Keywords

Based on the analyses and discussions we have presented throughout the book, we will conclude by revisiting some of the key findings of our research project and offer some further reflections on how supervisors might think and work, both individually and collegially, to develop their supervision practice.

One of the main findings of our study, highlighted in this book, concerns the practical implications of how key concepts in higher education, in this case student independence, tend to be multifaceted, complex and not clearly defined. We have shown how a range of understandings and perceptions of student independence are articulated in governing documents at different levels, and that although there are many similarities in how supervisors understand independence in the supervision context, there are also differences within and between local academic contexts. As discussed in the book, student independence can be demonstrated at different stages of the degree project process—during supervision, in the final text or at the defence/examination—to different degrees and by different means, which has implications for individual supervisor practice, for the student-supervisor relationship, and for the assessment of degree projects and student performance.

A second main finding of our research project concerns how degree project supervision should be seen as a social and collegial practice, as it involves relationships at several levels with a number of people and in various contexts. We have shown how, in addition to individual supervisors and students, actors such as examiners and programme or course coordinators, as well as fellow students and colleagues, are important actors in the degree project and supervision process, and what implications this may have for supervision practice. As a supervisor, you must manage a number of expectations from different directions: the students want the best, and perhaps the most, support possible to help them complete their degree projects, the examiners and the university want the degree projects to be of high quality, the programme directors and the university want as many students as possible to complete their degree projects within the timeframes and so on. In addition, supervisors need to be constantly aware of the various governing documents, guidelines and regulations associated with the writing of degree projects at a particular university and within the specific academic programme or discipline in which they are working. At the same time, for many university professors or lecturers, supervising degree projects is only one part of the overall workload, which has to be combined with all the other demands and responsibilities. In view of this, one might raise the question of how independent the supervisors are or can be.

From an academic literacies perspective, this can be understood in the context that academic writing is characterised by power relations at different levels (Lea and Street 2000, 2006; Lillis 2001; Lillis and Scott 2007). On the one hand, there is a power relationship between supervisor and student, which may be or appear more or less hierarchical, depending, for example, on whether the supervisor-student relationship is one marked by teaching, partnership or apprenticeship (Dysthe 2002). On the other hand, there are power relations at the institutional level, where universities have to comply with regulations such as Higher Education Acts and Higher Education Ordinances, and where individual students’ performance in terms of academic writing and degree projects may be included in the periodic evaluations of and within higher education. In cases where completed and approved degree projects are used as quality indicators in such evaluations, the standard of students’ work may, in the long run, have an impact on how whole disciplines or programmes are assessed. What individual supervisors do is thus both influenced by, and can have an impact on, the activities of the university as a whole.

In addition to complying with local and national expectations and regulations, individual supervision practice is also influenced by and needs to be adapted to the circumstances, aspirations and abilities of individual students. This is the third main finding of our study that we would like to highlight here. The need to tailor supervision to each student or group of students relates to how the relationship between supervisor and student(s) is established and what it looks like, for example, whether a particular supervision practice helps to create not only a professional or academic but also a more personal relationship between students and supervisors. In some cases a more personal relationship may be beneficial to the thesis work; in other cases it may be an approach that makes either the student(s) or the supervisor uncomfortable, or in other ways slows down the writing process rather than facilitates it.

The need to tailor supervision to each individual student or group of students also applies to the pedagogical tools that supervisors choose to use. Working with scaffolding in supervision practice, as we define it here, where students are expected to be active, where supervisors aim to base their supervision on knowledge of the student’s background and circumstances, and where responsibility is gradually transferred from supervisors to students as the work progresses, with the supervisor fading somewhat, may work very well in some cases (cf. van de Pol 2012; van de Pol et al. 2010). In other cases, however, it may lead to the thesis never being completed, for example, because the transfer of responsibility from supervisor to student does not work as well as it would need to for the student to be able to complete the task.

Moreover, we have shown in the book how, for instance, emotions, praise, questions and active voicing can serve as potential scaffolding tools for encouraging and developing student independence and enhanced academic literacy but also how such tools need to be used consciously and deliberately in order to contribute to the intended goals. The use of these kinds of pedagogical tools can, at times, make things clearer to students and help them move forward in their work. However, sometimes these same tools do not work as intended. For example, an unreflective use of praise may lead students to believe that they have produced a better text than they actually have; certain uses of questions may lead to students not understanding the criticism being conveyed or the seriousness of it; and what is intended to be an engaged approach might in some cases lead to students losing the energy and desire to work on the degree project because they feel attacked and criticised.

In other words, supervision practices that work well for one student may be completely wrong for another, even if they are well intentioned and seem to meet all the requirements and expectations. Does this mean that it is not possible to say anything about how supervision practice can be developed to support and develop student independence and academic literacy? No, we hope that through the various chapters of this book it has become clear that although we strongly reject the idea that one model fits all supervisors and all students, there are certain things that we have seen in our study that we believe are important for supervisors to take with them in their work. We conclude by summarising these and presenting our visions for what we believe would improve academic supervision practice.

The Importance of Reflection

Firstly, we would like to emphasise the importance of reflecting on one’s own supervision practice and the beliefs and ideals on which it is based, for example, in relation to the supervisor-student relationship and the kind of role one wants to take as a supervisor. As we have shown, supervisors can manage things such as the emotional dimensions of supervision, the boundaries between professional, personal and private, or how to respond to and critique students’ work in different ways. While there is no single right or wrong way to do this, different supervisors’ attitudes and approaches may be more or less appropriate or successful in scaffolding various aspects of students’ academic writing and supporting them in their work, not least when it comes to student independence. In other words, it is important to find approaches and supervision practices that work for one’s own personality, while at the same time having the potential to facilitate, for example, student independence. Furthermore, we would like to emphasise once again the need for flexibility. This applies both in relation to different students and their personal circumstances, abilities and needs, and in relation to the different stages of degree project writing and supervision. Supervisors need to be aware both that what appears to work for one student may be less appropriate for another and that different types of scaffolding may be needed at the beginning and end of the degree project process, as well as when things are going well and when things are going less well in the students’ work.

In order to achieve this, it is valuable to consider your own supervision practice and the choices you make in it on an ongoing basis. One way of doing this might be to record some of your own supervision conversations and actively listen to them—after asking the student for permission to record, of course. Another way is to invite someone to shadow you during a supervision session and ask for their views on what could be developed. Shadowing one of your colleagues during one of their supervision sessions can also be valuable in gaining perspective on your own supervision practice.

Through this kind of self-reflection, we argue that it becomes easier for supervisors to work consciously with different supervision tools and strategies, for example to encourage student activity and participation in the supervision process, and to deal with the more or less unexpected difficulties and problems that often arise during the degree project process. This is true whether these problems concern students getting stuck in material collection or writing, students experiencing personal setbacks that affect the degree project work, or the potential contradiction between giving students the freedom to explore their ideas and aspirations, on the one hand, and ensuring that the degree project they produce is of a sufficiently high quality and completed within the given timeframe, on the other.

The Importance of Discussion

In addition to considering and reflecting on one’s own supervision practice and approach to students, we would like to emphasise the importance of collegial discussion about academic writing and supervision. In the research study we conducted, it became obvious in several ways that there is a need to discuss both one’s own supervision practice and the shared guidelines and approaches to academic supervision within the university or within a particular programme or discipline. In this book we have primarily taken student independence as an example of an aspect that is central to the process of the degree project, at the same time as there is often a lack of collegial discussion of, for example, how independence might be understood in this context, what it might mean in practice to encourage or enable student independence, or how this might be assessed. A collective discussion of what the requirements and expectations of student independence might mean makes it easier for individual supervisors to adapt their supervision practice to the ideals and perceptions that exist in the local academic context.

However, there are also other essential parts of the degree project work which are not obviously unambiguous and where there is not necessarily a consensus on how they should be understood and interpreted. An example of this is assessment criteria and assessment matrices, where the criteria given for different grades can often be understood and interpreted in several ways, which can lead to problems if supervisors and examiners do not communicate sufficiently. What does it mean, for example, to have a more or less developed research base, use of theory or analysis? How should such criteria be understood? Apart from the fact that this is important for individual students and the way their degree projects are assessed, it is necessary to have a reflected consensus on such questions among supervisors and examiners in order to ensure that professionalism pervades the degree project courses and that the quality of the education is maintained.

Collegial discussion can also be valuable when it comes to certain specific details of academic writing, which may not seem so important in the larger context but on which students can spend a lot of time and energy: for example, reference systems and formalities, linguistic conventions or how to interpret the instructions given in guidelines or manuals for writing student theses. If supervisors, course coordinators and examiners have good collegial communication about these kinds of issues, this can contribute to less uncertainty for both students and supervisors, and mean that less time and energy needs to be spent on them in supervision discussions.

It can, furthermore, be valuable to have a collegial discussion about the supervisor-student relationship. What are the expectations of this relationship and, not least, what are the limits in terms of an overly personal or private relationship? How do you manage when such boundaries are crossed, either by the supervisor or by the student, and how do you work to clarify the boundaries so that this does not happen? As we have discussed, students are in a situation of dependency in relation to the supervisors and a certain action may be perceived as inappropriate or as sexual harassment by a student without the supervisor in question being aware of this or sharing this view. Although ideally all students should have the right to change supervisors, it is far from certain that this can be done without serious consequences for the degree project work in terms of lost focus, time and energy, which makes it all the more important to try to prevent such situations from arising.

The Importance of Communication

Finally, we would like to stress the importance of communicating with students. Clearly describing central parts of your supervision practice to the students you supervise, and the reasons behind it, can help students to know what to expect in the future. This may include availability and practical issues, such as how quickly students can expect responses to emails and how far in advance they are expected to submit texts for supervisors to have time to read, or that supervisors’ personal circumstances, such as childcare or commuting, affect the of supervision conditions. It may also include how you normally give feedback or express criticism and praise. For example, if students have been told that the supervisor rarely marks what is good and works well in a piece of writing, but focuses on areas for improvement, it may be easier for them to digest and absorb the comments they receive.

There were several examples in our material of how this could be done, such as a supervisor warning students that towards the end of the degree project process they were likely to perceive the supervisor as very negative and demanding, but that this was to ensure that they were not surprised by the examiner’s criticism and assessment. Another example in our material involved a supervisor explaining the reasons for asking the student all those critical questions that seemed so difficult to answer. This kind of explicit explanation of the supervisors’ tasks and approach, and the pedagogical idea behind their actions, can make it easier for students to relate to and cope with supervision.

Likewise, in relation to independence, there is value in communicating to students what this might mean in the degree project context. As there may be a discrepancy between how supervisors perceive independence in relation to degree project work and how students perceive it, for example whether it is a matter of working alone, there may be a need to clarify what the term means. This applies both to supervisors’ views and to formulations in course syllabi and assessment criteria. Doing so can clarify what is expected of the student, for example, in terms of coming to supervision sessions prepared, actively participating in supervision discussions, and listening to and responding to the supervisor’s comments, as well as in terms of who bears ultimate responsibility for the completion and quality of the degree project.

The same applies to academic literacies, although it may not be necessary for students to engage with the concept itself. But if supervisors talk not only about the content and structure of the degree project, or about language mistakes and reference systems, but also about the expectations and norms associated with academic writing, this can help students to cope better with the transition from the texts they have written earlier in their education to the larger and more advanced academic texts that a degree project normally involves.

As we have shown throughout this book, academic supervision is in many ways a complex process in which the relationship and interaction between supervisors and students is of great importance, whether in the sometimes rather short timeframes of academic work at undergraduate level, or in the longer timeframes of academic work at masters and doctoral levels. The process can be rewarding and educational for both students and supervisors, and can be fraught with emotions ranging from frustration and anger to pride and joy. In closing, we would like to emphasise that supervision practice has the potential to contribute not only to the production of the academic product itself, the degree project, master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation, but also to the growth of the student in terms of aspects such as academic literacies and independence and potentially also to the growth of the supervisor, as each new student you supervise brings something new to the equation. You are, in other words, never complete as a supervisor, and we hope that this book will contribute in some way to the ongoing reflection and development of supervision practice, both at a collective and individual level, that we believe is therefore necessary.