Academic Supervision: Relationship between supervisor and student
A number of studies on the relationship between an academic supervisor and a PhD (mainly) student described it across two dimensions:
- intimacy and direction (Acker et al., 1994)
- cold–warm and structure–free (Brown & Atkins, 1988)
- supporting and structuring (Anderson et al., 2006)
- affiliation and power (Nelson, 1997)
- professional role–personal self and dependence–independence (Lee, 2008)
- proximity and influence (Mainhard et al., 2009)
In all of these studies,
one dimension describes the extent to which the supervisor gives direction to the student activities
and the other dimension describes the extent to which the supervisor is emotionally involved in the project and/or with the student.
If you are an academic supervisor and you would like to reflect on the type of relationship you want with your postgraduate students
AND/OR
you would like to gauge the extent to which your conception of that relationship aligns with the student’s expectation, you can use the following quadrant, and ask your students to do the same.
Reflecting on their responses and comparing them to yours will help you gauge whether they are sufficiently aligned. In the event they are misaligned, can the two parties compromise in order to make their professional relationship collegian and productive? If not, then maybe it would be best for the parties to part ways.
∗ Source: de Kleijn, Mainhard, Meijer, Pilot and Brekelmans, 2012
NOTES:
i. Your relationship may differ depending on the student
ii. Your relationship with a student may evolve over time
For more resources on Academic Research Supervision you can go to this blog:
∗ de Kleijn, R.A.M., Mainhard, M.T., Meijer, P.C., Pilot, A. and Brekelmans, M. (2012). Master’s thesis supervision: relations between perceptions of the supervisor–student relationship, final grade, perceived supervisor contribution to learning and student satisfaction. Studies in Higher Education, 37(8), 925–939.
