Building a sense of community in a research master's course

Abstract

ABSTRACT The literature on postgraduate supervision portrays the complexity of the process and the many problems associated with it. Most of the strategies implemented to improve the experience of postgraduate students do not target one single problem associated with the postgraduate experience and therefore the impact of these strategies is often lost in the complexity of the postgraduate experience. In this paper, there is a description of strategies designed to overcome problems of isolation of postgraduate research students and so build a sense of belonging in the academic community. The context is a relatively new research master's course in education in an Australian university. Arguments are made that postgraduate students should be consciously and formally inducted into the academic community with specific strategies being implemented to ensure that this induction process occurs.