Supervisor education and quality of PhD studies: Current status and future challenges

Abstract

Supervision is a specific relationship, where an experienced senior researcher provides guidance, support, and advice to navigate a junior colleague through the barriers to becoming an independent researcher. While supervision is clearly a rewarding duty, it is also associated with a number of challenges. It is clear that supervision involves many responsibilities, which means that the supervisor needs to possess a certain set of skills. While many of these skills are learned in the direct interaction with PhD candidates, it would be beneficial if a more formal and structured training was offered to supervisors, especially at the beginning of their supervision careers, so as to avoid frequent mistakes in the supervisor-PhD candidate relationship. Hence, the idea is to shift from experience-based supervision to professionalization, believing that such an approach would reduce the risk of poor supervision. At present, many universities offer formal education of supervisors. The practice of organized education of supervisors at University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine started in 2019 with the aim of preparing future supervisors to establish productive and responsive relationships with PhD candidates. After a break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a revised supervision course was organized in 2022. The survey conducted among the attendees of the two organized courses supported the need for better education of university teachers in terms of supervision skills and leading of PhD candidates. Indeed, considering the fact that PhD outcomes are largely dependent on the supervisor and the successful supervisor-PhD candidate relationship, supporting supervision through formal training and education may be an important step in improving PhD experience and outcomes for both supervisors and PhD candidates.