Professional Documents
Culture Documents
6. Good quality
supervision
I have supervised 6 students at the John Innes Centre, and been
co-supervisor for 2 students at Newcastle University, UK
I have been examiner for 6 PhD student theses, including Belgrade
University.
I am honorary, visiting, contract or guest professor at
Newcastle University, UK
University of East Anglia, UK
University of Parma, Italy
Faculty of Biology, Belgrade University (PhD student training).
Discussion of mentoring experiences
WRONG!!!
RIGHT!!!
because ...
the majority of faculty teaching staff have not had training themselves
in how to be good supervisors, and if you dont know how it should be
done, you cant be expected to teach the
next generation of researchers and lecturers how it should be done.
Your activities as a student supervisor should have a mission statement
and strategic plan - for each of your PhD students: a list of learning
outcomes.
Putting together your own mission statement on what you want to
achieve for your students forces you to consider what supervision is all
about.
This makes it clear to your students at the beginning that you have a
plan for them and that the students will achieve your mission for them
through a range of different activities - not just doing research.
You should ensure that your students achieve their maximum potential
for doing good quality research.
This is where your
student gets to now.
This is where your
student should get to.
start
finish
start
Heres how you can achieve that .
finish
Page
That will make you feel that you are doing something useful to help
improve the quality of your students post-diploma/PhD training, and
it will make your students feel that you are interested in their progress
and keen to give them every help to improve themselves;
and to make them feel they are not just technicians and are not
abandoned to struggle through the pitfalls [difficulties] of research on
their own.
Self-Assessment Skills
Audit and Personal
Development Plan
(PDP)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Postgraduate
training courses:
Training courses
are compulsory
for postgraduate
students to provide
them with the skills
they will need
- to carry out
research
successfully
- to prepare and
defend a
successful PhD
thesis
- to present their
results to the
scientific
community
- to develop their
career prospects
This example is for
first-year student
courses:
Writing a paper
The student must learn to take account of all the factors that may, as
well as those that are planned to influence the experimental results.
Only by identifying all the factors influencing his/ her research will
your student get to the truth!
Emphasise the importance of good recordkeeping.
Get your students used to the concept of setting up a hypothesis and
designing experiments to test it.
The student also needs to appreciate the importance for their research
of
- the resources available (project scale)
- the cost implications (project cost)
- how long it will take (project time)
- how good the results will be (project quality)
and the relationship between them.
Think of the Research Pyramid from module 1.
Your student needs to adjust Scale, Cost and Time to maximise Quality
Emphasise the importance of thinking before doing identifying all the factors before the experiment starts.
Your students must avoid saying to themselves either during or after an
experiment or piece of research:
I forgot to do that or I didnt realise that.
To be doing good quality research they have to avoid making the
comment:
I didnt think of that, and especially avoiding their supervisor having
to say Why didnt you think of that?.
Good experimental design and careful planning before starting an
experiment save a lot of pain afterwards!
The early experimental phase:
Short experiments at the start to introduce the student to research
techniques - expecting that problems will arise!
Students should learn from their mistakes, when things go wrong.
It is better to find out the mistakes sooner than later!
Make sure the student understands why things went wrong and
appreciates how to avoid the mistake in the future. Could a better
protocol avoid mistakes? Making mistakes is good!
Frequent monitoring of the student helps at this stage.
Unless constant supervision will be given in this early period (to see
mistakes and overcome them as they happen), dont sacrifice valuable
reagents, anti-bodies, seeds, rats, etc. that are important to you!
This will be a certain way to strain the student - supervisor relationship!
Give the student plenty of help in planning experiments to avoid
mistakes as far as possible.
Helping the student plan a programme of research:
This wont come naturally to a student, so explain:
how to develop a research project from the initial hypothesis to
interpreting the results (details of this in module 1 of the course);
emphasise how much the quality of the research depends on the
quality of planning beforehand.
Gantt charts are prepared for students for research projects in their
subject.
These Gantt charts deliberately over-represent the time to be given to
some aspects of the research process and under-represent the time
needed for others.
They are then asked to consider the realism or otherwise of these time
projections, to discuss them, and to re-plan the research.
This technique can be extremely effective in stimulating students to
think about the relationship between time and task and in enabling
them to plan their own research.
How long does it take to design a questionnaire?
How long does it take to interview 20 smallholders?
How long does it take to calibrate an instrument?
How long would it take to analyse 10-year sectoral trends in Serbias
macroeconomics?
How long does it take to wire up the components of a logic board?
During discussions with your students, get them used to the idea of
thinking critically.
Ask them Why is ...?
What if ...?
Have you considered ?
Is it the only interpretation if ?
What would happen if ?
What does it mean if ?
And why do you expect this ?
Always questions: why, how, what!
Challenge them to think beyond their specific research subject area.
You should train their minds to be flexible enough to think critically
about everything and not just their own research subject.
How would you make a pencil?!
Emphasise the importance of research ethics.
The process of searching for answers to those questions of why, what
and how is also the process of looking for the truth.
Newcastle Universitys detailed notes on student supervision have a
long section on plagiarism (or cheating).
As senior members of the academic/research community it is your
duty to ensure that you and your staff are always looking for the
truth.
Encourage your students to talk to others and to be brave
enough to question your own statements - you do not have a
monopoly on the truth!
Regular group and inter-group discussion meetings will encourage the
concept that everyone can benefit from an exchange of information.
As supervisors it is important for you to open your students mind to
new ideas and for him/her to learn to interact with other researchers.
All this is preparing the student for the inevitable awesome task of
writing the thesis!
Here is advice on how to help with the thesis:
The supervisor should advise on the preparation of the thesis in
general and on content, presentation and organisation.
He/she should read all of the first draft and thereafter continue to
offer advice.
He/she should not act as a proof reader and should make this clear
to the student.
It should be made clear to the student that it is his/her responsibility
revise the thesis manuscript and to decide when it is ready for
submission.
Strategy 3 may lead to learning lots of methods, but results in a poorlydefined journey!
The student should be told:
By the time you finalise your thesis, you and you alone are the world's
expert on this work. So,
the aspects that make your work significant and
original and worthy of a PhD ... need to be emphasised and
argued coherently;
each step needs to be spelt out and justified;
the outcomes must be stated unambiguously, and
all their implications identified and discussed in depth.'
Prepare your student for the viva!
Remind your student to become familiar with every page of the thesis to refer quickly to information.
Remind the student to become familiar with the latest literature on the
subject.
Identify aspects of the thesis that are likely to stimulate detailed
questions from the examiner(s).
Discuss suitable answers to those questions with the student.
Emphasise the importance of knowing where (s)he would take the
research if the student continued.