“It's complicated” Relationship: Research Students’ Perspective on Doctoral Supervision

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Abstract Within a doctoral learning journey, research students go through a process of exploration and experimentation when faced with ‘troublesome knowledge’ ( Perkins, 1999 ) before they are able to cross threshold concepts.However they need to tranform their ‘ways of thinking and practising’ in order to overcome the tensions caused by these barriers ( Meyer & Land, 2006 ). Hence effective doctoral supervision is required to train students how to investigate, conceptualise and create new solutions ( Barnett, 2004 ). The study examined the role of supervision from the perspective of research students, which is a departure from previous literature that centres more from the perspective of supervisors and institutions. Specifically, the study examined tensions that arose between research students and their supervisors when faced by troublesome knowledge at different stages of their doctoral learning journeys.This case study involved four participants from various higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Semi-structured interviews contributed to the overall volume of the data collected in the study. Findings from the study identified three major issues reported by the research students when dealing with their supervisors; namely lack of positive communication, lack of necessary expertise to give support and power conflicts. Findings from this study inform research on doctoral learning and supervision, particularly in providing support in students’ crossing of threshold concepts during their doctoral learning journey. In addition, identifying tensions described by research students can help supervisors to improvise their supervisory skills and deliver effective supervision throughout the various stages of students’ research development.