How to manage your supervisor

Tennie Videler

Vitae Programme Manager: researchers

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Champions the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff.

About me

New: What do researchers do?first destinations of doctoral graduates by subject (WDRDS)

All physical sciences and engineering, types of work

Computer science, types of work

What do researchers do? Career profiles of doctoral graduates

Session outline:

• Communication

• Who can help?

• The supervisor’s role

• The student’s role

• Plan for managing your supervisions

• Assertiveness Techniques for student-supervisor interactions

• Summary

Exercise 1..

Who can help?

Second supervisorPostgraduate tutorOther academicsResearch staffLibrariansTrainersCareer advisors

Who else?

SupervisorMan

But…

they are only human

Perhaps it might help if

they had a bigger brain

or a smaller ego

or extra arms

or a mini me

• In groups of 4 or 5

• Draw your perfect supervisor. (5 minutes)

• Feel free to add genetic modifications Don’t worry about any discomfort to the supervisors – make sure that they suit your needs.

• Feed back to group

Exercise 2: Your perfect supervisor

Your supervisor and you

Your supervisor should usually:• ensure that you understand what is expected • meet you regularly for a formal supervision • give guidance about literature, training, research

techniques and academic conventions • provide constructive feedback on written work • advise on courses, both specialist and concerning

transferable skills • advise you on where to present your work

Your supervisor and your project

Your supervisor should usually:• ensure that you are aware of how your research fits

into any research groups or projects of which you are part

• help you to co-ordinate the supervisory team responsible for your project

• give feedback on your overall progress • help you to submit on time • read and comment on the whole of the final thesis.

Your role:

You should:• undertake research training as agreed • produce written work as agreed • comply with reporting procedures • arrange for informal sharing of information and

practice • decide when to submit the thesis and ensure that it is

submitted on time • ensure that the thesis complies with regulations.

Be proactive

Try to:• find out what is expected • take the initiative in raising problems or difficulties • help the supervisory team to ensure consistency • discuss with the supervisory team how to make

guidance more effective • agree and organise a mutually convenient schedule

of meetings

Managing the ProcessAgree a plan of

supervisions

Prepare for supervision

Six monthly review of progress

Annual meeting with your thesis committee

Submit workfor supervisor

to read

Attend supervision

Summarisewhat youagreed

Send summary tosupervisor

Managing Supervisions• Produce a written report or piece of written work for each

supervision.

• Prepare for each supervision, construct an agenda for each meeting and send it to your supervisor.

• Take notes during your supervision.

• Summarise decisions made at the end of the supervision.

• Send your summary to your supervisor and bring it to the next supervision.

Assertiveness

Passive: I’m not okay, you’re okay

Assertive: I’m okay, you’re okay

Aggressive: I’m okay, you’re not okay

3 Step Method

Step 1 Show you listen and understand

Step 2 Say what you think and feel

Step 3 Say what you want to happen

3 Step Method

Step 1 Listen and show you understand

I understand that you are very busy and that you have limited time.

Step 2 Say what you think and feel

However, I am feeling very anxious about whether I am going in the right direction with this section, and without your feedback I feel unable to progress further.

Step 3 Say what you want to happen

I need you to read this outline in the next week and tell me if there are any major omissions, and whether the structure make sense.

The 5 step method

Step 1 Listen

Step 2 Show you understand

Step 3 Say what you think and feel

Step 4 Say what you want to happen

Step 5 Work on a common solution

Other techniques

• The broken record

stick to your point until you are heard

• Fogging:

acknowledge feelings

agree without commitment

helps to promote calm communication

Role play practice

Student Scenario: you’ve been working on a particularly challenging bit of coding for the last few weeks. You have got quite stuck and think that you need a bit of input in order to make any further progress but your supervisor seems to be avoiding you. You have emailed reminders and got no response. You resolve to go to see your supervisor to try and make an appointment to discuss this later on in the week.

Supervisor’s Response:

• I’m very busy.

• I’m just off to a conference, I’ll see you when I get back

• I’m trying to get a paper written before I leave

• Why don’t you leave the coding and do a bit of literature searching

• You really need to be more independent - work it out.

Role play practice

In groups of three, take turns in taking on the role of the supervisor, student and observer.

Student role: practise using the 3 step method and broken record to ask your supervisor for what you need.

Supervisor role: try to make it difficult for the student by focusing on how busy you are and how difficult it will be to fulfil the request

Observer role: watch the interaction of the student and supervisor so you can provide feedback on what you think worked well.

If things go wrong

1. Talk to your supervisor – bring the problem into the open

2. Try and analyse the situation and work out what is going wrong

3. Gather advice from those around you

4. Constructive complaining

5. Know your rights

Take home messages

• Your supervisor is only human, but usually has your best interest at heart.

• You need to be proactive to make the most out of your supervisor

• Remember your supervisor is only one source of help and support

• If you have problems – deal with them quickly.