MHPTDL23-Gina-Wisker.pdf

Positive Practices for Supervisors of Part-
Time &Distance Learning
Doctoral Candidates
UKCGE workshop June 8 2023
Professor Gina Wisker Associate Professor, International Centre for HE
Management
University of Bath
1

The Journey
Remote Supervision of doctoral students. Supervision of part
time students and their research
Challenges, affordances, practices
Research, writing, multi-dimensional (builds on Doctoral learning journeys
Morris ,Wisker et al HEA 2011)
The Journey
1Remote Supervision of
doctoral students,
2Supervision of part time
students and their research
2

The Journey
Intellectual / cognitive
Ontological
Personal / Emotional
Professional
Instrumental:
meeting course
requirements
Research learning journeys: multi-dimensional- (doctoral
learning journeys Wisker, Morris et al 2011)
3

The Journey
Ontological
Professional
Instrumental:
meeting course
requirements
Supervising the Journey
1 Remote Supervision of doctoral students.
2 Supervision of part time doctoral students and their research, challenges affordances, practices
Research, writing, (builds on Doctoral learning journeys Morris ,Wisker et al HEA 2011 adapted 2023 )
4
Mental health
and wellbeing

3 dimensions of
doctoral student
learning –
and how they
are affected by
distance
supervision
and supervision
of part time
students
Personal –wellbeing, disruptions (remote), context,
communications, collegiality , time issues,
balancing work and research
Learning –workflow, learning dialogues supervisor
and candidate and community of peers disrupted
by distance-out of touch, or by professional time
demands and potential issues with theorising
Institutional –structures timings technology and
accessibility bandwidth for remote supervision,
time to completion, balancing work like demands
and the research and writing flow to meet
milestones (easy to lose momentum)

GURR’S SUPERVISORY ALIGNMENT
MODEL
6

Research is a journey
A dissertation/thesis is a building
It looks mapped but -risks, surprises,deviations Ordered, coherent, organised, linked
8

• So they complete-we all benefit
• Ensuring the flexibility and right decisions eg over
intermission
• Constant stress undermines and constrains the production
of new ideas and work
• Cultural differences and settling in – family demands--
adaptation? Resistance?
• Importance of induction and preparation and room
• Relationships between institution supervisor students- to
make it productive
• Not pathologising the students –overall environment
Why is it important to consider the wellbeing of
research students?
9

• Isolation
• Identity- part of institution-and community
• Work life balance for part timers
• Speaking in front of others
• Failure
• Finance
• Adaptability and flexibility- for overcoming difficulties
• Ensuring they look ahead- next steps –in academia and skills
and development achievements
• Being able to take criticism(developmental feedback)
What are the wellbeing issues for your
research students?
10

I was a part-time distance doctoral student – what supported me? And
my wellbeing and mental health?
My supervisor
• Genuine interest in my work and that of his other students
• Structured non intrusive support
• Didn’t force me into a mould
• Staying supportively in touch without overwhelming with too many
demands and deadlines
• Waiting it out with background support, positive kindly
communications no nagging no stressing –investment in my likelihood
of turning the stalled project around ( 2 year gap)
• In time comments and intellectual ‘nudges’- sound
feedback/feedforward
• Putting me in touch with another generous academic who joined me
into his research student community
• Ensuring I went to appropriate conferences when I was ready to
learn and share and ensuring I met the right/interesting people
11

Please discuss
• Was this your journey? Were you a distance and/
or part-time student? If so what were the issues
for you in maintaining momentum? Maintaining
wellbeing?
• Do you work with part time and or distant
research students? If so what are their research
journeys like? What are the issues and any
problems and effective practices for you in helping
them maintain momentum? maintain wellbeing?
12

Some of the main research and literature I will be referring to (from projects I
and others have been involved with ) full list at end
• Johansson,T., Wisker,G., Claesson,S., Strandler,O., and Saalman, S., (2014) “PhD. Supervision as an Emotional Process – Critical Situations and
Emotional Boundary Work” Pertanika : Journal of Social Science and Humanities . 22:21
• Morris, C., and Wisker, G., (2011) Troublesome Knowledge . ESCalate report, Higher Education Academy. https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/
Volume/Part: Toolkit for supervisors and departments https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/14755/3/8633.pdf
• Strandler,O, Johansson,T, Wisker,G and Claesson, S(2014) “Supervisor or counsellor? –Emotional boundary work in supervision”, International
Journal of Researcher Development
• Wisker, G., Waller, S., Richter, U., Robinson, G., Trafford, V., Wicks, K. & Warnes, M (2003 )On nurturing hedgehogs: Developments online for distance
and offshore supervision. HERDSA Research and Development in Higher Education: Learning for an Unknown Future Vol. 26
https://www.herdsa.org.au/publications/conference-proceedings/research-and-development-higher-education-learning-unknown-6
• Wisker, G., Morris, C., Cheng, M., Masika, R., Warnes, M., Lilly, J., Trafford, V. and Robinson, G. (2010) “Doctoral learning journeys – final report of the
NTFS-funded project”: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ntfs/Projects/Doctoral_Learning_Journeys
• Wisker, G and Robinson G (2013) Picking up the pieces: Supervisor and doctoral ‘Orphans’ International Journal for Researcher Development Vol. 3 . 2,
• Wisker, G, Robinson G (2012) ‘Doctoral “orphans”: nurturing and supporting the success of postgraduates who have lost their supervisors’ HERD 32:2
• Wisker, G., Robinson, G. and Bengtsen, S. S. E. (2017). Penumbra: doctoral support as drama: From the ‘lightside’ to the ‘darkside’. From front of house
to trapdoors and recesses. Innovations in Education and Teaching International
• Wisker, G (2007) Supervising postgraduates: internationally, and at a distance. Connections , Falmer press
• Wisker, G., & Robinson, G. (2016). Supervisor wellbeing and identity: Challenges and strategies. International Journal for Researcher
Development, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRD-03-2016-0006
• Wisker, G., L Highman, R Spronken-Smith, J Waghorne Across time and space: Examiner and candidate experiences of online doctoral vivas
Innovations in education and teaching international 59 (2), 131-141
• Wisker, MK McGinn, SSE Bengtsen, I Lokhtina, F He, S Cornér, ...Remote doctoral supervision experiences: Challenges and affordancesG Innovations in
Education and Teaching International 58 (6), 612-623
13

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) revisited:
everything in the research journey contributes (negatively or
positively) to wellbeing and mental health and everything in
the personal intellectual research journey thrives from sound
wellbeing and mental health
Good research; achievement
of doctorate/master’s;
publications; practical
developments/improvements
sense of personal goal
achievement
Progress, achievement in
research, conferences,
publishing supervisor and
colleague approval
Friend and family
approval and support,
research community
and colleagues’
recognition
Somewhere safe to live
and study Financial
security- enough income
Health, including
sleep, eating, etc.,
safety – living and
working conditions
Wellbeing
and
mental
health
14

Supervisor
wellbeing is
closely tied to
doctoral student
wellbeing and
success-
1 doctoral
students
What are the characteristics of the doctoral journey
which cause stress for students? & supervisors
• Expectation of continued high achievement.
• Mystifying expectations and outcomes ( and it is a new
contribution)
• Isolation
all of this is exacerbated by distance and by working part-
time
It's a very long journey, a doctorate, and much of it seems
difficult to define. As a student you are testing yourself against
yourself, against some unknown practices, which (it is hoped)
will result in something stellar and life changing in the
achievement of the doctorate. 15

Students working at a distance and/ or part time
are more likely –(than those on site)
• To be outside any rhythm of events, workshops,
support for development stages , reminders , ad
hoc exchanges and everyday collegial discussions
, ‘hidden curriculum’ activities .
• All of this can make research processes and
writing seem even more mystifying .
• Added to this, the more immediate pressures of
family and work and the research and writing
could seem daunting, be ‘put off ‘
(procrastination) leading to stress, confusion,
disruption, slow progress, anxiety about quality .
16

It is often a troublesome journey on
which we accompany and guide our
students
The unknown journey in itself has a
number of stresses and complexities so it
isn't surprising that doctoral students
working alone, remotely and /or part time
will ( like other doctoral students ) suffer
mental health issues and problems with
their wellbeing.
17

Suggestions for supervisors
• Some of these potential issues can be worked with/managed/overcome by
discussing and sharing the steps and stages of the journey with students-
clarification, demystifying,
• structured support, links to materials etc.
• Regular quick email exchanges and online meetings, some to deal with quick issues, or
just check in . Use the milestones and regular reporting systems to set off normal check
ins ( catch issues early on)
• Some of these issues can be dealt with by reducing the isolation through
encouraging and enabling students to join communities.
• Some, it is suggested, will be helped by developing emotional resilience so that
they can move towards a positive developmental learning experience and the
achievement of the doctorate.
• However, there is much to do to the journey itself and through our practices as
supervisors to enable students in terms of their mental health and wellbeing.
18

Demystification and support are positive strategies to
support our students.
1) The research project I think students want intellectual techniques
which help them manage their time, project manage, know when to
congratulate themselves, share the learning journey with others so
that they can support each other and have as many opportunities for
this process of research and writing to be demystified and made
manageable so they can see when they are achieving and identify
what areas of their work need to improve or be more manageable
for them to continue successfully with their journeys.
2) Structure, clarity, support, sharing and moving the whole issue of
mental health and well being ‘out of the cupboard,’ out of the
darkness so that we will talk about it and openly recognise that this
doctoral journey is a difficult, largely self managed journey with but
barely explained steps and pointers for the recognition of success.
19

• One other element is–questioning the doctoral learning
journey trajectory of Gurr (2001) -to recognise that for
many students, this is not an ‘arrow straight journey
upwards to achievement’. There are blocks, stuck places,
moments of questioning and moments of self doubt
along the way for many students.
• Normalising that and then working on how to deal with it
is a positive way forward.
• Dealing with setbacks, dealing with self-doubt, offering
clear guidance, clear stepping stones, models that can be
worked towards, models of successful writing and
research, all of this will help make the doctoral journey
a more manageable journey and therefore less stressful.
Do look at the ‘troublesome encounters toolkit’ which we
(Morris and Wisker 2012 ) developed for more examples
of issues and ways of dealing with them for students.
20

Considering distance supervision
• Co researching on distance supervision raised issues across the personal,
learning, institutional dimensions
• of
• Personal, social, intellectual issues
• Communicating, staying in touch and interacting with others, both
doctoral student groups eg writing groups, cohorts if they existed and
supervisors
• Use of technology- good and bad
• Our research was conducted entirely at a distance using online
meetings, synchronous online contributions, synchronous and
asynchronous writing and co-editing.
• These are practices students can use , with each other and with
supervisors.
21

1 Distance
remote
online research project
Sig 24(EARLi)led to online co-
analysis and co-writing, online
presentation, publication.
We
learned remote cooperation,
task sharing, writing. Model for
supervision practice
• Dagrun: What do we already know about remote supervision?
• pre-internet research: competing identities for students, remote students as part-time
and adult (Norway)
• distances are multidimensional; distance could create remoteness but also compilation
of aspects
• Michelle One on one meetings with students, but also other types of supervisions and
how these are different.
• Soren: What is different from what we know about f2f supervision? Environment,
creativity, etc...we already know this. We also know it’s important in remote supervision
but how does it differ?
• social, intellectual dimensions
• best questions to ask PhD students? Personal, social, intellectual questions, ckeeping in
mind the different factors that are important in the PhD
• Hidden curriculum?
• Solveig: Distance learning--face to face was more remote than online
teaching/supervision… online can be more personal
• Citra: Differentiating between pandemic and remote/online work and supervision
• Technologies to share work
• Differences before and after pandemic
• Gina: tech enables certain things:
• No need to commute
• How can we reproduce what’s worked before for current context?
• What differences did the pandemic bring in? Ontological angst , displacement, illness,
what can we learn from good practices we developed to cope with only remote
supervision?
The Journey
Remote Supervision of doctoral
students and their research
22

Erika: Costa article --healthy relations issue, and university policies on how to present oneself
under new circumstances
• blurring between professional and personal for supervisors and students alike (pets, partners,
etc.)
• how do you feel in being exposed and encountering others being exposed?
Violeta: Do you acknowledge the personal?
• How do we deal with professional vs household/childcare spaces? How do you present
yourself? Do you use a background in call to hide your home/office background?
Personal and political positions on the topic of presentation
• Inequality...age of your children, for instance.
• Different selves that are embodied
• Different intellectual weight if they only see the professional self?
• Montse: I assume things are different depending on how stable your home is, and how you
are with “home”
• Solveig
• the group dynamics, how teachers/supervisors balance the personal and professional,
• When you show more of yourself, the students do the same, and the group dynamic is
strengthened
• Equality issues: concrete effects on learning
• Soren: perhaps this notion of ‘home’ could be explored more - Boundary-crossing and
permeable boundaries between institution, home, society, person, professional etc. Heidegger
uses the notion of ‘homecoming’ as a transformative journey…?
23

Remote supervision and
or professional/part time
students &
conceptual critical work
• Montse: Conceptual changes are
challenging to support online. New PhDs who expected to
be f2f but ended up online, getting the dialogues
started is difficult as well as detecting changes in
thinking/reasoning, etc.
• Gina Working with professionals doing PhDs
This was already difficult to maintain
relationships that they consider supervisor/supervisee
but online with their extra work, etc. it’s even
more difficult
What are the conditions that enable the opening
up of the mind? In remote supervision E.g. screen
sharing of diagrams, etc.
Transfer and translate what might work in a remote context
Use the time well , planned, noted, summed up , followed up
24

2 Part time
professionals
(emerged as a
theme we did
not pursue)
• Gina: International cohort...personal and
professional selves, working with this group
for a while...we relate differently...not one
size fit all solution around how we fit
identities, show identities
• Differences in disciplinary cultures in
professional/personal identities and
presentations
• Professional selves
• Enough difficulty working with busy
professionals now more difficult
Professional
25

Part time
doctoral students
All my doctoral research students are remote, part
time and professionals (across 4 universities)
• Part time
• Part time and professionals working with their
practice
• Limited time for the research
• Bouts of work, bouts of silence –difficult to
maintain momentum of complex thought, research,
writing
• Might see the project as data collection for a
report or professional practice change outcome
(needs to be theorised)
• Seek enhancement of status , position, through
degree
• Lack of research community
• Usual issues of mystifying project, process,
academic research writing
26

How can we advise on
the doctoral journey?
• A few thoughts - the arrow straight doctoral journey
(Gurr) is probably quite unusual- most journeys have crises,
dark moments and sudden movements forward after some
clarity. For students- It is OK to want to exit your
doctorate (Firth, Connell and Firestone ‘Your PhD survival
Guide’ Routledge 2021) if it is both ‘going nowhere’ and
draining energies (for example, -there could be other
reasons) and only doing that.
• It is normal (for students) to feel a sense of loss
accompanying achievement as they move from
satisfactory completion – it has been a long journey- out of
the doctoral role. Focusing on the achievement and what
has been learned from it will help this transition into a
future with or without a research role.
27

Supervisors thinking
about our mental
health and wellbeing
• Our wellbeing mental health and stress levels
as well as sense of self worth are tied up with
student progress and development
• We need to see projects completed and
students succeed and finish for funding
(external), and self-actualisation (internal)
reasons
• We are highly capable and very busy-
students are but one of our responsibilities
however , an important responsibility
(Wisker and Robinson 2016)
28

Supervisors
Supervisor wellbeing is written about very little .
Our research ( Wisker and Robinson, 2014) found
direct links between supervisors feeling well and
positive, ie experiencing positive mental health
and wellbeing- in relation to the movement
forward and intellectual success of their
students. Recognising this, and mitigating against
feeling low and powerless when a student is not
moving forwards successfully, is a key (along with
all the information on taking exercise, breaking
blocks etc) to supervisor mental health and
wellbeing.
29

How do we as
supervisors know
what to do o
support our
students and so
relieve stress on
ourselves?
2 Supervisors and
students
Some of the literature eg Turley et al suggests that graduate
departments need to acknowledge the problem of student
mental health and wellbeing and recognise it,
Some universities offer supervisors training on recognising,
preventing and addressing mental health issues in their students
and in themselves.
Some universities also talk about offering courses or workshops
that teach yoga and mindfulness techniques.
30

Troublesome encounters -
supervisors ( working with students)
data and toolkit
how might you use this in relation
to distance and part time doctoral
students? ?
31

• What factors impact on the wellbeing of masters’ and doctoral students in
Education?
• In what ways do encounters with troublesome knowledge impact on the
wellbeing of masters’ and doctoral students in Education?
• What strategies can students employ to enhance their wellbeing &
emotional resilience and enable a successful learning experience at this
level?
• What strategies can supervisors, programme leaders and others employ to
enhance student wellbeing & emotional resilience and enable a successful
learning experience (and achievement) at this level?
• How can we usefully think about wellbeing in an academic / learning
context?
Research Questions
32

From troublesome encounters
Academic Wellbeing (this section is aimed at both students and supervisors what can we learn from it?)
Staff identified the following areas as being crucial to research student wellbeing and providing the necessary
for fulfilling their academic potential. (The same issues relate to us as supervisors. )
What are the particular issues for part time and distance students?
• Health;
• Sense of security in what they’re doing;
• Ability to cope with stress;
• Comfortable in the process of learning.
Essential to establish a balance between providing support and ensuring the research students develop as
independent learners.
The role of the supervisor in relation to research student wellbeing -point of contention in one of the focus gro
with a question relating to how far supervisors should get involved in personal issues. A counter argument sug
that it was helpful to view the student holistically
How far should wellbeing should be the student’s own responsibility as opposed to supervisors or the instituti
How far should supervisor wellbeing be the responsibility of the individual or the institution?
33

For supervisors-role and boundaries - think of
distance and part time students of the Supervisor
• It was seen as important that supervisors maintain professional boundaries, partly in order to preserve
their own sense of wellbeing and not become over-involved in students’ personal lives. There were
differences of opinion as to how far supervisors should become involved with some emphasizing the
importance of being aware of what was going on for the student.
• It was seen as important to recognize where the supervisor role should stop and students should be
referred to those with the professional skills to provide the best support for them, such as counselors or
therapists. It was seen therefore as essential that supervisors should be aware of the support
infrastructure in their institutions. A distinction was made between external problems – juggling
workloads, family problems and bereavement for example and issues, discussed as ‘troublesome
knowledge’ which are related to intellectual development. It was highlighted that in terms of intellectual
development, students needed to be challenged and experience ‘troublesomeness’. There was also an
awareness that research students can become ill with stress, especially when dealing with multiple
challenges, underlining the importance of maintaining awareness of ‘the whole student’. An aspect of
supporting academic wellbeing might be to suggest the student takes a break from their studies and
support them through that process. There was also a suggestion that at times boundaries may become
blurred as supervisors empathise with what the students are going through, having faced similar
difficulties in their own learning journeys and so they can bring their own experience to bear on the
situation. At challenging times the supervision may be adapted to the student’s needs so that, for
example, tasks are broken down into smaller components and there are more regular supervisions
during that period.
• 34

For supervisors – regarding distance and part
time students - welcoming , difference
• Supervisors recognized that each research student journey is unique and that
they each bring different personal attributes and experiences to their learning.
Concerns about the supervision needs of different groups of students, especially
International, mature students with family commitments, professional doctorate
students and part-time students were raised. A lack of preparedness about what
to expect was an issue, especially for those students with additional
responsibilities or those with extra support needs which may not necessarily be
met.
• Supervisors were seen as having a role in terms of welcoming students into the
academic community although there was a differentiation between students who
go on to become academics and those who return to their professions. They
perceived that they might quickly identify students with the most academic
potential but that this might at times block the progress of some students whose
potential is not so immediate
• © Charlotte Morris and Gina Wisker October 2011 University of Brighton
35

Professional boundaries
For supervisors: in relation to your distance and part time students is the personal YOUR issue
too?is wellbeing and mental health YOUR issue too?
‘When I think about my PhD students, when I think about looking after their wellbeing, I almost
don’t see that coping with their stresses and anxieties is a big part of my role but coping with what
they have to do to complete their PhD is my role. And so if they have problems in their flat or if they
have…I don’t really see it as my role to be their advisor on that because the way the university is set
up here there are people much better able to support those, I wouldn’t say clinical, but those more
personal problems that they have. So I mean identifying these things as a supervisor I always see that
those other things, people are much better able to solve the personal problems that people have.’
‘Because what I’m talking about is to give them the skills that allow them to solve the problems they
have to do in their academic lives but the other part of that is the stuff that’s going on in their lives
and I don’t think it is part of mine and that might be the thing that’s stopping them realise their
potential but what I’m saying is it’s not my business. This bit’s my business so I am going to help them
achieve the academic components that allow them to do the task that they have to pass a PhD, pass
a MD, pass a MA.’ ‘I think there was a question of kind of stepping out of the professional role and
understanding this person is not a student but a whole human being with lots of other things going
on in their lives and being able to say I think you might want to think about suspending for 6 months,
get these things sorted out and then come back, you have our absolute support.’ ‘It’s not our job to
completely make our students feel comfortable intellectually. It’s our job to challenge them and give
them problems to solve and we all know how that feels but it’s being able to recognise when that
becomes too much and then I think that comes back to what you were saying about health really
because we do have a lot of students who fall ill but it’s kind of manifest through tonsillitis or
something, you know, their stress levels are so high that they are not getting the vitamins they need.’
36

Supervisors - signposting and care
• ‘[There may be examples from ]’your own experience where you’ve
panicked when faced with similar problems, academically, professionally,
so then you might draw on that experience and pull the students in and
have an intensive period where you are setting short term targets and you
are keeping them very kind of close and working them through the panic
zone until they can get out either side of it and I think that, in a way, I think
there are some blurring and boundaries there, for me anyway, maybe it’s
just a female thing, you know, where you sort of take them under your
wing and you say look, I know exactly how you feel and then you
empathise and you say in a similar situation I felt just the way you did, this
is the way I coped with it or this is how students in the past have coped
with this and it does become quite personal I think… I do think there are
those moments when you pull students close to get through a difficult
period which is work related.’ Signposting 33 © Charlotte Morris and Gina
Wisker October 2011 p 33
37

Some suggestions – structure, regulations
planning and communities
• Be fully informed about, discover and use the institutional information, regulations and published information on
workload and expectations of supervisors . Have the rules and support structures of a doctoral college or similar to hand to
consult and know who to turn to with structural and regulatory issues.
• You are a researcher- back this information up with researched work about the role which you will find in books and articles
on supervision (Anne Lee, Pam Denicolo, Gina Wisker etc )to both be informed about enabling and normal practices and to
make decisions about your management of workload and support for students from these researched advised norms and
practices.
• Start well with students sharing with them the discussion about being planned and structured in interactions with each
student , times which are suitable or not suitable for contact, expectations of activities during and after supervisions,
responsibilities and progress , discussing between you and agreeing responsibilities and norms of action. Remind them of
these should behaviour l.
• Develop agreements with the second supervisor about how you are going to work together so that the workload is
appropriately shared – whether you each see the work and attend each meeting or if they only see the work when…(check
workload allocations for determining these agreements and send cheerful reminders )
38

• Pro-research student culture – guidance, mentoring;
training opportunities – personal / professional,
technical & academic skills; access to funding;
• Academic community – formal and informal
opportunities to contribute;
• Pro-wellbeing culture – proactive, built into academic
life;
• Supportive infrastructure – access to services ,
facilities, pastoral care, monitoring.
Conditions for academic wellbeing
39

Round up
Thoughts and questions :
supervision of remote / distance
students
41

Remote and Online supervision: making it work well
• More personal and aware of well
being of the candidate
• Regular short structured contacts
starting with friendly concerns
• Should be accompanied by collegial
community interactions eg in
teams (facility for micro teams in
MS teams etc), writing groups
• Despite or because of the
technology it genuinely can enable
complex interactive supervisory
dialogues and learning
• More intense, focused and
structured supervision
• building on knowledge of
institutional and doctoral
expectations/regulations/
• Demands highly structured,
managed, frequent , dependable
synchronous(online meetings) and
asynchronous(email, sharing
materials, links to facilities,
reading )
• Pre planning and focused reading
to identify issues to talk about and
share
• Structured post supervision
activities –notes, plans, updates on
timelines
42

For supervisors
• Personal
• Find manageable comfortable well ventilated
working space
• Manage time-screen time, domestic demands
• Organise, structure
• Take regular breaks,
• Get exercise
• Eat properly
• Sleep properly
• Put time into friends, family, creative activities
• Plan yourself out of stuck places with
candidates and their work
• Congratulate yourself when supervisory
interactions go well
• Institutional
• Stay in touch with other supervisors to share
positive (and negative) experiences, tips,
materials, institutional disciplinary and
research information, and experience
• Stay informed
• Use the supervisory teams/pairs process to
build rapport, plan supervisions and workload
division, discuss candidate progress etc.
• Get on with each other despite any
differences of hierarchy age culture
personality
43

Wellbeing
What are the issues for candidate wellbeing which we need to take into
account?
What can we do?
What are the issues for our own wellbeing which we need to take into
account? What works for you?
44

• Learning
• Keep up with your own
research and discipline
communities- avoid isolation
• Take part in enough online,
work, development and sharing
activities/not substituting these
for every other work and life
demand
• Make and develop new
international links
• Keep researching and writing
planning and sharing –
remotely
• Build and enjoy the high level
intellectual learning dialogues
with students and other
supervisors
45

Thoughts : part-time and
remote supervision
46

More questions and plans
• How can we prompt and support complex conceptual theorised
critical thinking in remote supervision with part –time students ?
• How does it differ in the disciplines?
• What can help maintain momentum and motivation?
• How can we help build communities ?
• Issues?
• Plans?
47

Case studies 1
Your part time distance doctoral student is going very slowly though
their research and writing. They have been unable to make the last two
scheduled zoom meetings to discuss progress. They say they are very
stressed and overwhelmed at work, which makes many demands on
their time and so upsets the progress of the research. They seem
confused about the shape and length of the thesis and have seized on
a theory which they heard someone use at a local conference which is
taking them in one direction while it is possible their work would be
more likely to be successful (in your view) if they used another
theoretical perspective to help focus their very broad question .
Recently they have only responded very briefly to emails , you
have seen no further writing, and they have less than a year to
the point at which they should complete. Neither you nor your
co supervisor are confident they will complete in time. What can
you do?
49

Case studies 2
• Two and a half years into the project and you have not yet been able to
have an online face to face meeting with your student because of their
bandwidth and have only ‘met’ them through a whatsapp call. The work
they send in is of variable quality and it takes a long time to engage
with and you provide focused feedback to encourage their further
work but see little engagement .
• Secretly you are not always sure it has been written by the same person
but this could just be that they are having proofreading help ; It is hard
to work out.
• They submit a first full draft for your scrutiny and you briefly put it
through ‘turnitin’ as a matter of course only to discover a number of
instances in which they have used the work of others unacknowledged.
How do you turn this distance part time issue around to support the
student? What can you do? 50

Case studies 3
• Your distance part time professional student has been making stop
start progress. She was uprooted from home during Covid, and has
eventually settled back with a new job. There have been family
bereavements and personal issues.
• All of this ha s impacted her time and focus on the project.
• She now contacts you almost 3 years into the project and says she
would like to change the focus, and needs to complete in the next
six months.
• What do you do?
51

Troublesome Knowledge
Morris and Wisker 2011
Morris, C., and Wisker, G., (2011) Troublesome Knowledge . ESCalate
report, Higher Education Academy. https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/
**Volume/Part: Toolkit for supervisors and departments
https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/14755/3/8633.pdf
52

Some more references and resources
• Cantor, G. (2019). The loneliness of the long-distance (PhD) researcher. Psychodynamic Practice: 1–12.
• Roisin Donnelly (2013) Enabling connections in postgraduate supervision for an applied eLearning professional development programme, International Journal for Academic Development, 18:4, 356-370
• Erichsen, E. A., D. U. Bolliger, and C. Halupa. 2014. “Student Satisfaction with Graduate Supervision in Doctoral Programs Primarily Delivered in Distance Education Settings.”Studies in Higher Education 39 (2): 321–338.
• Grant, B. M., (2008) ‘Agonistic struggle master-slave dialogues in humanities supervision’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(1), 9-27.
• Gray M & Lucilla Crosta (2019) New perspectives in online doctoral supervision: a systematic literature review, Studies in Continuing Education, 41:2, 173-190, Research Supervision at a Distance
• Johansson,T., Wisker,G., Claesson,S., Strandler,O., and Saalman, S., (2014) “PhD. Supervision as an Emotional Process – Critical Situations and Emotional Boundary Work” Pertanika : Journal of Social Science and Humanities . 22:21
• Lee, A. (2008) ‘How are doctoral students supervised? Concepts of doctoral research supervision’, Studies in Higher Education, 33(3), 267-281.
• Morris, C., and Wisker, G., (2011) Troublesome Knowledge . ESCalate report, Higher Education Academy.
• Strandler,O, Johansson,T, Wisker,G and Claesson, S(2014) “Supervisor or counsellor? –Emotional boundary work in supervision”, International Journal of Researcher Development
• Taylor S (2020) A bibliography, curated by for the UKCGE, of literature relating to Research Supervision at a Distance. http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/article/supporting-members-during-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-454.aspx
• Vekkaila, J., Pyhältö, K., & Lonka, K. (2013). Experiences of Disengagement – A Study of Doctoral Students in the Behavioral Sciences. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 8, 61-81.
• Wisker, G., Morris, C., Cheng, M., Masika, R., Warnes, M., Lilly, J., Trafford, V. and Robinson, G. (2010) “Doctoral learning journeys – final report of the NTFS-funded project”: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ntfs/Projects/Doctoral_Learning_Journeys
• Wisker, G and Robinson G (2013) Picking up the pieces: Supervisor and doctoral ‘Orphans’ International Journal for Researcher Development Vol. 3 No. 2,
• Wisker, G, Robinson G (2012) ‘Doctoral “orphans”: nurturing and supporting the success of postgraduates who have lost their supervisors’ HERD 32:2
• Wisker et al (2003) On nurturing hedgehogs: Developments online for distance and offshore supervision.
• Wisker, G., Robinson, G. and Bengtsen, S. S. E. (2017). Penumbra: doctoral support as drama: From the ‘lightside’ to the ‘darkside’. From front of house to trapdoors and recesses. Innovations in Education and Teaching International
• Wisker, G (2007) Supervising postgraduates: internationally, and at a distance. Connections , Falmer press
• Wisker, G., Waller, S., Richter, U., Robinson, G., Trafford, V., Wicks, K. & Warnes, M (2003 )On nurturing hedgehogs: Developments online for distance and offshore supervision. HERDSA Research and Development in Higher Education: Learning for an Unknown Future Vol. 26
https://www.herdsa.org.au/publications/conference-proceedings/research-and-development-higher-education-learning-unknown-6
• Wisker, G., & Robinson, G. (2016). Supervisor wellbeing and identity: Challenges and strategies. International Journal for Researcher Development, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRD-03-2016-0006
• G Wisker, L Highman, R Spronken-Smith, J Waghorne Across time and space: Examiner and candidate experiences of online doctoral vivas
• Innovations in education and teaching international 59 (2), 131-141
• Wisker, MK McGinn, SSE Bengtsen, I Lokhtina, F He, S Cornér, ...Remote doctoral supervision experiences: Challenges and affordancesG
• Innovations in Education and Teaching International 58 (6), 612-623
• Wisker , G (2023) Getting TStrted with Supevision. London: Routledge
• the good supervisor website at http://goodsupervisor.co.uk/ password = brighton
• Gina Wisker Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLIU_ijUMi0nfByAzkuxcw
• Gina Wisker https://drhiddencurriculum.wordpress.com/blog-2/ 2 blogs on remote supervision-candidates, (1) supervisors (2)
53

Remote supervision: helpful online activities and recent
publications
UKCGE ‘Effective Practices in Doctoral Supervision at a Distance’
1st May 2020 http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/article/supporting-members-
during-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-454.aspx
SRHE ‘Doctoral Supervising and Examining Remotely – meeting the
challenges of working under Covid19’
https://www.srhe.ac.uk/events/pastevents/details/?eid=479
54

MHPTDL23-Gina-Wisker.pdf

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to MHPTDL23-Gina-Wisker.pdf

Similar to MHPTDL23-Gina-Wisker.pdf (20)

More from UKCGE

More from UKCGE (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

MHPTDL23-Gina-Wisker.pdf