Supervision

Supervision is the distinctive teaching and learning process used for graduate research education at The University of Auckland and most universities worldwide.

The Senate Guidelines on Thesis Supervision outline the respective responsibilities of supervisor and student.

• Supervision can be challenging for both supervisors and students.
• It is useful to review practice and try new techniques. Reflecting on what happens may help to bring to the surface differences between supervisor and student understandings and expectations, or to clarify thinking at critical moments in the process.
• Research literature indicates that good communication is fundamental to supervision. It plays an important role in building trust and goodwill, and helps to prevent misunderstandings between supervisor and student.
• Good communication will ensure the effectiveness and enjoyment of supervision as well as the progress of the student’s research.
• Communication skills are an aspect of our interpersonal functioning that can always be improved to meet the demands of different situations. In the early stages of supervision especially, regular meetings will help to establish effective communication.

In doctoral supervision, in particular, a supervisory working relationship will go on for a long time. The documents listed here will help you to think through the decision to supervise or be supervised:

In order to become a main or co-supervisor if you are a University of Auckland staff member, you will need be accredited first. The following are documents that outline the requirements for accreditation:

Students and supervisors will likely have different expectations of supervision, so it is important to discuss these early on and make agreements for how you will work together.

In practice, these agreements can be renegotiated at any time in response to changing circumstances. As well, students and supervisors may have quite different understandings of how the research process works and the time it takes to achieve certain phases of the work.

Again, raising these for discussion will be helpful for both of you, but especially for the student as a novice researcher.

Problems can arise in supervision for all sorts of reasons.

The Resolution of Research Problems: Postgraduate Research Students policy describes both informal and formal processes for resolving problems. The tools below will help you with informal processes in particular.