Coaching interventions for postgraduate supervision courses: Promoting equity and understanding in the supervisor-student relationship

Abstract

There is considerable research which supports the view that the student’s ability to complete a doctorate is often fraught with factors relating to the complexity of their professional, personal and community contexts. In increasingly pressured settings, the quality of postgraduate supervision is critical, as is supervisory training.In this article, I argue that some of the contextual difficulties experienced by supervisors and students could be addressed through the use of coaching principles and processes which help to open up conversations around selecting, reshaping and expanding ideas. These are the three aspects of Sternberg’s Triarchical Theory which includes contextual intelligence (Sternberg 1997).I draw on data from postgraduate and supervisor courses I have facilitated at a number of universities in South Africa. I am not attempting a thorough analysis of the data; instead, I am using it as a rationale to show how contextual influences on professional academic development may be more consciously addressed. I first outline some of the pedagogical principles of three coaching models and then give three examples of coaching tools I have used in courses for supervisors.