Keywords

One reason why relationship building is an important part of supervision practice, as we discussed in the previous chapter, is that both writing and supervision of degree projects can be emotionally charged processes, often characterised by uncertainty, worry and anxiety. Supervision of degree projects is therefore not just about how to improve a piece of writing, or getting students to consider and reflect on their choices, but also about getting students to feel confident about their potential to cope with the considerable amount of work involved in producing a piece of academic writing at this level. In this chapter we explore this further and discuss issues connected to the emotional dimensions of supervision for both students and supervisors.

Emotions and Academic Writing

In our recorded supervision material, there are a number of examples of how the supervision interaction can be positively charged and characterised by joy, understanding and mutual appreciation (see also Zackariasson 2018). However, it is also clear from the supervision conversations we recorded and the focus group interviews we conducted that the degree project work, and thus the supervision, was regularly characterised by students feeling or expressing uncertainty about how to proceed or concern about how it would all turn out. Our study is thus in line with other research in this area, which has shown that working on academic theses, whether at undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate level, can be emotionally turbulent for both students and supervisors, and is often characterised by feelings of insecurity, anxiety, worry or guilt (see, e.g. Castello et al. 2009; Cotterall 2013; Doloriert et al. 2012; Han and Xu 2021; Liu and Yu 2022; Strandler et al. 2014; Todd et al. 2006; Zackariasson 2020). As has been pointed out in research on supervision at postgraduate level, such emotions may have a negative impact on the work process and the likelihood of students completing the task, and supervisors may to some extent have a role in preventing this (Wollast et al. 2023; Weise et al. 2020; Aitchison and Mowbray 2013; Aitchison et al. 2012).Footnote 1 However, emotions can also play a positive and constructive role in supervision interactions and in the process of writing an academic thesis, as discussed, for example, by Collins (2021), Collins and Brown (2021) and Cotterall (2013).

From an academic literacies perspective, the insecurity and worry expressed by students in our material can be understood in relation to how the task of writing a degree project in many respects differs from the coursework students have done earlier in their education. When students embark on their first degree project course and thus produce a more substantial academic text for the first time, they are usually confronted with partly new expectations and demands in terms of, for example, academic writing and student independence. In other words, they can be said to be undergoing what Lea and Street (2000) have termed a ‘course switching’, a change of course from their previous studies, which can contribute to them feeling uncertain about what is expected of them.

In the focus group interviews we conducted, it was evident that supervisors were well aware that students might feel insecure and worried about the degree project, or certain parts of it, even though the ideal was that students should also be able to enjoy the process, as exemplified by the following quote from one of the focus group interviews conducted at a Russian university:

They get very nervous during the defence of these short pieces [presentations of the degree project topic] because we invite a lot of people. The students worry for each other /…/. In the end, they always change their topic, make slight modifications. In any case, we want the students to start enjoying their work. /…/ The result won’t be satisfactory if they do the work only with their heads.

Focus Group Interview 9

The following quote from one of the focus group interviews conducted at a Swedish university also illustrates how supervisors were aware of how degree projects were often associated with anxiety, yet at the same time, as supervisors, they knew that the work could potentially be very rewarding:

I usually bring this up at the beginning when I meet new groups of degree project students. Writing a degree project is a pain in the neck. It is often associated with anxiety, and many people think it is the most demanding course they have ever done. But then I usually add that many people also think it’s the most enjoyable course they’ve done. And that’s to do with the fact that there are so many choices. That it’s up to the students themselves. They are the ones who write the degree project. It is that element of creativity and all the choices that are associated with anxiety.

Focus Group Interview 2

In this quote, the interviewed supervisor linked the description of degree project work as being associated with anxiety to aspects of independence, such as the expectation of a certain level of creativity and the need to make one’s own choices (cf. Chap. 3). In both the Swedish and Russian focus group interviews, there were several supervisors who similarly emphasised the expectations associated with academic writing and independence as one of the things that could contribute to students feeling insecure or anxious:

I also think that independence can be a problem. Not for me as a supervisor and such, but for the students who know that there is a requirement for a certain form of independence. That they have to go in and analyse the material themselves, make their own interpretations. In a way they feel very insecure about that.

Focus Group Interview 4

There really are students who are afraid of independence and don’t know how to work independently. In this case I use the power of choice. Choice gives a certain freedom and also develops creative thinking. But then again, talking about the relationship between creativity, independence and responsibility. Responsibility is when you have to accept the consequences of your choices.

Focus Group Interview 12

Indeed, it is not surprising that many students feel insecure and anxious about the task of writing a degree project, as it is usually a new experience for them. Nevertheless, it is in many ways desirable for them to have sufficient confidence in their ability to carry out the work in an appropriate way, as this can contribute to their active participation in the process, which is essential from a scaffolding perspective (van de Pol 2012; van de Pol et al. 2010). For example, if students are uncertain about their own abilities and competences, it may be much more difficult for them to find the courage to make the necessary initiatives, choices and decisions related to their degree project.

However, supervisors may also feel worried, anxious and insecure in the supervision situation, as research in this area has shown (Light et al. 2009; Todd et al. 2006; Han and Xu 2021; Vereijken et al. 2018; Almlöv and Grubbström 2023). Each degree project is to some extent unique, each student is different, and even with extensive supervision experience, it is impossible to know in advance what will happen during the degree project process. If the work is progressing as planned, supervision may seem relatively easy and carefree, but if the students you supervise are suffering from personal problems or life crises, are not submitting work on time or are not producing work of the required standard, it is not always obvious how you, as a supervisor, should act to best help the students. Supervisors may also find it difficult to answer all students’ questions or to have sufficient competence in all the parts the degree project consists of, not least because they may supervise in different academic programmes and contexts.

At the end of this chapter, we will return to the concern and uncertainty that supervisors may feel and the implications this may have in supervision practice. However, we begin by discussing how supervisors might deal with students’ insecurities and concerns about the degree project process and relate them to issues such as collective and group supervision, student collegiality and the issue of directive supervision versus ideals and perceptions of independence.

Handling Student Insecurity

It is not always obvious to supervisors when students are feeling insecure about different aspects of the degree project work, as students may in some cases try to hide their uncertainties, for example if they feel there is a risk of otherwise appearing unfavourably. However, in our recorded supervision material, it is evident that the affective practices (see Wetherell 2012) that emerged in the supervision interaction could in many cases be characterised by insecurity and uncertainties. The uncertainties that students expressed during supervision sessions could concern more general aspects, such as whether they felt they had sufficient competence to carry out all parts of the work and bring it to a successful outcome. In addition, they frequently expressed uncertainty about practical aspects of the work, such as the collection of empirical material, the organisation of the text or the reference system they were expected to use, and how they would manage it. Even when students had received written course information and perhaps listened to information from a course coordinator or seminar leader, they were not always sure how to interpret the instructions or whether they had understood the information they had received correctly. The following quote from a collective supervision session illustrates how such uncertainty could be expressed in supervision interaction:

Supervisor B::

You were wondering if you were going to do interviews with teachers?

Student H::

Yeah, well, and that was partly because I also didn’t know if it was allowed to do a pure, like text analysis. Or if I have to bring in interviews. /…/ But most of all I would like to do a text analysis of teaching materials. /…/

Supervisor B::

That’s an important question you raise. Like, what kind of materials and methods you are going to use.

Student H::

Yeah, because then, well … I feel that it will be a turning point, that I will have to change perspectives.

Student V::

Yeah, I’m uncertain too.

Student G::

[laughs] Yeah, exactly. Well, what should I do then? I feel like … I think I’m going to get a no on this, I feel. I don’t know what to do now. (laughs) Yeah, well, it will work out!

Supervisor B, Recording 1, Collective supervision

When, in this conversation sequence, Student H mentions being uncertain about an aspect of the thesis work—what kind of empirical material they can use in the degree project—the other students in the collective supervision meeting join in and express that they too have felt uncertain about this issue. The supervisor’s initial reaction, as can be seen in the quote, is to confirm that this is a significant issue. Later in the conversation, when the students had further developed what they felt uncertain about concerning the choice of empirical material, the supervisor returned to the question in a more developed way. At this point, the supervisor started by referring to the course coordinator and the seminar the students were due to attend to discuss their thesis plans, recommending that the students should write their plans according to their current thinking and then raise the issue in the seminar to get a response from the seminar leader. In addition, the students were advised not to send an email to the course coordinator asking about it, as they may have had to wait a few days for a response, which would take too much time.

Here, then, the supervisor did not resolve the students’ uncertainty by providing an answer to their question but instead referred to the course coordinator and the seminar leader and their role in this. This makes it apparent to students that there are several people involved in the degree project work and the supervision process, and that the supervisor is not the sole expert on how things should be done. In other words, the supervisor’s role as an expert is toned down (cf. Dysthe 2002), and the supervision of degree projects is presented as a collegial practice in which people in different positions complement each other. Another aspect is that although the supervisor offered the students a concrete suggestion on how to handle the obstacle they were facing, this suggestion placed the responsibility for dealing with the problem with the students. They were the ones who would have to raise the issue in the seminar and, depending on the answer they received, decide what to do next. In other words, the scaffolding work that could be said to be present in this supervision interaction was based on the students being active in the process, not on the supervisor giving them the answers (cf. van de Pol 2012; van de Pol et al. 2010).

What it could look like in our material when students expressed uncertainty about whether their competence in a given area was sufficient for what they were expected to do, is illustrated in the example below, where one of the students talked about feeling unsure about how best to conduct interviews:

Supervisor F::

But you have done an interview, you said?

Student O::

Yes. We’ve done two.

Supervisor F::

Two, mm.

Student O::

Yeah, but … What we … To be honest (laughs), it’s like this, uh … These questions we had written. It’s hard to, you know, expand them and go into … And then I’d love to … I feel like I’m a bit lacking in how to do an interview.

Supervisor F::

Okay.

Student O::

Like, how do you do an interview so that it is sort of … I’m not really fully studied on that.

Supervisor F::

No, and that’s something that you can’t really just give a lecture on how to do. You really have to practice it. Actually I think you can practise on each other or practise on somebody else to start with.

Supervisor F, Recording 1, Pair supervision

Again, the supervisor’s first response to the student’s uncertainty about how to conduct a good interview was to go relatively straight to a possible solution to the problem—that the students should simply practise conducting interviews before going out and interviewing the intended interviewees. However, when the conversation later in the supervision session continued to revolve around the difficult art of interviewing, the supervisor also explicitly confirmed the students’ experience that it is difficult to conduct good interviews. At the same time, the supervisor continued to suggest workable solutions, for example how the students could improve their interviewing technique and how they should best use the interview guide and the questions they had formulated there.

The way in which the supervisor both acknowledged the students’ experience that conducting interviews is difficult and offered specific suggestions on how they could improve their interviewing technique, contributed to the affective practices in this conversation sequence being characterised neither by an amplification of the uncertainty communicated by the students nor by a reduction or ignoring of their experience (cf. Wetherell 2012). The interaction between students and supervisor could thus be seen as clearly anchored in the supervisor’s greater experience and competence in the field but at the same time including a recognition of the students’ experiences. From a scaffolding perspective, this can be seen as an example of contingency, where the supervisor learns about the students’ level and then gives advice and recommendations based on this knowledge (van de Pol et al. 2015, 2019). Emphasising that good interviewing techniques are not something that can be learnt during a lecture but need to be practised, also encourages student activity (cf. Barrineau et al. 2019). In this way, the responsibility for practising conducting interviews or otherwise improving their interviewing technique is primarily placed on the students, even if the supervisor makes suggestions on how to proceed.

Another aspect of degree project work that can make students feel insecure and confused, and which came up in both the supervision interaction and the focus group interviews, is when students feel that they are getting mixed messages in that different people are giving them different answers to their questions or different advice on how to proceed. In some cases it may be fellow students who share an impression of what their supervisors, or perhaps supervisors in previous courses, have said they should or must do. In other cases, students may feel that course coordinators and seminar leaders have recommended something completely different from what their supervisors advocated. This can be seen in the following example from a collective supervision session, where one of the students recounted what was discussed in one of the seminars of the degree project course:

Student X::

Because [the seminar leader] wrote … She gave good examples of problem formulation and background and so on. And then she wrote: “One way could be like this: This is interesting since most of the research that exists …” blah, blah, blah. And then it is one part of the research that you bring up in the background. While in the other she wrote: “When I have observed and participated in classroom contexts during my placement …” blah, blah, blah. And then you go on.

Supervisor E::

Yes, yes, that’s right.

Student X::

Can I then write that I have seen this problem in the classroom itself and then write the justification for the research in the background? Or should I … Well, I … It will be … I don’t know what to do because everybody says different things.

Supervisor E::

You’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, so to speak (laughs). You are.

Student X::

Yeah. (laughs)

Supervisor E::

Now there are people from two different academic disciplines and that’s … But the basic structure would be agreed by all. That you should take on something here with some kind of aim and research problem and then we have previous research and so on. What has been done? So to that extent no one will ever disagree. At least here at the university. Then there is some disagreement about exactly how to do it.

Supervisor E, Recording 1, Collective Supervision

In this example, too, the supervisor acknowledged the student’s experience and expressed sense of uncertainty by confirming that it is true that seminar leaders and supervisors within the degree project course may well say different things. Here, however, the supervisor did not offer solutions or tell the student what to do, but focused primarily on the fact that this is something to be expected in an academic context. The message conveyed to the students in the collective supervision session was thus that it is possible to do things differently in academic writing, and depending on who you ask, you will get different answers about what is the best way to do it. By not immediately providing the students with a straight-forward solution—this is how you should think, yes, you can write like this—but rather striving to give them tools to deal with this kind of double message and the uncertainty it can create, also in the future, the supervisor’s practice here could be said to contribute to the development of the students’ academic literacies in ways that go beyond writing skills or the tasks associated with this particular degree project course (cf. Lea and Stierer 2000). In Chap. 3, we described how the ability to make choices and to justify and motivate them was one of the central aspects in the understandings of student independence in a supervision context that emerged in our study. From this perspective, the supervisor’s actions can also be said to promote independence in so far as they emphasise that there are generally several possibilities in academic writing and the degree project process and that it is ultimately the students who have to make the necessary choices.

In the continuation of the supervision session quoted above, the supervisor also expressed views on how to think about the background and motivation of the thesis topic. However, the supervisor continued to phrase this in a way that emphasised that there could be several ways of doing this, saying things such as “Many people think that, and I am one of them” or “ if you look at degree projects in general, you can see that there is both this and” and so on. The supervisor also referred to the course description for the course and what the course coordinator might say about this, emphasising that it is difficult as a supervisor to know what, for example, a seminar leader might mean by a specific comment. In the end, the participants in the collective supervision session agreed on a certain understanding of how the background and motivation of the thesis topic could be handled, and Student X commented that it had all become clearer.

Here the supervisor largely took on the role of expert, but in a way that clearly placed their own opinions and approaches within a wider academic context and collegial practice that included seminar leaders and course coordinators. Furthermore, the supervision was not primarily characterised by the supervisor telling the students what to do. Instead, the group discussed the issue together until they reached an understanding that they could all agree on and that the students felt was consistent with what they had heard in other contexts. In other words, while it was evident in the interaction that the supervisor was an expert in the field to a greater extent than the students, there were also strong elements of partnership in the supervisor-student relationship (cf. Dysthe 2002).

When insecure students ask supervisors questions about various aspects of the thesis work, the first spontaneous reaction may be to answer their questions as best one can. However, as Vehviläinen (2003) points out, student activity and self-direction are influenced by whether teachers choose to provide them with ready-made solutions and answers or, on the contrary, avoid doing so. As shown, the examples from our material also suggest that other types of actions than directly answering students’ questions may have greater potential to promote student activity and initiative. Handling questions in this way could thus potentially contribute to student independence and to the ongoing scaffolding work being based on both student and supervisor activity (cf. Magnusson and Zackariasson 2018; van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). At the same time, there are certainly situations in which it is most appropriate or constructive to give students direct answers to their questions, not only to help them progress in their degree project work but also because it might reduce their stress and anxieties.

Concerned Students

In our research material, it was evident that in addition to feeling insecure and uncertain about their thesis work, students could also feel worried and anxious. In the recorded supervision conversations, there are a number of examples of how the affective practices (Wetherell 2012) in the supervision interaction could be characterised by students’ worry, fear or anxiety. Sometimes these kinds of emotional reactions were expressed more implicitly, but students could also talk quite explicitly about being ‘really scared’ or ‘panicking’, say that something was ‘scary’ or describe something as a ‘horror’ or ‘nightmare’. Students used these kinds of words and phrases, for example, when supervision conversations concerned issues such as whether they would actually be able to complete the degree project before the due date, or the risk that, despite all the work they had put in, the degree project would not meet the requirements. They could express concern or fear that they had made choices that would prove detrimental to their continued work. There were thus several examples of how anticipatory emotions, that is emotions that arise when the individual thinks about or imagines the future, were articulated in the supervision interaction (see Barsics et al. 2016). This could be understood in the context that an important goal of supervision is to get students to think about and plan for the further work on the degree project.

In the supervision sessions we recorded, it was noticeable that supervisors could react in various ways when students expressed concern or worry about the thesis work and the final outcome, talking about being scared or panicking and so on. One response could be to reassure the students and emphasise that their concerns were exaggerated or unjustified. Another could be to acknowledge their concerns and try to be supportive, and yet another could be to use the students’ concerns to make a pedagogical point. Obviously, how supervisors respond to students’ concern and worry may also depend on how it is expressed by them. As mentioned above, there are examples in our material where students explicitly expressed their feelings of concern, such as in the following extract from a collective supervision meeting, where one of the students talked about the anticipated risk of the collected empirical material being inadequate, in terms of fear:

Student Y::

/…/ I’ve come to the conclusion after this … Because when I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t do it”, my sister said, “But it’s better that you do the work now”. Because I’m trying to think … If I have this question and I expect something like this answer - this or that. But then I get this instead. Like, then my whole degree project mustn’t fall apart. /…/ Well, I don’t know. At least that’s how I felt. I’d rather do the work now than sit there and have collected material and got everything and then you sit there and write the degree project but your material doesn’t fit at all. Nothing came of it. That’s my fear anyway.

Supervisor H, Recording 2, Collective supervision

When students express their worries and anxieties explicitly and emphatically, it can be easier for supervisors to pick up on this and relate to these expressed emotions in the supervision interaction. The excerpt below is an example of how this could be done in practice in the recorded supervision sessions. Here, the supervisor began by affirming what the student had said in the immediately preceding part of the supervision session, regarding the plan for the further work:

Supervisor E::

It’s … It seems … Yeah, that seems to make sense.

Student X::

That’s good.

Supervisor E::

Mm.

Student X::

That’s great! (laughs) Yeah, because that’s what I was afraid of. That I might be completely off track.

Supervisor E::

No, you’re absolutely not.

Student X::

Okay.

Supervisor E, Recording 1, Collective supervision

Allaying the students’ concerns and giving a reassuring message, as the supervisor does in this example, could be seen as a way of helping to ensure that the students can continue with the work as planned, without getting caught up in worry or fear of making mistakes. At the same time, there are some risks with such an approach, such as students due to the reassurance may underestimate the potential difficulties and problems they might encounter during the degree project (Zackariasson 2019). In this particular quote, the supervisor began with a relatively open affirmation that the student had made the right choice—‘that seems to make sense’, but when the student then brought up having been afraid of being completely wrong, the affirmation became more definitive—‘you are absolutely not’. This could be regarded as an effect of the affective practices in the interaction being influenced by the student’s explicit expression of fear and concern about how things will go, which contributes to the supervisor reinforcing the reassuring message (cf. Wetherell 2012).

There are also examples in our material of supervisors ignoring or not responding at all to the worries and concerns expressed by students. The quote below is an example of this. In it, the students signal that they are worried about whether the survey they are planning will produce the results they need to write a good analysis and ultimately a good enough degree project:

Supervisor A::

Why are you interested in this particular thing that you …?

Student D::

Um, no, but … Because it’s so interesting how people are described and portrayed differently depending on their gender. And then I think that journalism should try to be objective and, like, that depends on what you write. That is, what words and what facts you tell. But how objective will it be? Because as a journalist you’re also coloured by everything that everybody else is coloured by.

Student C::

That’s what we want to find out. Whether that’s the case in [major Swedish newspaper] or not.

Student D::

Yeah.

Supervisor A::

Mm.

Student C::

It might be what we think. It could also be that it is not the case at all.

Student D::

So we sort of hope that it … That we will find something. (laughs)

Student C::

Two months and then we don’t find anything. (laughs)

Student C::

(sighs) Yes.

Supervisor A::

What is objectivity then?

Supervisor A, Recording 2, Pair supervision

In this conversation sequence, the supervisor chooses not to comment or build on the students’ sighing and laughing comments that they might not find what they are interested in. The supervisor does not reassure the students that everything will be fine and does not otherwise indicate having noticed the students’ concerns. Instead, the supervisor’s response is to refer back to one of the things the students mentioned earlier in the conversation—that journalism is expected to strive for objectivity. The students’ concerns are thus left hanging in the air while the conversation moves on to other things.

Based on the idea that frustration control can be an integral part of active scaffolding work that might help students move forward (van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012), it could be argued that the supervisor in this particular conversation sequence is missing something essential by not capturing the concerns expressed by the students. At the same time, an approach such as that exemplified by Supervisor A here may be rooted in the perception that the interaction between supervisors and students should not focus on emotional aspects but rather on the joint work of producing a good degree project. In other words, that in such cases it is more important, and more relevant or beneficial to the degree project process, to focus on the text and the task, rather than risk getting caught up in emotional reactions and discussions. Another aspect of this is that the students here do not express their concerns nearly as explicitly as in some of the previous examples. Although they sigh and laugh about how they may not be able to get what they want after several months of work, thereby signalling that this is something they have been thinking about and worrying about, they do not present it as a major concern. As mentioned above, this can also influence the supervisors’ reaction and response.

Another way for supervisors to manage when students express worry or fear is neither to ignore it nor to give reassuring feedback, but to confirm that there may indeed be valid reasons for concern. We have examples of this in our material, as in the following quote from a collective supervision session with Supervisor H, where students described what they were worried about or found ‘scary’ about the degree project work:

Student Y::

I find it difficult that everything should be sustainable.Footnote 2 What you collect, your material and then you write. And then you have, “This - is this relevant?” But in the end nothing fits and then you want to pull your hair out like “Why doesn’t it fit?”. Before, it was other people’s thoughts. Like, when we had classes and you did an exam and there was a right or wrong. Whereas now you’re the one who’s going to investigate something and make sure it’s sustainable and I think that’s scary.

Supervisor H::

Okay.

Student Z::

I think it has to do with the fact that you have to make all the choices yourself. Like all the time you have to be like “OK … well … But then I choose to go in this direction because …” So you have to keep making new choices (chuckles). Make up your mind.

Supervisor H::

Mm.

Student W::

It’s the first time we’re really standing on our own two feet.

Supervisor H::

I think you’re putting your finger on what’s tough here, that is … That the ball is in your court and it’s very much about making decisions. To choose. You are free to do what you … And I’m here as a supervisor. /…/ But the starting point is that it is entirely up to you to write the degree project. And it should be that it is you who choose the questions, the purpose, the empirical material. It is up to you to decide how to talk about your questions and your results in the degree project, in the text.

Supervisor H, Recording 1, Collective supervision

In this example, rather than reassuring the students or downplaying their concerns, the supervisor makes it clear that writing a degree project can be difficult or ‘tough’, not least when it comes to the expectations of making one’s own choices and decisions. It may seem counterintuitive to acknowledge students’ concerns that working on a degree project will be difficult and tough. However, this kind of response can serve as a scaffolding tool that can contribute to frustration control by giving students a realistic picture of what the thesis work will entail. If students are prepared for it to require a lot of work and that they will encounter difficulties during the process, this may lead to less frustration when they encounter problems (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012; Zackariasson 2019).

In the quote, the supervisor not only addresses the potentially negative and problematic but also presents the expectation that students should make their own decisions and choices as something potentially positive, describing it as being free to do what they want. It is mentioned that the supervisor will be there to support them, but this is more of a passing reference without going into detail about how or to what extent. The supervisor’s approach, with its consistent focus on the student’s role and responsibility, can thus also be seen as a way of opening up for student activity and participation. In other words, the supervisor’s choice of wording not only highlights that the expectation of independence can be fraught with difficulties but also strengthens and enhances the students’ position by making it seem rather self-evident that it is they who should be doing the work. This could be seen as contributing to making the supervision interaction in the example characterised primarily by partnership (cf. Dysthe 2002).

As we have seen, there are several ways in which supervisors can react and relate to students who express more or less explicitly that they are worried or concerned about the degree project work. Depending on the situation, the personalities of the supervisor and the student, the stage of the student’s work and the nature of the concern, different ways of dealing with these expressed concerns may be more or less appropriate. Hence, we would argue that it may be beneficial for supervisors to reflect on how they tend to approach this type of situation in supervision, and whether there may be times when their first spontaneous reaction may not be the most appropriate one. By listening to and responding to students’ concerns in a more reflective way, supervisors may have a better chance of contributing to frustration control and of preventing students from becoming so caught up in negative emotions that their emotional well-being becomes an obstacle to their work on the degree project (cf. Wollast et al. 2023).

Student Insecurity in Collective and Group Supervision

Another interesting aspect of the example from the collective supervision session with Supervisor H in the previous section is how the students interact and relate to each other in the supervision situation. The premise of this book is that supervision should be viewed as a social and collegial practice, and this is one example where it becomes obvious that fellow students are also part of the local academic environment in which this practice takes place. In other words, peer feedback and discussion between students—within the same course, seminar group or supervision group—can be, and often is, an essential part of supervision interaction.

In Student Z’s and Student W’s comments in the above example, they supported and confirmed what Student Y said about the degree project work being frightening and difficult, which can be understood as a kind of student collegiality. But they also made their own suggestions about possible reasons why thesis work might appear daunting—that they were now forced to make their own choices and expected to stand on their own two feet. In this way, they elaborated and clarified the concerns expressed in Student Y’s statement, and the supervisor’s response focused on precisely these aspects. In this way, the students’ contributions to the discussion thus influenced how the supervision interaction developed in the specific situation.

In the collective and group supervision sessions that we have documented in our material, there are further examples of students supporting and confirming each other’s experiences and comments in a kind of peer feedback. The focus is often on difficulties or obstacles in writing the degree project and the uncertainty or concern felt by the students, as in the following example from a collective supervision meeting with Supervisor B:

Supervisor B::

Oh, I’ve read your … your texts for today. Thanks for the texts by the way.

Student G::

It was difficult to write informally.

Student H::

Yeah.

Student G::

Yeah, it was really hard.

Student V::

I don’t even think I could do that. I don’t know.

Student G::

No, I thought, “Damn, she’s included a lot of …” I was like, “Wow, she’s got a lot of stuff!” I thought “Oops, should we have done that?” I was a bit like that too … Yeah. (laughs)

Supervisor B::

Right, uh, but that … Exactly. You are on such a level that you can do what you want, really.

Student G::

Mm. But it was kind of hard.

Supervisor B::

But I’ve noticed that at certain levels in higher education it can be … It can be kind of liberating not to feel like this “I’m expected to have a lot of references, the theory should be ready” sort of. That it becomes a barrier.

Student H::

Yeah, it was kind of nice that it didn’t feel like it was a requirement that things like that should be in the text.

Supervisor B, Recording 1, Collective supervision

Here again, students thus supported each other’s emotional experiences, in this case that they found it difficult and somewhat confusing to write the kind of informal text that the supervisor asked for because there were so few guidelines. When not just one but several students in the collective supervision session express similar experiences, the pressure on the supervisor to respond increases. In the example, Supervisor B did this by explaining the pedagogical idea behind the wish that students should submit a more informal text rather than, for example, a project plan.

The student collegial aspect of supervision practice can also be seen in the example above, when Student G describes it as though it was seeing the other students’ texts that caused uncertainty as to whether the assignment had been done in the correct or expected way. During the degree project process, students may find themselves in many situations where their own work is explicitly or implicitly compared with that of others. For example, in peer feedback groups at writing seminars and during collective supervision, but also in more informal discussion groups with fellow students or on social media. While it can be a valuable resource to receive peer feedback on your work, or simply to gain insight into how others have approached or resolved different aspects of thesis writing, it could also lead to stress and anxiety. This may be especially true for those students who feel that they have not progressed as far as their peers. In our material, however, it is primarily the positive aspects of this kind of student collegiality that emerge. By giving students the opportunity to air their problems and concerns in collective supervision sessions and to receive feedback from both peers and supervisors, questions and ambiguities were often resolved.

There are also examples in the recorded supervision sessions of students making concrete contributions to the supervision interaction, in relation to issues raised by fellow students. As supervisors may be involved in several degree project courses, within different academic programmes or at different levels, supervised students may sometimes have a better knowledge of the specific guidelines and recommendations that apply to their particular course or academic programme. This is illustrated by an example from the same collective supervision session as above:

Supervisor B::

Then I would say that you shouldn’t use interviews, uh, except in that, you know, you can talk to people (laughs).

Student G::

Mm, yeah, I’ve had a meeting with these teachers.

Student V::

Can I just add something?

Student G::

Mm.

Student V::

I think this year there’s a requirement that you have to use at least two methods. So if you do a survey then you have to have another one.

Student G::

Mm, yeah, I’m going to do observations. /…/

Student V::

Yeah, exactly. OK, then that’s it.

Supervisor B::

OK, so there is one of those, uh, like …?

Student V::

Yeah, right, guidelines.

Student H::

OK, right. I hadn’t realised that.

Student V::

I only found out a few days ago.

Supervisor B::

Well then … Methods are a difficult thing. There are some that are very concrete. Then there are these … yes, but as you mentioned, text analysis and comparisons, if those are two methods, well, then you’ve ticked off two.

Supervisor B, Recording 1, Collective supervision

In this example, it appears that Supervisor B is unaware of the change in guidelines for the degree project that Student G refers to, which, as mentioned earlier, is not surprising given that many supervisors teach within several different degree project courses. When students bring such information into the conversation, the supervisors must, however, deal with that in the further supervision interaction, as Supervisor B started to do at the end of the quote above.

Collective supervision, where supervisors gather several degree project students for a joint supervision meeting, can thus also open up the possibility for supervision to become a student-collegial practice, in the sense that students have the opportunity to share their knowledge with their peers as well as with the supervisor. But also in the sense that the students can support each other emotionally, as they are in a similar situation, experiencing the joys and hardships of thesis writing at the same time, while the student perspective for the supervisor is something they must take on actively and through shifting perspectives (see Chap. 6). From an academic literacies perspective, this can be understood as the power relations between supervisors and students changing when there are several students present at the supervision meeting, as students can collectively raise questions, views or emotional experiences they are having, which in turn can lead to supervisors having to justify or explain their reasoning, advice and suggestions more clearly.

Power relations between supervisors and students are also affected when two or sometimes more students write a degree project together. This is illustrated in the following extract from a pair supervision meeting from our material, where the supervisor notes that the students have not done all the things that were agreed at the last meeting:

Supervisor A::

First of all, I just wanted to ask … Because there were a lot of things that I pointed out in our last supervision meeting that you haven’t done anything about.

Student D::

There were?

Supervisor A::

Er, yes, some things. But with the theories … That maybe that part should come before the previous research, for example. We talked about that. You start with theories, but a theory is like the pattern. That is what you use …

Student D::

Okay.

Student C::

Mm

Supervisor A::

In order to eh … eh …

Student D::

Yeah, we probably forgot to move that …

Student C::

We’ve been concentrating mainly on the analysis.

Student D::

Yeah.

Student C::

That’s taken a lot more time than we thought.

Supervisor A, Recording 7, Pair supervision

Even though the students here provide explanations as to why they have not done what the supervisor thought they would have done since the last supervision session, in this part of the conversation they do not appear particularly distressed by the supervisor’s comments or remorseful for not doing what the supervisor apparently expected. Being two people in this kind of situation, sharing responsibility for the process of the degree project, and thereby responsibility for what has not been achieved, is a different emotional situation to being solely responsible for the degree project, with no one else to lean on or blame. In the example, the students also support each other in their response to the supervisor, taking turns to explain why things have turned out the way they have. Thus, the relationship between supervisor and students in pair or group supervision can be said to be less hierarchical than in individual supervision. It should be noted, however, that this is not always positive. For example, if students take the supervisor’s comments more lightly than they would if they were solely responsible for the work, it may be more difficult for the supervisor to get them to acknowledge relevant feedback and criticism that could improve the degree project.

The examples in this section show how students can be a valuable resource in supervision interaction, as has also been noted in studies of collective and group supervision (e.g. Baker et al. 2014; Nordentoft et al. 2013, 2019; Rienecker et al. 2019; Wichmann-Hansen et al. 2015). They can be a resource for each other, supporting the experiences of their fellow students and clarifying and elaborating on thoughts and ideas that may not yet be fully developed and formulated, as well as for the supervisors, since students may have a better insight into exactly what guidelines apply to the course they are taking. Since thesis supervision at the undergraduate level, where there may be large cohorts of students, is often at least partly group-based or with students writing in pairs, it may be valuable for supervisors to reflect on and discuss how peer feedback and students’ interaction with each other can be used for pedagogical purposes in the supervision context.

Emotions as a Supervision Tool

As we have seen so far, students could often express their uncertainty about how to proceed with their work, or their worries and fears about whether they had made the right choices and how it might all turn out in the end. However, there are also instances in our material where supervisors introduce elements into the supervision interaction that they know may evoke fear or concern among the supervised students, as exemplified by the following quote from one of the focus group interviews conducted at a Russian university:

I have a principle - you don’t come to me empty-handed. If a student writes to me: “Let’s meet”, I reply: “Just seeing your face is rather meaningless. Send me at least 5 pages of written work. I’ll read it in advance and then we’ll discuss it”. /…/ In this way, I push them to do something, in a way. /…/ “There will be no discussion without the first chapter. Unless you send me at least something for the first chapter, I consider our meeting irrelevant”. And that’s OK. They are scared, but they do it.

Focus Group Interview 5

Encouraging or pushing students in this way to do something that might seem daunting, such as submitting text to the supervisor, based on an assessment that it would be beneficial to the degree project process, can be a way of helping students to overcome the obstacles that fear and anxiety can become. It conveys the message that some things need to be done, regardless of how the students may feel.

Another way in which supervisors could consciously introduce aspects of worry or anxiety into the supervision interaction was by letting students know what to expect during the degree project process. Although conversations about what would await them often concerned the writing process or practical elements, they also regularly touched on affective aspects, with supervisors communicating to students what emotions they might experience later on. When supervisors in this way used their experience of academic writing and supervision to warn students about what might happen later in the process, it can be understood as the use of anticipated emotions (Barsics et al. 2016) as a pedagogical tool in the supervision interaction.

This was done by different means and to varying degrees by the supervisors whose supervision sessions we documented. The most common was for supervisors to refer to the timeframe of the degree project courses, pointing out that students did not have much time and that it would be quite difficult and stressful if they did not pick up the pace of their work or make sure that they did what they were supposed to do. But there were other examples in the material, for example in the recorded supervision sessions with Supervisor H, who generally tended to use expressive and engaged language and vivid descriptions, when trying to get students to prepare for what would come later in process. As in the example below, where Supervisor H emphasised the importance of choosing the right topic for the degree project, as the culmination of the process can be very stressful:

Supervisor H::

You should /…/ find a topic that you feel: This is exciting. This is something that’s interesting. This is something that I am motivated to work with, that I want to work with. It’s really important. Because like I said … Many of you will be tearing your hair out in the last week and feeling like: “Why did I get into this?!” (pretend sobbing) “I’m leaving teacher education!” And then it’s really important that you have a topic that feels like … Well, but this - this is still exciting.

Supervisor H, Recording 1, Collective supervision

In the quote, Supervisor H repeatedly talked about how it is ‘really important’ that students think carefully about their choice of subject and choose something they are genuinely interested in. In addition, Supervisor H used emotional aspects to emphasise the importance of this, using expressions such as the students “will be tearing your hair out”, as well as feigned sobs and statements in a borrowed student voice (see Chap. 6) that conveyed resignation and a desire to leave the entire programme. In this way, the despair that students may feel towards the end of the degree project process was powerfully illustrated and contrasted with the potential excitement of having chosen a good degree project topic.

The same supervisor also used committed and emotionally charged language when discussing concrete, specific parts of the thesis work, such as referencing systems and reference management, and the importance of working diligently with them:

Supervisor H::

Everything you write should be referenced according to the Harvard system. And then, when you’re sitting there with your books open, it’s so insanely, insanely easy to write a Harvard bracket. You put in a little Gustavsson 1994, page blabla (laughs). And then suddenly you realise that you’re not going to use that reference, and then it takes a second to hit delete. But imagine the nightmare of having written a lot of text and then having to add references that you didn’t put in before. And then you have returned the books to the library. (laughs) Or the person you borrowed the book from wants it back. And just going through the texts to find out which page it was? Never end up there! As soon as you have a book in front of you, write references in your notes.

Supervisor H, Recording 1, Collective supervision

Here the supervisor’s message is reinforced by the use of expressions such as it is “insanely, insanely easy” to write a reference in the text and strong exhortations such as “Never end up there!” The message is also reinforced by portraying the fictive situation as a ‘nightmare’, a horror scenario that students risk experiencing if they do not follow the supervisor’s advice. When supervisors in this way use anticipated emotions (Barsics et al. 2016) to get students to work in a certain way, it can be understood as a pedagogical tool that may broaden and develop the students’ academic literacies and help them manage the course switching that is required of them at this stage (cf. Lea and Street 2000). Supervisors lend their wider experience of academic writing to the students, showing them that thesis work is not just about producing a text, but that it involves a range of emotional aspects such as stress, anxiety, uncertainty—as well as joy and pride when it is finished, and the student has completed what is for many a challenging task.

In their study of doctoral writing, Castello et al. (2009) argue that knowledge of the writing process tends to reduce students’ levels of worry and anxiety, which in turn can have a positive impact on their work and performance. When supervisors draw students’ attention to the problems they may encounter during the degree project process—and warn them of the possible consequences—it can be seen as one way to illuminate the writing process and could from this perspective potentially contribute to reducing students’ experiences of stress and anxiety.

The use of emotional elements in supervision, such as anticipatory or anticipated feelings, can also make it easier for students to listen to and actually absorb what the supervisor wants to say. This can potentially help to decrease the risk that what the supervisor perceives as a direct request or requirement is perceived by the students as general advice or something optional. In this sense, this type of supervision can be perceived as more directive and controlling than supervisors simply telling students what to consider in the future (cf. Wichmann-Hansen and Schmidt Nielsen 2023; Wang and Li 2011). On the one hand, this can be beneficial for the degree project process, as it makes it more obvious when the supervisors are saying something that is particularly important. For example, when Supervisor H warned students that they could end up in a ‘nightmare situation’ if they ignored the advice. On the other hand, there is also the possibility that this could lead to students feeling that they have less room to make their own choices and decisions, at least if these go against what the supervisors have suggested, as there is also an emotional pressure on the students to do what the supervisors say. In this sense it might thus discourage student activity and independence.

Using Dysthe’s (2002) concepts, we can describe this as the interaction between supervisor and student becoming more characterised by the supervisor acting as an expert, teaching the student not only about the academic aspects of the thesis process but also about the emotional elements. From another point of view, it could be argued that supervisors, by sharing their experience of thesis writing with students on an emotional level, contribute to an increased element of partnership, as they show students that anyone can feel stress and anxiety in this kind of situation. In other words, it becomes a kind of normalisation of the negative emotions that many students may experience at different stages of the thesis process (cf. Svinhufvud et al. 2017).

Students Seeking Affirmation

Preparing students not only academically but also emotionally for what they may encounter during the degree project process can thus be a scaffolding tool that has the potential to contribute to reducing students’ frustration and anxiety during the process (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). Another possible scaffolding tool that can contribute to this is confirming that students are on the right track, for example by recognising and affirming their choices and actions. In our recorded supervision material, it was a recurring pattern that students sought affirmation in a variety of ways about whether they had understood correctly, had done things in the right way, or had made the right choices. When they received such confirmation, they often expressed feelings of relief or joy. Sometimes such exchanges between students and supervisors concerned broad, overarching issues, but in other cases they concerned small, seemingly insignificant details, as in the following example from Supervisor D with two students writing together:

Student M::

This is the smallest of the problems we have right now.

Student L::

Yes, it’s the least of the problems, but we said that [supervisor’s name] should decide what they think looks best and then we can move on.

Supervisor D::

Yeah? (laughs)

Student L::

(laughs) Let’s see if I can find it. It’s like, for example, when it says something like this: “Purpose and research questions”. So either it says “and” like that, or it says “and” with one of these … (clicks computer mouse).

Student M::

An ampersand.

Supervisor D::

Oh.

Student L::

So it’s just what you think looks best.

Supervisor D::

Oh … Should I have an opinion?

Student M::

Yes!

Student L::

Please!

Supervisor D::

Ah … Well, if you write like that, no one will notice, but if you write an ampersand, some people will react. And then they get hung up on the wrong things.

Student M::

So you say ‘and’ with letters?

Supervisor D::

Yes.

Student M::

Yes! It feels so good! Oh, I feel really good now!

Supervisor D, Recording 2, Pair supervision

In this conversation sequence, Supervisor D is initially somewhat reluctant to give advice on whether ‘and’ should be written in letters or with an ampersand (&). However, when the students actively ask for help in making a decision, the supervisor decides to comply with their request and offers an opinion. Although Student M starts by saying that the question they want to raise is the smallest of their problems, the emotional reaction at the end of the conversation sequence indicates that the students have put a lot of energy and time into this issue. Here, clear and unambiguous advice from the supervisor seems to serve as a scaffolding tool for frustration control in the writing process (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012), in the sense that by receiving an unambiguous answer from the supervisor, the students can put the question behind them and move on with their work.

Students in our recorded supervision material could also seek reassurance from supervisors in relation to more general assessments, such as the likelihood of completing the degree project on time. As in the example below, when students asked the supervisor a direct question about how they were progressing with their work:

Student D::

But what … Well, do you think we can do it in time?

Supervisor A::

Yes.

Student D::

Yes. Good.

Supervisor A::

You will, because you know them, as you said. You know these texts by heart. You know exactly what they look like.

Student D::

Mm.

Supervisor A::

Now it’s about taking it to another level.

Supervisor A, Recording 7, Pair supervision

In this example it is quite clear how the supervisor is both assigned and takes on the role of an expert in the supervision interaction (cf. Dysthe 2002). The students want reassurance that they will be able to complete the thesis on time, and the supervisor uses their experience and skills to provide this. As mentioned earlier, such reassurance can be highly relevant and positive for the degree project process, as it can help students to overcome perceived obstacles and barriers and to continue with their work. However, in relation to van de Pol et al.’s (2010), van de Pol’s (2012) discussions on how scaffolding should be based on both teachers and students—in this case students and supervisors—being active in the scaffolding process, the supervisor in this situation could also have sought to invite students into the scaffolding work rather than immediately taking on the expected expert role. An alternative supervision tool in this type of situation could be, for example, to ask counter-questions rather than giving students a definitive answer: “What do you think? Do you think you can do it in time? What would you say you have left to do?” This might encourage student activity in a different way, requiring them to evaluate their process and how far they had actually progressed with the work. From the perspective that a critical approach to one’s own work is an aspect of the understanding of student independence introduced in Chap. 3, this kind of response from the supervisor could also be seen as a way of encouraging student independence.

The idea of scaffolding, as discussed earlier, is also based on a gradual transfer of responsibility for the work to the students, which entails a certain fading out of the teacher or supervisor in order to create space for the students to take on the increased responsibility (van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). To contribute to such a gradual transfer of responsibility, one possible course of action for the supervisor in this particular supervision situation could have been to clarify to the students what is expected of them at the various stages of the degree project process and to relate this to the idea and ideal of student independence in the degree project context. In this particular situation, for example, the supervisor could have emphasised that the students had come so far in their work that they should be able to complete the final parts of the process on their own. This could be a way of promoting student independence by making it clear to the students that they are expected to take responsibility for both the timely completion and the quality of the degree project.

Although students in our material often asked for confirmation that they had made the right choices, were on the right track or would finish on time, it is not always easy for supervisors to make such assessments. This can be seen in the example below, which starts with the supervisor’s response to the student who had just explained that it had been difficult to find the right theories:

Supervisor B::

Well, I think it feels like you still have a firm grasp of what you’re doing.

Student H::

Well, that’s good to hear.

Supervisor B::

I feel very calm with, with everything.

Student H::

But you think it sounds like …

Supervisor B::

But I can’t … Now that you haven’t submitted any text for today, I don’t have anything concrete to comment on either.

Student H::

No, I understand. No, and it was also a bit that I wanted to meet you just to explain and because I’ve felt so confused. And I needed and I’ve taken a little break. So I’ve … I’ve given it less time. But I still sit with it every day, sort of, and try to get through it, like, bit by bit.

Supervisor B, Recording 6, Individual supervision

At the same time as Supervisor B’s initial response here is to confirm that the student appears to be on the right track and in control, the supervisor also notes that this assessment is made despite the fact that no text had been submitted to the supervision session. The supervisor’s affirmation is thus not based on what the student has achieved so far but rather a hopeful reassurance that things are likely to go well, based on what the student has said during the supervision session.

Given that frustration control can be an important scaffolding goal in supervision, a reassuring and encouraging affirmation from the supervisor may be justified in many situations (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). However, if the supervisor downplays the students’ concerns and questions too much and simply confirms that they are on the right track, there is a potential risk that students will leave a supervision meeting feeling that the degree project is progressing as it should, even though this may not be the case. When, as in the example above, the supervisor has no actual documentation of the process or text on which to base the assessment, but only insight into what the students are saying about their work and what they have achieved, it becomes particularly difficult to make such an assessment. This balancing act between offering encouragement and affirmation, on the one hand, and expressing necessary and justified concerns about the progress of the work or warning students that there is a risk that they will not succeed in completing the degree project on the other, is something that permeates supervision practice and work with degree projects in general (see also Zackariasson 2019).

In the focus group interviews at both Swedish and Russian universities, several supervisors also expressed that they found it difficult to maintain a balance between allowing students to make their own independent decisions, on the one hand, and ensuring that the thesis work is successful on the other. Some students are able and willing to take on the responsibility expected of them in connection with their degree projects, but this is far from the case for all. Many students need or want considerable support, as well as clear advice and guidance from the supervisor, in order to successfully complete the extensive and often difficult project of writing a major academic piece of work within the given timeframe. In other words, while it is important from a scaffolding perspective, as well as from an independence perspective, to emphasise students’ responsibility and agency, more directive supervision is sometimes both desirable and necessary in order for degree projects to be completed on time and of sufficiently high quality (cf. Rienecker et al. 2019, 61ff).

Supervisors’ Insecurity and Concern

Although, as we saw in the previous section, it is not uncommon for supervisors to downplay the concerns expressed by students and to confirm in various ways that they seem to be on the right track, there are also instances in our material where supervisors’ comments and contributions signal that they are concerned about whether students have made the right choices or will be able to complete the degree project on time. One example is the following quote from a supervision meeting where the conversation centred on what the student had or had not done since the last meeting:

Student G::

I haven’t had time to meet these teachers. I’ll do that after the autumn break. So I haven’t got the empirical stuff yet, so, you know … eh … (sighs)

Supervisor B::

/…/ What are the timeframes again, for the collection of these surveys?

Student G::

I’m hoping for … like, everything should be in by the middle of November.

Supervisor B::

So you won’t have access to your empirical data until then?

Student G::

Yeah … or if it is … because now … This week they don’t have the time. And besides, I’m going away. In the middle of my degree project. But … and then the week after the kids have autumn break. So it won’t be until the second week of November that I send out the survey, maybe. I’m coming back that week and then I’ll try to catch up with the interviews, but the week after is sort of … (sighs) At the beginning of that week I hope to have everything ready, sort of.

Supervisor B::

It’s very …

Student G::

Tight.

Supervisor B::

tight.

Supervisor B, Recording 2, Individual supervision

In the extract, the supervisor’s concerned reaction to the student’s timetable for collecting all the empirical material appears to be a contributing factor to the student and supervisor agreeing that it will be difficult to do it on time. It was not uncommon for supervisors to express concern about whether students would be able to complete within the timeframe, not least towards the end of the degree project process when it became apparent how far, or perhaps not so far, students had actually got. Another example of this can be found in the following extract. The student in question was combining studies with a part-time job and was therefore not able to devote as much time to the degree project, which the student and supervisor had discussed earlier in the supervision meeting. In addition, the student was planning to go away towards the end of the degree project period and the supervisor was concerned that the thesis would not be completed on time:

Supervisor F::

No, I’m thinking about… /…/ like, it’s hard even for regular students to keep up time wise, even though they have forty hours a week and often spend even more than that doing [the degree project]. But, yeah, it’ll just have to be delayed, you know. I really don’t think we should hope that it will be ready in January. You were going away too?

Student Q::

Yes, but I will have my computer with me and write. I’m going to do that anyway. But maybe it won’t be so easy to find the time. But I’ll be able to sit for a couple of hours some evenings and so on.

Supervisor Q::

Mm. How long will you be away?

Student Q::

Eight days.

Supervisor::

When are you leaving?

Student Q::

Well, on Thursday. /…/

Supervisor F::

Well, no, it … I’m actually a bit worried about that part.

Student Q::

Yes, me too.

Supervisor F::

And I, like, see this as well … I mean … You can also see it in the text when you don’t … like that you haven’t had the time to really sit down.

Supervisor F, Recording 7, Individual supervision

In this conversation sequence too, it is primarily the supervisor who highlights the risk that the student will not be able to complete the degree project before the January deadline. The student’s first reaction to the supervisor’s comments that it is unlikely that the degree project will be completed on time is to express the ambition to work on the degree project even during the holidays, and it is only when the supervisor again expresses concern about how this will work that the student agrees with this assessment.

When supervisors, through their reactions and feedback, draw students’ attention to the possibility that they may struggle to complete their degree project on time, they take on the role of expert in a palpable way (cf. Dysthe 2002). As mentioned above, this can be both positive and necessary in many cases, as a more directive supervision style may at times be necessary (cf. Wichmann-Hansen and Schmidt Nielsen 2023, 61ff; Rienecker et al. 2019). Through their teaching and often also research experience, supervisors are familiar with a wide range of problems that students may encounter during the degree project process. They also know that the degree project period tends to pass by much faster than students expect, so that there is often a lack of time at the end, unless the collection of material and writing is started on time and carried out in an efficient and structured way.

However, taking responsibility for decisions that affect the degree project work—even if they relate to life outside of the course, such as travelling during the degree project period or combining studies with part-time work—can also be seen as part of student independence, in line with the understandings of the concept we presented in Chap. 3. In other words, if independence is a scaffolding intention in the degree project context, it is worth reflecting on how student responsibility could be emphasised in such cases (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). In the examples above, the supervisors signal that they are concerned about the choices made by the students, but they do not explicitly address this in terms of responsibility or student independence. An alternative way of acting in similar supervision situations might be to explicitly emphasise that it is ultimately the students’ responsibility to complete the degree project on time and that if they choose to travel during the degree project period or to work alongside their studies, these are also choices that may affect the work.

In addition to the question of whether the degree project would be completed on time, supervisors in our empirical material sometimes expressed concern about whether the research or study that students had chosen to undertake had the potential to produce a degree project of sufficient quality. This was thus a concern or worry expressed not only by students, as we discussed earlier in this chapter, but also by supervisors. As in the following example, where Supervisor B questioned whether a student’s planned investigation would actually be able to produce interesting results:

Supervisor B::

/…/ But a question I had when I read this is … In academia it’s a bit of a letdown if you don’t find anything. You know, especially at higher levels. And this particular study, I think, runs that risk. If there are no significant results, no difference between the classes that you are assessing.

Student G::

Well, you never know.

Supervisor B::

What are you going to do then?

Student G::

Yeah, what am I going to do?

Supervisor B::

Are you going to write something like: “I have investigated this and show that there is no difference”?

Student G::

Mm, yes. What else would I write? I don’t know, yes.

Supervisor B::

I’m thinking, because it’s one of those… Especially when you work for four or five years, it can make you really depressed. (laughs) Like: “Shit, I haven’t come up with anything! There was no difference!” And that’s also a result, but it’s a result that’s not so sexy to present at conferences and …

Student G::

Yeah, that’s what happens sometimes.

Supervisor B, Recording 1, Collective supervision

Again, it is primarily the supervisor’s questions and comments that contribute to the ongoing affective practices being characterised by a certain concern (cf. Wetherell 2012). The student, on the other hand, seems to take the supervisor’s expressed worry about the risk that there will be no real results from the planned study rather lightly. Comments such as ‘that’s what happens sometimes’ suggest that the student does not see this as a major problem. Moreover, in contrast to several of the previous examples, the conversation sequence does not culminate in a mutual understanding that what the supervisor is emphasising is something the student should take seriously.

In this example, too, the supervisor can be said to be assuming the role of an expert by explaining to the student the risks involved in the current choices being made in relation to the thesis. However, it is also possible to understand Supervisor B’s actions as a way of actually increasing the element of partnership in the supervisor-student relationship by situating the student’s thesis work in relation to academic writing in general and comparing it to research publications and presentations (cf. Dysthe 2002). By choosing to discuss the perceived problems with the degree project in these terms, the supervisor contributes to equating what the student should achieve during the degree project period with what is expected of doctoral students or researchers in their work. The message is that the potential problems exist for everyone, regardless of the academic level. At the same time as the feedback and comments are based on the supervisor’s expertise and wider experience of academic writing, they thus also give legitimacy to the degree project as something more than just a writing assignment within a course and to the student as part of a wider academic environment.

The various examples in our material of supervisors introducing a certain concern or anxiety into the affective practices that take place in the supervisory interaction, for example by expressing concern or surprise about what the students have or have not done, or by giving students admonitions about what they should do, can be understood in terms of how important it is also for supervisors that students graduate on time and write degree projects that meet quality requirements. By reminding students that time flies, that they have to expect to work hard, that it’s time to put in the extra effort if they want to finish, or that they need to think through both method, material and purpose properly so that what they intend to do is actually feasible, they may be able to avoid some of the potential problems and obstacles along the way. Hopefully this will contribute to preventing students from realising after a few weeks or months that they have done a lot of work that will lead nowhere. Supervisors’ concerns and worries about various aspects of the degree project work can, accordingly, be valuable feedback for students to receive. However, the usefulness of such feedback depends on how the concern is expressed and at what stage of the work it is given. If supervisors express concerns about the progress of the work and whether it is actually possible to complete it as the student has planned, in a way that is not constructive for the student’s work but rather increases the student’s stress and anxiety, it may, on the contrary, become an obstacle, as stress and anxiety can be negative for the writing process (cf. Castello et al. 2009).

Insecure Supervisors: Strength or Problem?

In this chapter we have discussed several examples of supervisors taking on or being assigned the role of expert. As mentioned, this is in many ways a natural consequence of supervisors having greater experience and competence in the type of academic writing that the degree project involves, and it can be both important and necessary for supervisors to appear or act as experts at different stages of the degree project process. However, this does not mean that supervisors will always feel completely comfortable in this role or that they are in fact experts on all the issues that may arise during the degree project work. They may well feel uncertain or insecure at times in their role as supervisors, just as students may feel insecure when writing their degree project. This is related to the fact that the degree project process is imbued with emotional aspects not only for students but also for supervisors, who may experience feelings ranging from frustration and anger to pride and joy in relation to the degree project and the students they supervise (cf. Han and Xu 2021; Strandler et al. 2014; Clegg 2000; Todd et al. 2006). In this final part of the chapter, we explore this particular aspect of supervision—supervisor insecurity—in more detail.

For supervisors who are relatively new to their role and do not have much experience of academic supervision, many of the situations, dilemmas and challenges that may arise during a degree project process may feel new and unfamiliar, as discussed, for example, by Vereijken et al. (2018) and Almlöv and Grubbström (2023). More experienced supervisors may still feel insecure in certain situations, such as supervising degree projects that are outside their own research area or that apply methods they do not regularly use in their own research. Other reasons for supervisors’ insecurity may be that they supervise within many different courses or programmes and therefore do not have a clear enough understanding of the guidelines and requirements that apply to each individual course, or that they find themselves in supervision situations that feel uncomfortable and which they do not really know how to handle, as we saw examples of in Chap. 4.

Like students, supervisors do not necessarily express the insecurity they may feel during the actual supervision interaction. Nevertheless, there were a number of examples in our research material of supervisors more or less explicitly communicating to students that they were not quite sure how to handle an issue or solve a problem. The following extract from a supervision meeting with Supervisor H is one example. The discussion concerned the course guidelines for the degree projects, about which a student had questions:

Student Y::

But am I allowed to have that? Don’t I have to have a (school) subject?

Supervisor H::

Well, I’m not sure … It … I’ll admit it: This is the first time I’m supervising since … this has been changed. This requirement that the degree projects should focus on subject didactics. Like, I’m in a learning process too.

Supervisor H, Recording 1, Collective supervision

Although Supervisor H in this example explicitly expressed uncertainty about what applied to a specific aspect of the degree project work, as the guidelines and requirements had changed in some respects, this does not necessarily correspond to feeling insecure in the role as supervisor. On the contrary, clearly articulating one’s lack of knowledge or competence on a particular issue may be a sign that supervisors feel fundamentally secure in their role and therefore feel comfortable telling students which areas they have less expertise in.

Furthermore, as a supervisor, telling students that you do not know the answer to a specific question or that you do not have expert knowledge in a certain area can also be a way of enhancing and confirming students’ knowledge and competence or of emphasising their role and responsibility in the process. In this way, the hierarchical distance between supervisor and student can be reduced, making the thesis work appear more like a joint project. The following extract from a supervision meeting with Supervisor A, in which one of the students raised the question of how to find relevant previous research, can serve as an example:

Student C::

Well, they have to be anchored in it all the time. Both in the questions that they get and, like, how they are described. And then I think it would be interesting to find some previous research on this. I have no idea what one should be searching for then.

Supervisor A::

No.

Student D::

No, what kind of words should you search with?

Student C::

I tried, but it was like …

Student D::

It’s hard.

Student C::

Yeah, identity … research sort of. I don’t know.

Supervisor A::

No, I don’t know either. I don’t know any more about this particular research than you do.

Supervisor A, Recording 7, Pair supervision

When Supervisor A in this situation actively avoids taking on the role of expert by claiming to know no more about the specific area of research than the students, the responsibility is shifted to the students. The supervisor communicates that it is not self-evident that he or she should always provide the students with the information they need, but that it must be based on active work by both parties. It is up to the students to decide how to proceed and to find the previous research that they think would be interesting in this particular context. In this way, the partnership aspect of the supervision interaction is strengthened—and from a scaffolding perspective, the supervisor’s actions can be seen as part of the process of making students active in the scaffolding work (cf. van de Pol et al. 2010; van de Pol 2012). This kind of attitude on the part of the supervisor, where supervision becomes explicitly non-directive, could also contribute to student independence if it is done in a conscious way.

Common to both of the above examples is that supervisors acknowledge, but do not excuse, their relative ignorance in a particular area or on a particular subject. In doing so, they also convey a message to the students that although supervisors are experts in many things, they do not know everything about everything. In our recorded supervision material, this message could also be conveyed by supervisors explicitly or implicitly referring to colleagues and highlighting the various competences and responsibilities of different actors in the degree project context. Earlier in this chapter, we gave examples of how supervisors might refer to course coordinators or seminar leaders, for example, when students raised questions that they did not know the answer to. In the relatively long quote below, Supervisor D instead refers to colleagues within the discipline when students ask questions that the supervisor cannot answer immediately:

Supervisor D::

What do you think you want to focus on?

Student L::

I … We don’t know because at the moment we’re going with numbers. But I’ve started to think that maybe we should use percentages instead. Just because I think it’s easier to see roughly how much of a difference there is and maybe it’s easier to do. Even though we have so much fewer pictures in the second survey, it’s easier to, like, /…/ compare.

Supervisor D::

That’s great. Yeah, right, if you want to compare. /…/

Student M::

I think it’s really hard.

Student L::

I think it’s a bit difficult.

Supervisor D::

It might … Maybe I’ll ask someone here too. Who could comment on this.

Student L::

Yeah, I just think it’s hard because I feel like I’m not very good at this (laughs) with percentages and stuff. /…/

Supervisor D::

No.

Student M::

Well, now we’ve solved it so that we have numbers in the graphs and then we’ve translated them into percentages underneath. That’s what we’ve done now. And I’m a bit more in favour of numbers (laughs) so we have two different, sort of …

Supervisor D::

Yeah, that’s right. /…/

Student L::

I’m a bit confused.

Supervisor D::

Yes, but the thing is that if I ask my colleagues, there can be different answers. But … eh, I can do that just to see what …

Student M::

Yes, please!

Student L::

Yes.

Supervisor D, Recording 3, Pair supervision

The starting point for the supervision interaction here is again that the students express uncertainty about a particular part of the thesis work and want to get answers from the supervisor on how to proceed. In the discussion, the students come up with different suggestions on how to proceed, but the supervisor chooses not to give direct feedback on these suggestions. Instead, Supervisor D offers to ask colleagues about the issue at hand, stressing that this may not lead to a simple solution to the problem as the colleagues may have different views on how to continue.

An alternative response in this particular situation might have been for Supervisor D to emphasise, as in the previous examples, that it is ultimately up to the students themselves to decide what they want to do and how best to do it in relation to the purpose of the degree project, the research questions and so on. Another possible scenario would have been for the supervisor and the students to jointly discuss what might be the best solution and try to find a solution together. In this way, the students’ responsibility for the degree project would have been emphasised and the initiative to find a solution to the problem would have been placed more firmly with them, which could have contributed to student activity and encouraged student independence.

One of our main arguments in this book is that supervision should be seen as a social and collegial practice, in which the supervisor need not or cannot be an expert in everything. However, if supervisors too often or too extensively claim not to know or not to be able to answer, and constantly refer to someone who knows better, be it colleagues in the discipline, the course coordinator or seminar leaders within the degree project course, there is a potential risk that the supervision interaction will be characterised by insecurity, which in the long run could leave students with the feeling of being alone in their work. At the same time, this is one of the most difficult parts of supervision—to be able to handle all the different questions and problems that students raise, and preferably to give relevant and useful answers. In order to avoid supervisors feeling that they have to deal with such dilemmas on their own, we would argue in favour of creating arenas for collegial conversation and dialogue where various issues and problems can be discussed, both the concrete guidelines and requirements for specific degree project courses and other pedagogical or content-related issues that supervisors may face. This would provide an opportunity for new supervisors to learn from those who have been in the game longer and perhaps address some of the uncertainties that supervisors may face.

Uncertainty and concern can thus characterise both students’ and supervisors’ experiences of the degree project process and the supervision interaction. As we have shown throughout this chapter, these types of emotions can be handled by supervisors in a variety of ways, ranging from directing the supervision interaction away from talk of worry, fear and uncertainty and towards more neutral ground, to actively using such emotions to communicate to students what they can expect during the course of the work. Depending on how supervisors relate to and manage the emotional elements of the supervision interaction, these have the potential to serve as supervisory tools that can help to encourage student activity and independence, and contribute to making the supervision interaction more of a partnership. In the next chapter we will look at a number of other scaffolding tools that supervisors can use in supervision practice to encourage and enable student independence.