Becoming a Research Supervisor: Reflections on a Postgraduate Supervision Course

Abstract

This piece of work presents reflections of lessons learnt from a postgraduate supervision course, which is considered an educative process that any research supervisor requires. This type of journey can lead to the success of doctoral programs or mismanagement thereof in most universities, nationally or internationally. Looking back at the postgraduate supervision course attended, it can be described as a personal journey that is capable of addressing the challenges any novice research supervisor would encounter in the field of postgraduate research. The supervision course comprised of a group of 13 lecturers from the same institution coming from different specialist fields. The facilitator was from a different university from which this course was offered. This course was voluntary and it was done during own spare time. During the training session, each novice supervisor would detail how they moved through different stages from initial stage of accepting a student to a final stage where a student qualifies with doctoral qualification. Within group discussions, each one of novice supervisors would detail how they moved through the process of advising students, what worked for some and what did not work for others, thus learning in a process. The tensions surfaced in each other’s words, reflections and comprehensions of being thrown at the deep end by institution’s practices. Here follows the discussion on how issues of power relations, scholarly work and project management are crucial in postgraduate supervision project. On completion of the course, there was a realization that there is a need for supervisors to be taught how to supervise in order to do justice, to be ready for the task at hand and be confident in future about postgraduate supervision. In conclusion, the researcher highlights few lessons learnt and recommendations that could help supervisors who are operating in similar contexts to help improve postgraduate supervision in institutions of higher learning.