In the UK we use the term ‘supervisor’ to designate the person who is respon- sible for guiding the doctoral student. In other cultures they have different titles, such as ‘tutor’ or ‘thesis advisor’ in the USA.
What does this role involve? Potentially, it has many dimensions: inter- personal, managerial, psychological/motivational, editorial and, of course, they have to be experts in the field. Supervisors have to play several different roles and should be sensitive to their students’ needs as they do so.
Any text on teaching and learning in higher education will, if it includes research supervision, define the roles in more detail. For example, Brown and Atkins (1988) define the roles as follows (p. 120):
Students are often fascinated by this list, which suggests that they have not really unpacked the role in this way before or, perhaps, that they have not really thought of the range of possibilities open to supervisors.
Many ask what exactly ‘freedom giver’ means: it may mean giving a steer, but helping students to find their own way. Of course, any supervisor may feel able to play more than one role, but which is your supervisor’s preferred, or dominant, style? Who have you got? What can you expect to get from him or her? What are you not likely to get? What are you going to do to meet that need?
‘Writing developer’ is not on this list. Perhaps it is to be assumed that several – or all – of these roles are to be applied to writing, as to any other activity?
In which case, how would you like to see them applied: are you looking to your supervisor to ‘teach’ you the higher level skills required for writing a thesis (and for publication)? Are you looking for someone who will ‘manage’
The roles of the supervisor
• Director
• Facilitator
• Adviser
• Teacher
• Guide
• Critic
• Freedom giver
• Supporter
• Friend
• Manager
• Examiner
your writing process, helping you to get it completed on schedule? Or are you looking for someone who will, first and foremost, be a ‘critic’ of your writing, giving you the ‘hard’ feedback that you need to achieve the criteria for the doctorate? Have you discussed these expectations with your supervisor?
As your needs change, and as your supervisor trusts you to get on with the work, you may want to revisit these roles. Later in your doctorate you may feel that you need your supervisor to play a completely different role. At moments of crisis – of confidence or in research – you may feel that all you want is some support, some motivation to keep going and a moment’s vision that you do have the ability to finish it. Your supervisor may or may not pick up on your changing and fluctuating needs. It might be as well to establish some pattern of communication about supervision, so that when you do request something else it does not sound like a criticism of what is currently being offered.
The role your supervisor plays – either consciously or unconsciously – will no doubt affect the role you play – consciously or unconsciously. The nature of the student–supervisor relationship may not be entirely predicated on how your supervisor acts and speaks – or on how you perceive him or her to be speaking and acting – but it will be strongly influenced by it. Students’
perceptions of their supervisors will also be influenced by how others see them. For example, if your supervisor is seen by many as a ‘guru’, you might find it difficult not to see, or to feel that you ought to be seen to see, him or her in this light. It will not take you long to realize that some supervisors are perceived differently inside the department – and perhaps in the university – from outside the department or university. This can complicate your per- ception management further. The roles may or may not be complementary.
Brown and Atkins (1988) define 14 possibilities (p. 121):
Relationships between student and supervisor
• Director : Follower
• Master : Servant
• Guru : Disciple
• Teacher : Pupil
• Expert : Novice
• Guide : Explorer
• Project manager : Team worker
• Auditor : Client
• Editor : Author
• Counsellor : Client
• Doctor : Patient
• Senior partner : Junior professional
• Colleague : Colleague
• Friend : Friend
THE ROLE OF THE SUPERVISOR 79
As with the list of potential roles, this list is excellent for prompting discus- sion and reflection. We immediately find ourselves identifying our ‘favourites’, our preferred options for how we would like to work with our supervisors. We reject those that do not suit us, or that just do not make sense in this context.
Some students will be looking at this list thinking ‘Well, I know which one I like best, but I am not likely to get that from my supervisor, at any time.’ This is fine. The point is to know their limitations, their strengths and weaknesses, to accept that they cannot be all things to all people and to be able to discuss – if not actually ‘ask for’ – what you want from them. If you do not ask, you will wait a long time till they learn to read your mind. Here is an anecdote, based on a real example:
A colleague noticed that one of her collaborators, with whom she had been working closely for several years, had recently been looking unhappy at their one-to-one meetings. My colleague wondered about this, but put it down to personal matters. Some time later the ‘unhappy’ colleague raised certain criticisms, adding that my colleague ‘Must have known there was something wrong’ because she had begun to look visibly unhappy. In other words, the collaborator had expected her visible dis- play of unhappiness to ‘tell’ my colleague that something was wrong. My colleague replied that if she were to assume that everyone who worked with her, and who appeared to be unhappy, was so because of something she had done, or not done, she would be a nervous wreck.
How might the supervisor’s role definition affect your writing? The role your supervisor plays – consciously or unconsciously – can affect the role you play, both in your discussions and in your writing:
1 If you are cast in the role of ‘novice’ you will find it difficult to write with authority.
2 If you play the role of ‘disciple’ you might feel the influence of your supervisor’s style of thinking and writing too strongly to find your own.
3 If you are cast in the role of ‘colleague’ you may feel that you cannot – yet, at the start – measure up to expectations.
4 What can you do if you are cast in a role that does not suit you, e.g. cast as expert when you feel you are a novice, or as a novice when you feel you have some knowledge?
5 Will you act out the role assigned to you? Do you have the necessary acting skills?
6 How can you influence this ‘casting’?
How you perceive your immediate audience can have an enormous influ- ence on your writing. To some extent that is inevitable; but you will have to find some way of writing for the audience ‘beyond’ the supervisor, the research community, while not appearing not to write for your supervisor, of course.
The supervisor’s many roles, as reader, editor, critic, fellow scholar, member of the research community, may require you to do a kind of triangulation of the types of reader, so that you end up with someone to whom you can direct your writing. Having said that, it is likely that your reader will not be perfectly triangulated all of the time.
Your university’s Code of Practice will indicate, or spell out, what your supervisor’s responsibilities are. It may also list your responsibilities. It will tell you what your rights are: i.e. not what your rights are if something goes wrong, but what you have a right to expect from your supervisor.
Specific discussion of the role you and your supervisor feel he or she should play with regard to your writing would be a useful topic of more than one conversation. Your starting point might be a core issue like feedback:
1 Are you looking for (high-level) writing instruction?
2 Do you want mentoring about writing?
3 Will you need help with motivation to write?
4 Do you want incremental feedback on your writing?
These points could provide a starting point for these discussions. You do not need to stick with my terminology, but you could start with it and develop your own.
These two sections of Brown and Atkins (1988) have been included here because they have proved very effective in stimulating students to begin to address many different issues surrounding supervision in general and their supervisors in particular. The wide-ranging character of these lists has caused discussion to be wide-ranging, with students moving beyond their own points of reference for the purposes of discussion.
Interestingly, Brown and Atkins (1988) also define common problems in their chapter on supervision (p. 123):
While only number three is explicitly about writing, it should be added that the others could be identified through the writing – or lack of it – that a student does.
Common problems for research students
1 Poor planning and management of project 2 Methodological difficulties in the research 3 Writing up
4 Isolation
5 Personal problems outside the research 6 Inadequate or negligent supervision
THE ROLE OF THE SUPERVISOR 81
All of the points in this section are prime topics for discussions with supervisors. As these discussions progress, you should be looking to develop a common set of concepts about roles and writing.