Supervisor reflections on developing doctoralness in practice-based doctoral students

Abstract

This paper shares the reflections of a group of 5 academics who started supervising practice-based doctoral students at a similar time in the same institution. The supervisors engaged in a collaborative research process themselves exploring their supervision practices, due in part to the relatively limited literature available in the field, and in part as a support mechanism to help them understand what they were doing. As the first students have now completed, the learning from taking students through the cycle from start to finish for the first time is also now complete in itself. While the supervisors continue to learn both from and within the supervision process itself, that initial experience of supervising doctoral students is now complete and the supervisors within their own institutions are now considered 'experienced'. This paper offers insight into the doctoral development process from the supervisor’s perspective, and offers reflections on the supervision process itself, as well as insight into the difficulties that can be encountered when researching your own practice.