 1996), our data demonstrates fit between students’ needs and supervisors’ supplies as well as fit between supervisors’ demands and students’ abilities.

Needs–supplies fit

The stories of needs–supplies fit are dominant in our data, where students’ multidimensional needs are met by supervisors’ respective supplies. Inspired by distinctions between task-focused orientation and person-focused orientation from Murphy et al. (2007) as discussed previously, this article identified two aspects of fit within the broad needs–supplies fit: task-focused fit and person-focused fit.

Task-focused fit in this article refers to situations where students’ needs are generated by the objective of finishing their learning and research tasks in order to obtain a doctoral degree. Our data shows that to assist students’ in successful fulfilment of their academic progress, supervisors kept ‘supplying’ instrumental guidance and resources. Such instrumental guidance ranges from ‘teaching students how to use laboratory equipment’, (D1) ‘recommending students’ literature’, (D5-2) and ‘introducing them to frontier scientific issues’, (D5-1) to ‘offering research ideas’ (S4) and ‘instructing academic writings.’(D5-3) Resources also include a number of other types of advice and guidance, for example on financial funding and socialization opportunities. Financially, supervisors usually supported students’ expenses generated by academic activities, such as attending academic conferences (S5) and conducting experiments (D3-3).

Socially, supervisors were willing to introduce domain-specific experts to doctoral students who thus gained chances to ‘ask those high-levels some specific questions’. (D4-1) Gradually, doctoral students were able to join supervisors’ academic networks, through which, for instance, D2 obtained the chance to visit a student at an Australian university for one month. It was through this experience that he was able to collaborate with an Australian scholar to publish his first journal article, and before his graduation in June 2022, D2 also received a postdoctoral offer to continue his collaborative research in Australia.

Person-focused fit in this article refers to situations where students are in need of personal development beyond just finishing dissertations. This development is twofold including the need to pursue academic careers and non-academic professions. The initial motivation for D3 and D2 to obtain PhD degrees was to pursue academic careers. However, from time to time they wavered in their resolution because they realized that an academic position is ‘not just to conduct research, it is to publish papers. Papers-only.’ (D2) They were puzzled by the reality of an academic career being based on ‘papers-only’ which is pervasive in Chinese academia, thus ‘I really need a reason to persuade myself to insist on my initial choice.’ (D3) Facing students’ confusion and hesitation relating to their future academic career plans, S3’s practices are illustrative of how supervisors’ supplies met students’ needs, and are similar to those of S2, as demonstrated in S3’s remark that:

I keep telling them that scientific research is to resolve important problems in this field, that they should have a sense of social responsibility, and that doing scientific research is to contribute to the nation, and the world. Publishing papers is not my concern with doctoral students. (S3)

Traditionally, national interests and social responsibility are the main concerns of Chinese scholars’ academic endeavors (Hayhoe, 1996). However, doctoral students in this study could not see these values in the scientific research they conducted owing to the overwhelming stress on publications in the surrounding working environments. Through the supervisor’s constant expressions of the belief that scientific research is to resolve the important issues in this field as illustrated by the above quotation, changes happened to students.

Gradually, I know that I want to resolve tough but core issues. Many people conduct research for publishing papers. But I wanna make original breakthroughs. I wanna contribute to scientific communities. (D3)

Unlike those who have career plans in academia, some doctoral students in this study clearly expressed that they would enter into non-academic professions after graduation (D4-1; D4-3; D5-1; D5-2). These students were in need of expanding their profession-oriented abilities and social networks beyond the ‘Ivory Tower’ of a circumscribed academic environment. In these cases, S4 and S5 expressed their supportive attitudes towards students’ diversified career choices, and they consciously cultivated students’ transferable skills and abilities. For example, they asked students to make oral presentations every week to report progress as a way to train students’ in communication skills, and they took students to socialize with their corporate sponsors to expand students’ social networks and practice their interpersonal skills. In this way, students felt that,

I am receiving systematic training in breadth and complexity. These can increase my overall competitiveness no matter what kind of job I would have in the future. I can make a living using what I have learnt on campus. Overall, doctoral studies can make me a better person. (D5-1)

The stories above echo previous studies on STEM doctoral education where doctoral students’ learning and training rely heavily on supervisory interconnections as well as the funding and resources supervisors supply (Golde, 2005, p. 677). These interconnections contribute to doctoral students’ professional development within and outside academic contexts (Delamont and Atkinson 2001; Maher et al. 2020).

Demands–abilities fit

The stories of demands–abilities fit in this study illustrate how supervisors’ demands were met by students’ abilities, in terms of students’ prior knowledge and students constituting a workforce.

The data shows that demands–abilities fit started as early as the initial stage of finding matches between doctoral students and supervisors before university enrollment. When talking about their criteria for recruiting the ‘right’ students, S4 stressed the importance of fit between students’ knowledge and abilities obtained through previous learning experiences and his research areas because he expected students to join his research projects as assistants smoothly and without too much friction between supervisors and students regarding the broad research foci. In contrast, supervisors who were conducting interdisciplinary research, were in demand of students with different academic knowledge from their own to enrich their ongoing research. This was illustrated by the stories of supervisory pairs between S1-D1 and S5-D5-3.

In addition to prior knowledge, the workforce is another aspect in our participants’ stories within the category of demands–abilities fit. Supervisor participants in our study did not explicitly express the idea that students constitute a workforce in their projects. However, the verb phrase ‘gan huo’ was often heard when supervisors commented on students’ performance in our data. For example, ‘He [D-2] was earnest when gan huo. Every time I gave him a huo to gan, I never worried too much. He always did well.’(S-2). Gan can be roughly translated as ‘work on’ and huo as ‘tasks’. Students’ words can best illustrate the meaning of ‘gan huo’, and the fact that students acted as a workforce in their supervisors’ research projects. D4-1 did not receive any offers of doctoral study during his first-year applications. When talking about his success in the second year, he commented,

It was my second year. This means that I can join his[supervisor’s] projects in advance with no need to deal with all kinds of graduation affairs like other fresh graduates. The earlier I joined, the earlier I could work for him [gan huo for him]. For the engineering program, it is indeed a big advantage if you could work for several more months.

D4-1 was able to meet his supervisor’s demands in the workforce giving more time, unlike D5-2, who was on a fast track, directly upgrading to doctoral study during his third year master’s program study with S5. When talking about his experiences, D5-2 stressed that,

He [supervisor] conducts several transverse projects funded by enterprises so that business trips are normal. I am discerning and can act according to circumstances quickly. I believed he needed such a reliable and good assistant to handle social occasions. (D5-2)

Interestingly, when talking about the influences of business trips on his academic progress, D5-2 stressed that although experiences gained from transverse projects were less useful for his dissertation, they ‘broadened my contacts and enriched my understanding of entrepreneurial work environment.’ The above stories echo ongoing discussions on characteristics of supervisory relationships in STEM where doctoral students act as a workforce to advance their supervisors’ research projects (Zhao et al. 2007). This is especially evident in the hard-applied disciplines such as engineering in our study. For students, gan huo for supervisors’ transverse projects, to differing degrees, can contribute to their socialization process in non-academic professions (Zhao et al. 2007), especially in the contexts of the increasingly diverse career paths for doctoral graduates in modern society (Gu et al. 2018).

Complementary misfit and superficial harmony: ‘S/he is the supervisor after all’

Parts of our data shows that in the practical dimension, there were complementary misfit between supervisors’ strict supervisory practices and students’ demands for autonomy. Interestingly, students’ belief in the ‘hierarchical governance mode’ in the supervisory relationship (Zheng et al. 2018) meant that superficial harmony was possible despite such misfit.

In contrast to the incongruence between supervisors and students in relation to traditional beliefs towards supervisors’ familial roles in supervisory relationships (Elstein, 2009), our data suggests supervisory agreement regarding supervisors’ authoritative status in supervisory practices. This echoes traditional beliefs about the hierarchical order in ‘teacher-student’ relationships (Ho and Ho, 2008; Tu, 1998). For example, S1 believed that keeping a distance between doctoral students and supervisors in their private lives is helpful to her management and control of her ‘own’ research team because she is the ‘leader’ in supervisory relationships. ‘Otherwise, they[students] wouldn’t take my words seriously.’ (S1) This authoritative view of supervisors’ status led to supervisory practices being dominated by strict rules in the opinion of D1. For example, S1 required students to arrive at the laboratory no later than 8:30 a.m. every morning. S1 explained that,

I push them to learn more and keep learning because I believe that we should be hard on ourselves. Sometimes, if they just worked harder a bit more, and insisted on it, success would be near. Why not be industrious?

However, D1 insisted that being industrious should be based on her own autonomous choice rather than on being pushed by the supervisor; and she felt that the supervisory relationship with S1 is ‘full of misfit’. Surprisingly, when talking about how she dealt with such misfit, D1 said,

We never had direct conflicts because I won’t tell her and show my dissatisfaction… I disagreed with her, but I should respect her. She is the supervisor after all. (D1)

The perception of ‘s/he is the supervisor after all’ is a constant theme in our student participants’ stories. Such perceptions guide doctoral students’ practices in supervisory relationships. Our data shows that doctoral students will not refuse supervisors’ requirements and arrangements but complain privately instead (D4-3). Although they expected more intimate contact with supervisors, they will not invite supervisors to join students’ activities because ‘supervisors are supervisors, not one of us.’ (D3)

Students’ perceptions of ‘s/he is the supervisor after all’ resonate with the ‘hierarchical governance mode’ (Zheng et al. 2018) between students and teachers in traditional Confucian doctrine. The ‘father-teacher’ enjoys authoritative status as a ‘patriarchal leader’ and it is an act of respect of the ‘son-student’ not to disagree with their authoritative ‘father-teacher’. Even if supervisors thought they never performed authoritatively, nevertheless they report that ‘students kept a distance from me subconsciously’. (S2) Students’ unconscious practices derailed their expectations of familial intimacy with their supervisors as shown above. Further discussions on this aspect are presented below.

Discussions of findings

Previous studies advocate the application of fit theory in doctoral education (Baker and Pifer, 2015; Ward and Brennan, 2018), and demonstrate the importance of fit in the supervisory relationship (Cardilini et al. 2022; van Rooij et al. 2021). However, few studies have listened to both supervisors’ and their doctoral students’ voices, and few studies have explored the cultural and disciplinary influences on perceived fit or misfit in supervisory relationships. The case of China is unique since teacher-student relationships are embedded in the cultural tradition of Confucianism, which is characterized by hierarchical status and familial ethics (Elstein, 2009; Ho and Ho, 2008). Given that supervision relationships in doctoral education bear disciplinary differences (Barnes et al. 2012; Golde, 2005; Kyvik and Smeby, 1994), this article specifically explored supervisory pairs’ perceived fit or misfit in STEM supervisory relationships in China in the cultural context of Confucianism. The main findings are summarized in Table 2 below.

Table 2 Main findings.
Full size table

The findings of this article have first echoed the conceptual and practical dimensions of supervisory fit or misfit in doctoral education as reviewed above; and second this article has identified supplementary and complementary fit or misfit respectively. In terms of the conceptual dimension, supplementary fit refers to three conceptual congruences. The first is that doctoral learning is a gradual developmental process; the second is that certain students’ dispositions are vital for students’ successful completion of their doctoral study; and the third is in relation to the modeling and nurturing roles of supervisors.

In terms of the practical dimension, both needs-supplies fit and demands-abilities fit are interpreted within complementary fit, drawing on previous theoretical constructs (Kristof-Brown, 1996). Here, disciplinary features in STEM are evident: in terms of needs-supplies fit, doctoral students’ learning and training rely heavily on interconnections with supervisors as well as on the funding and resources which supervisors supplied (Golde, 2005, p. 677). In terms of demands-abilities fit, students act as a workforce advancing supervisors’ research projects while giving students opportunities to gain benefits enhancing their professional development within and outside academic contexts (Zhao et al. 2007).

Based on and contributing to existing literature, our data also elicits supplementary misfit in the conceptual dimension and complementary misfit in the practical dimension. First, supplementary misfit stems from contradictions between traditional beliefs regarding teachers’ familial roles and the modern academic profession where supervisors have multiple roles. Traditionally, Chinese teachers are expected to act as ‘teacher-father’, caring about students’ academic and nonacademic lives (Ho and Ho, 2008). Students in this study also expected intimacy with supervisors such as they enjoy with families and friends. However, supervisors in this study tended to believe that supervisors’ familial functions expected by doctoral students are beyond their responsibilities – ‘I am only a supervisor’, who also has to teach and manage. This demonstrates contradictions between traditional beliefs regarding both affective and instrumental dimensions of teachers’ roles and the multiple responsibilities of teaching, research and management of the modern academic profession (Teichler et al. 2013).

Second, complementary misfit between supervisors’ strict requirements of students and students’ demands for autonomy are demonstrated by our data. Interestingly, superficial harmony was sustainable as it was guided by the students’ over-riding view that ‘s/he is the supervisor after all.’ This echoes traditional beliefs regarding the ‘hierarchical governance mode’ in supervisory relationships (Zheng et al. 2018) with familiar ethics modeled after father-son relationships (Ho and Ho, 2008; Tu, 1998).

In terms of the cultural lens, the father-son relationship is a hierarchical bond in Confucianism, featuring ‘authoritarian moralism’ (Ho, 1994) with disparate status in China. Thus, a ‘student-son’ dare not challenge the authority of the ‘teacher-father’. This is evident in our data in relation to ‘superficial harmony’ in terms of doctoral students’ private complaints about their dissatisfaction with supervisors’ strict requirements. Although doctoral students expected a level of intimacy with supervisors similar to that with families and friends, ‘authoritarian moralism’ forced them to keep an affective distance from their supervisors subconsciously, since they considered supervisors as not being ‘not one of us’ as shown in the analysis above. This supports the view that there are sustained influences of the traditionally hierarchical status between teachers and students in modern academic supervisory relationships.

Meanwhile, supervisors and students disagreed with traditional beliefs regarding supervisors’ familial roles in supervisory relationships (Elstein, 2009). This demonstrates that the functions of ‘father-teacher’ in Confucianism seem self-contradictory because it is difficult to reconcile familial affections between fathers and sons, and the status detachment between teachers and learners. Such self-contradictions are intensified by supervisors’ multiple responsibilities in the modern academic profession. This generated supervisory misfit between supervisors’ affective functions in students’ expectations and instrumental functions in supervisors’ views.

Some authors suggest fluidity and flex in supervisory relationships results from changing landscapes in doctoral education in modern society (Lee, 2018), such as the rise of trans-disciplinary research (Rashid, 2021) and the increasingly diverse career paths for doctoral graduates (Gu et al. 2018). Also, the rise of academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997) in HE has reshaped supervisory relationships, where supervisors are likened to ‘managers’ (Bastalich, 2017, pp. 4-5). China is no exception to the changing landscape of doctoral education generally and doctoral supervision specifically. For example, more doctoral students now expect to pursue non-academic professions (Gu et al. 2018). Academics and doctoral students also work within an academic climate of ‘publish or perish’ or ‘publish SCI papers or no degree’(Li, 2016). In this sense, the findings of this study enrich the literature regarding the fluid supervisory relationship in the modern era via application of a cultural lens.

Contributions of this study and concluding remarks

The contributions of this article are two-fold. First, through depicting supervisory pairs’ perceived fit or misfit in supervisory relationships by listening to the voices of both doctoral students and supervisors, the current empirical article contributes to the theoretical integration of fit theory into doctoral education, especially in STEM doctoral supervision.

Second, this study advances the understanding of how disciplinary and cultural contexts influence supervisory relationships. In terms of STEM disciplines, existing studies show high social connectedness and interdependence in supervisory relationships (Becher et al. 1994; Delamont and Atkinson, 2001; Golde, 2005; Lovitts, 2001). The findings of this study contribute to the literature by demonstrating the ‘bidirectional’ characteristics of complementary fit. That is, doctoral students are in demand of supervisors’ support while supervisors need doctoral students’ labour. In this way, one’s needs or demands can be offset by the other’s abilities or supplies (Kristof-Brown, 1996).

One take-home message is that certain seemingly harmonious relationships between doctoral students and their supervisors might be superficial. To avoid supervisory conflicts arising from this potential superficiality, university practitioners are suggested to provide institutional support facilitating dialogues between supervisors and students. Also, supervisors’ active initiatives to create an open supervisory atmosphere are suggested, and such openness needs to be signaled to students.

It is admitted that the sample size was relatively small and was within one university, and the disciplinary distinctions between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ are relatively roughly drawn in this study. Thus, it is expected that future research will explore further the intersectionality of disciplinary and cultural influences on fit or misfit in doctoral supervision by including more participants from a greater variety of institutions. Also, it will be interesting for future study to further investigate the influences of other factors including supervisors’ academic rank, age and doctoral students’ learning stage on their perceptions of supervisory relationships.