Powerpoint – a scaffolding tool for academic writing.

The invention of Powerpoint caused a sigh of relief for presenters who previously had painstakingly prepared overhead slides for their talks. It also caused derision in some circles of adult education, generating the critical comment ‘Death by Powerpoint’ , which could indicate the death of the reputation of a speaker as a result of a poor, and often overcrowded or overlong powerpoints; or the death of the audience through boredom.
In the dissonance which occupies the fors and againsts of Powerpoint, it is easy to overlook that Powerpoint also serves a purpose beyond presentation skills.

At the Academic Writing Theory and Practice in an International context conference in Coventry in April 2012, I listened to Mike Smith and Mary Deane discuss the way Mary, as a tutor in the Coventry University Academic Writing Centre worked with Mike, a Neophyte writer and tutor in Sports Psychology, as a co-author, and used Powerpoint as a pre-writing tool for developing a journal article about using Powerpoint for writing scaffolding.

The authors suggest that because of its linearity, Powerpoint can be a used to help people to construct academic text in the pre-writing stage, by providing a visual aid to structuring an argument. It also has the added advantage of making it possible to move the text around with ease.
When they first met they used Powerpoint as a devise for collecting a range of information from various sources. Relevant content could be copied straight into Powerpoint and with the linear function on Powerpoint, material could be moved around as the overall structure of the paper unfolded. Not only did this help them to scaffold the journal article, but it allowed them to electronically correspond about the paper with an easily transferable document. Each author could add in slides related to their field of expertise as they worked together to explore both the scientific support from research in psychology of how the Powerpoint scaffolding frees-up working memory capacity (Mike), and different forms of writing support (Mary). As the number of slides grew they added in additional slides which were sub-headings in the developing article. The notes section of Powerpoint was used to convert points to full text, and then this text could be copied into a final version of the paper.
This let them develop the first working text, after which they used track changes to continue in the co-authoring.

Another possible academic writing use for Powerpoint is when a research student or author appears blocked in the traditional text development. A research supervisor can suggest that they begin work on their oral presentation and this, because of its visual cues, may unblock their related writing. Sometimes Powerpoint makes it evident that a dissertation is in need of a model, because the student finds that it is more effective to describe something pictorially than in words.

Analysing your student’s reading ability.

Because a research degree is intended to make a contribution to knowledge, it is an important starting point for a research project to know what is known about your prospective topic. It goes (almost) without saying, that reading is an essential skill for undertaking a research degree; but when we use the term reading in the context of bodies of knowledge, as happens with a research degree, the notion of reading is much more complex.

When there is a requirement to undertake a literature review as part of a research degree, there are expectations that the research student will read a number of different discourses and form an opinion about the relationships between the range of things that are known about a given topic. This requires more than description of what each article is discussing. The crucial reading skill with literature is critical reading (1) .

Sometimes this term of critical reading can be misunderstood. It is not necessarily suggesting that you disagree with what is written in a particular article. It is being able to read the text of an article and comment on the perspective from which that text is written, and whether this perspective is different from other perspectives. This is sometimes described as bringing together affirming and disaffirming viewpoints.

One way to ascertain your student’s reading skills, is by setting them a reading task which requires them to submit a report to you about their reading. The reporting can be orally or in writing, with the oral report being a structured discussion with your students early in their candidature.

An annotated bibliography is a good example of the sort of task that you might set for your research student. You might require them to complete an annotated bibliography of a single article or a number of journal articles. You can even scaffold this type of assignment by providing them with a template in the form of a set of questions you want them to ask of the text.

For example:
1. What is this article about?
2. What is the research purpose or question that is being addressed in this article?
3. What theory has been applied in the article?
4. What assertions/propositions/hypotheses are developed in the article?
5. What methodology has been used (what sample, data types and sources, design, analysis). Does the paper nominate and articulate a paradigm?
6. What results are reported and how is this seen to make a contribution to the topic area?
7. What does the student consider is the ‘buy in’ or relevance of this article to their own PhD topic?
8. (Where multiple articles are reviewed) How does this article compare to the other articles you have read? Is there affirmation between comments or disaffirmation?

(These questions were inspired by an exercise that Professor Charmine E. J. Härtel at University of Queensland Australia uses with her students undertaking classes to support their research degree candidature.)

At the outset the task is ascertaining a student’s reconnaissance skills and their ability to locate articles, particularly if you have provided the references but not the actual article. Part of the contemporary challenge of reading a discipline is being able to locate the journal articles and master the many electronic searching tools that support this.

These questions predominantly test the student’s comprehension of the article. Some examining their ability to critically evaluate the article.
This does not have to be a written assessment. It is quite viable to provide the task for a student and suggest that you will have a discussion. For some students their strength lies in their oral communication and listening to themselves speak can provide the essence of what they might write.
Beyond the step of reading an individual article, is the challenge of reading not only multiple articles, but the large volume of reading that is often associated with undertaking a research degree. Part of this challenge is developing a system so that not only is the information being brought into some framework of thinking, if you need to go back and check something, then previously read materials are easily found and accessible.
Two systems that might provide a starter kit for a new researcher.

1. Sort into affirming and disaffirming.
After you have read your first article on your topic adopt a position. Either agree with the article or disagree with the article. This then establishes two folders into which you can file reading. This sounds very simple, but no two articles will necessarily match and slowly your filing system will grow bigger as you read more. Every once in a while you may need to reconfigure your filing system to accommodate the new way in which you are understand your topic.

2. Sort into chronological order
There is a natural sorting that is provided by way of the publication dates of the articles. If you begin filing your articles in publication date order this establishes a first level system. You can then look to see if an article refers to previous articles, and you get something more than a chronological order, you get the development of a line of thought. One thing that can become evident when you do this secondary sorting, is that you may have an article that no-one else is referring to. This might represent a new way of thinking or it could also represent someone writing oblivious of what has already been written.

For the supervisor, once you have established the level of reading that your student is demonstrating, you can then address whether there is a need to refer them to some additional workshops to strengthen their academic reading or to scaffold the development of their critical reading yourself. This could simply mean showing them how you read an article and pointing out the things which to you are self evident , but may not be to a novice reader. As the student progresses with their reading you will also observe their growth in confidence in discussing the nuances of each article and how it informs their growing understanding of their topic.

1.In the course of preparing this blog I came across a very good, free web sites devoted to critical reading or critical literacy http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4437

Advancing Research Supervision practice by looking backwards

When academics move into the realm of research supervision as part of their professional practice, they do so with an established body of knowledge about this aspect of academic practice, which they have acquired through their own experiences of undertaking a research degree.

For some, their experiences of being supervised in a research degree were good experiences, and the knowledge of research supervision and the practices to which they were exposed are examples of good supervision practice.

For others, their experiences were challenging ones and regardless of whether what they were exposed to, were examples of good or bad research supervision, there is a desire to avoid those practices without really reflecting on them.

A third type of experience of being supervised is where there has been a lack of examples of good practice, but, because the candidature was unproblematic, this lack of good practice went un-noticed. As these research degree graduates move into supervising students themselves, they might adopt the practices to which they have been exposed without questioning whether or not they are good.

For all these reasons, it is important when a research supervisor begins their practice, that they consciously reflect on what they have carried into their professional practice from previous experiences. Reflective practice is one of the sound strategies for advancing research supervision, and particularly reflecting on the past, or the baggage of your own experiences of being supervised, can provide a means to move forward with your own repertoire of practices for research supervision.

Start of by remembering.
Think back to when you were being supervised in your own research degree. This may be quite recent or it may have been some years past. Try to clarify what sort of supervision you received and give it some substance. It helps to write down these memories so that you can really think about it.

Start to consider what might have been helpful strategies for you as a research student and what strategies might have hindered your progress or been unappreciated at the time. Hindsight sometimes gives a new light to a practice for which at the time we could see no purpose, but now, having completed the research degree, we see in a new light. You could even list these ideas down with pluses and minuses to indicate what helped and what didn’t help you in your candidature.

Once you start writing down your recollections, it is amazing how that can then fuel additional memories. What you are trying to do is to Brainstorm all the memories you can about receiving research supervision.

Sometimes you can marshal this collection of ideas into a particular agenda.

One of the exercises I encourage novice research supervisors to consider is

1. When I was completing my research degree, the best things about it were….( and finish that sentence)

2. When I was completing my research degree, the worst things about it were…( and finish that sentence)

In the final stages of this remembering and marshalling, we want to focus on the future. What sort of agendas can you see in yourself that you are intent on including in your own practice as a research supervisor? This is where this sort of reflection can be most valuable. The agenda that begins to emerge is a great way to start building up a repertoire of practices to enable you to meet that agenda.

In terms of this blog, and the four areas to which I write, you can ask yourself

1. Is my agenda about pedagogy of research supervision?
2. Is my agenda about building relationships in research supervision?
3. Is my agenda about the management and project planning in research supervision?
4. Is my agenda about the philosophical aspects of research supervision and advancing knowledge?

If you can identify one of these areas as a key agenda area, then you can click onto some of the articles related to that topic, to see if there are some strategies that might be useful to experimen with to try out in your emerging research supervision practice.

If you are keen to advance your research supervision in one or other areas, you may want to raise that as a comment you post to this blog, and I will respond to that with some suggestions of documented practices that might be useful in advancing your particular agenda.

Looking at how you learn

This is the second blog/article about analytical tools to inform candidature.
I am pitching this particular tool for about the second month of candidature. By this time, a research student will have had a chance to understand the requirements of their particular research degree and perhaps started to get underway with one or other of the elements of early candidature preparation.

A research degree is a learning experience. It is considered the pinnacle of learning, because in the wider world, research practice and university based research practice are considered elite educational levels. A research degree usually takes place after there have been other levels and forms of higher education, and you would think that these experiences would help a student to recognise how they learn most effectively. Sadly, that is not the case! Nor is it the case that a research student can necessarily recognise that there are different learning pathways to reach completion of a research degree!

In this analysis I am drawing on a readily available model of learning which has been developed by David Kolb and is accessible on www.businessballs.com . Kolb is just one of a number of theorists who have proposed ways of understanding learning or learning styles. I have chosen this model because of its simplicity and its reliance on two axis of learning:

• the Concrete-abstract axis and
• the Active experimentation-reflective observation axis.

The first axis explores how one approaches or grasps a task and the other explores how one thinks or feels about the task and transforms it into something meaningful and usable.

Start by asking your student to list about ten things that they know they have learned recently. Ask them to identify how they learnt this particular skill or knowledge or how they recall approaching the task.

(Here is the list I generated myself about what I have learned and alongside it how I approached the task.

1. Skype  – The computer had it in it and I followed the instructions.
2. Google search  – A fellow student at university showed me on my computer.
3. Provenance – This was a new idea I thought up. I had taken the idea from antique selling and applied it to my study of practice – that every practice has a provenance.
4. How to get to uni  – I tried different forms of transport.
5. Cost of swimming at my uni –  Asked at the swimming pool.
6. Rules and regulations of doing a PhD at my uni –  This was in a document given to me when I enrolled. I read and reread the document to make sure I understood the rules.
7. How to make crème caramel – I looked it up in a recipe book and followed the recipe with one variation that I had seen on a TV cooking show.
8. A new song –  I asked my accompanist to download the music for a new song and I kept practicing it with her until I learned the new song.
9. How to book a train from Prague to Berlin –  I googled train from Prague to Berlin and tried a couple of sites until I found the cheapest train fare.)

Share with them Kolb’s matrix view and together discuss what learning style is evident in each of the items that your student has identified. Your aim is to move your student to an application of this model by naming their learning style.
I have scaffolded this process by asking two questions:

• Did you learn this by Doing it or Watching it?
• Did you embed this learning in your repertoire by Feeling about it or Thinking about it?

My learning Skype was not just a matter of following the instructions but of trial and error until I was able to have a successful conversation. This was embedded for me by thinking about the task. This was analysed as Doing and Thinking which combines to an AC/AE which is converging.

My learning about a google search, also a technological learning, was clearly learnt by observing, but then embedded with delight at having learnt a new technology. This was Watching and Feeling which combines to a CE/RO which is diverging  

Analysis

There are several levels of analysis that can emerge from this exercise.

The first and most obvious is that the student starts to have an understanding about how they have been learning and this also impacts on their valuing what they have learned.

The second is about applying something theoretical to something as practical as what you have learned, and this provides a vehicle to see how well they can apply this theory to their own practice.

The third level of analysis is obtaining an insight into how they have been learning, and I believe that this is the most valuable level, as it can enable each student to identify ways of learning that they would like to continue in their candidature. Together you can map out a number of experiences or opportunities that will advance their candidature. This third type of analysis begs the question about your own innovation as a research supervisor, and your knowledge of the range of ways in which a student can advance their candidature. For example, something as necessary as reading the literature can be varied between finding journal articles and identifying appropriate ones and having discussions with other people about which journals they found useful. This could signify a variation between solo researching and attending seminars at which journal articles are discussed. The first would be appropriate for someone who identified doing and thinking as their preferred learning style (converging). The second would be more reflective observations and thinking (assimilating).

The discussion itself can also provide valuable training ground for future supervisor/student discussions.

How I know rather than what I know

The research degree is intended to make a contribution to knowledge through original research. Many research students start their candidature identifying what is known about their topic by undertaking a literature review. Sometimes they may even begin this task by asking themselves what they know rather than what is known, and identifying the knowledge that they already have about their topic. This can be an affirming action to counteract the sometimes held belief, that the research student is an empty vessel waiting to be filled. It recognises the research student as a person who has already acquired a considerable amount of knowledge to be able to undertake a degree of the calibre of a research degree.

Asking yourself ‘what do I know about this topic?’ is also an ideal lead into a second, and I believe more pertinent question ‘How do I know these things?’. When you ask yourself ‘how do I know something?’ you are beginning to tap into your epistemology, and this is an important source to tap as the epistemological argument is one of the important arguments to take place within the dissertation.

A good example of what it means to tap your own knowledge can be linked to the very practice of research supervision.
If I ask myself ‘what do I know about research supervision?’ I come up with a couple of topic areas such as
…it is pedagogy.
….it is about relationships.
……it is often governed by university based policy.

When I ask myself how ‘do I know these things?’
I know about pedagogy because I started to read about that in the literature on research supervision and I was able to link this to other knowledge I had about teaching.

I know that research supervision is about relationships because so many students I talk to mention the strength or weakness of the supervisory relationship. When I came into research supervision, I knew this from experience rather than from the literature, but as I looked through the literature I became more and more aware of it and I recognised literature taken from other disciplines was used to explain the relational aspects of research supervision.

I know that research supervision is governed by university based policy because when I talk to research supervisors, this seems to be the area about which they are most concerned. They recognise in their own practice that there has been a shift in practice from, for some good teaching and for others good relationships, to a practice which is compliant with a range of policies.

For me these three sources of knowledge reflect a debate about what counts as knowledge, which has operated since the philosophers in the Ancient Greek schools made a distinction between practical knowledge and knowledge which arises out of reasoning. This debate has continued, and in recent years, as there was a rise in popularity in the practice related investigation methods, the heart of those methods involved recognition of experiential or practical knowledge over book knowledge.

The second value for the question ‘how do I know these things?’ is that this question helps the research student to begin to identify how they have come to learn things; how they have acquired knowledge. At the outset of what is essential a knowledge journey, these self insights can help a research student make choices about how they address the various milestones associated with undertaking a research degree. Choices such as do they sit on the computer and search journals for articles on their topic or do they talk with other people about what they know about the topic and what informed their knowledge. Both choices can lead to a list of potential articles to include in a literature review, but they represent different ways of acquiring this knowledge.

This knowledge about how you learn can also feed into choices as to whether you read a book about doing your PhD or whether you attend classes/workshops on the various aspects of the research degree. It could mean a difference between learning what a PhD dissertation looks like by reading other people’s dissertation or by reading about the provenance of the dissertation and coming to understand the reasons for the many writing rules associated with the dissertation.

David Kolb who has written about learning for many years suggests that when a person is confronted with something new to learn they make choices about whether they want to do or watch, and at the same time whether they want to think or feel. He suggests that this then sets up one of four learning styles

Accommodating
Diverging
Converging
Assimilating

(His model is at http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm)

Thinking about how you have learned for a range of items of knowledge that you can identify at the start of your candidature can help as you make choices about your learning throughout your candidature and you start to learn and know other aspects related to your dissertation topic.

Looking at the expectations – a tool for starting out the candidature.

Over the next six months I will devote every second blog to a series of analytical tools. This series was prompted by comments made in one of the Communities of Practice I host with research supervisors. In it we talked about the strategies that research supervisors use that informally provide them with data that speaks to the student’s likelihood of completing their dissertation. In my reflection on these ideas, I also realised that the same data can also help to identify the problem areas that the student might be facing and influence some specific interventions to address those problems.

In other blogs I have emphasised the importance of the relationship in providing a successful candidature. In contemporary times of computer dating, where you can match up likely partners in a relationship, it is viable to look to how well matched a student and their supervisor might be.

This is not new thinking. In fact, several decades ago, Ingred Moses, one of the early writers on research supervision in Australia, devised a set of questions to enable research supervisors to elicit some of the expectations that their students might hold about the candidature. The essential elements of those questions are as follows:
1. Whose responsibility is it to select the topic?
2. Whose responsibility is it to decide the theoretical frame of reference for the study?
3. Who should devise the appropriate course of study to address the learning requirements?
4. Who should ensure the student has access to all the necessary resources for them to undertake their investigation?
5. Is the student supervisor relationship a personal one or a professional one?
6. Who should initiate meetings between the student and their supervisor?
7. Who should check that the student is meeting required milestones?
8. Who should make the decision if the investigation needs to be terminated?
9. Who should ensure that the dissertation is close to finished as the final deadline approaches?
10. Who chooses the methodology of the investigation?
11. who is responsible for making sure that the level of academic writing is sufficient for this type of degree?
12. Who should initiate the request for critique of the student’s writing?
13. Who should ensure that the research student acquires a set of graduate research capabilities

This last question is a new one I have added in response to the emergence of the graduate research capability agenda which advocates that students be aware of the range of skills to which they are exposed during their candidature such that they can discuss their repertoire of skills with a potential employer.

Each of these questions generates a debate in itself pertinent to contemporary research practice. These debates move between positions of funded research for which both the topic and the methodology have been specified by the funding body and self directed research; between learner centred supervision and supervisor centred supervision.
The beauty of these questions is that the answers vary across different research situations and over time. The same questions posed at different points in candidature will lead to different answers.

For the purposes of this blog I am suggesting that the questions be posed within the first few weeks of candidature. Both the research student and their supervisor answer the questions separately, rating their response in a five category scale – a 1 representing the supervisor being responsible and a 5 representing the student being responsible. When both the supervisor and their student have completed the questions, compare results ahead of a discussion about each other’s expectations. The supervisor can take a lead here by undertaking a little analysis of the results.

Analysis
The first level of analysis is about matching up. These questions are indicators of expectations of responsibility and those expectations will change through the candidature. The important analytical aspect when this tool is used any time in the candidature is to explore how well the expectations align. Where there is non alignment then, in a second level of analysis, it is important to look to the official regulations in documents such as PhD regulations or Manuals of Procedure and Policy, to ascertain what official agreements may have been made and what these agreements suggest in terms of individual’s responsibilities.

The third level of analysis is to ascertain the areas where the supervisor is expecting the student to be responsible for a particular element of the candidature and identify how that shift in responsibility can be scaffolded so that an area that the student does not feel they should be responsible for is progressively taken on board. Ideally, the more the student takes ownership of the particular investigation, the more they are investing in its completion and taking responsibility for solving the problems that arise.

This analysis not only clarifies some expectations the student may have about who does what in university based research, but it also speaks to the student’s understanding of the research process. Unanswered questions provide valuable signposts for where, as research supervisor, you may need to start building the student’s knowledge of the research process.

Introducing a research student to project planning

When a research student prepares a research proposal for consideration by their university, and often as a milestone for continuance of their candidature, they are often required to include in it a project plan to show how their proposed investigation can be completed in the allocated time. With greater emphasis on completions, this project plan becomes an important part of estimating the do-ability of a particular project. It also acts as an introduction into the skill of project planning for the research student, and this graduate research capability if one often sought by potential research graduate employers.
The skill of project planing can be a bit overwhelming in the early stages of candidature. It is not normally a skill that prospective students bring into the research process. There are a number of ways in which a research supervisor can scaffold the development of this skill.
One way a research supervisor can build up the student’s confidence about completing a project plan is to alert them to their prior knowledge which may be able to transfer into project planning. For example, where a student has estimated how long it might take them to undertake a lengthy road trip, this form of estimation is related to their scoping their particular research project. Looking at how long it may take to pay off a bill can also be related to the scoping process.
Another way to scaffold a student’s development of the skill of project planing is alert them to the milestones that are established as part of the university’s administration. The handing in of a research proposal or presenting an oral presentation towards the end of candidature are both administratively established milestones, which, if they can be built into the reality of the research project, can help a student to understand the competing agendas in undertaking research. These university established milestones may not have been rigorously estimated, and as such they present a biased priority for the student to take into consideration as they plan their research work. The same thing happens in real research projects. A particular deliverable takes a greater bearing with the person who has commissioned the project, and all other elements work in response to this biased requirement.
In most cases, the lack of experience as a researcher means that the research student will have to rely on the research supervisor to provide estimates of how long certain research practices might take. The supervisor’s choice here is to simply tell the student what would be a good estimate, or to make explicit their own practices of estimating so that a student is learning the estimation by understanding the thinking processes modelled by their research supervisor. This additional scaffolding of the decision making processes can enable a research student to take a little more ownership in the playing out of the plan, and will thus find it easier to monitor their actual work against the estimated research project proposal.
Along with this very real plan that can be subsequently used by the student to monitor their progress along the articulated pathways, the research supervisor can also introduce them to a range of project management practices that both help with the thoroughness of the research and also provide valuable groundwork for their later work as an independent researcher.
One such skill is breaking down the deliverables into smaller doable chunks of work. A good example is the actual dissertation. It is a large document and being able to identify sections of the dissertation that can be addressed at various stages of the research process helps to break this down into writable chapters, rather than one overwhelming text. Part of this project management strategy can be to create a set of electronic documents so that as material becomes available for various sections of the dissertation, that material can be placed in the template of a chapter and be ready for use when the student starts to write that section.
A second set of skills are introducing systems to facilitate data management and checking of the final document. A dissertation refers to many different pieces of literature. Systems such as Endnote can establish a process of writing practice such that as soon as a new piece of literature is opened, the student creates an Endnote file for it, so that notes they make about that piece of literature are captured electronically, and there to be transferred into the final document. Endnote is reliant on accurate data being transferred into it about the publication details, and while many modern electronic pieces of literature also have the facility to infil the end note file, it is a useful process to check that data in the first instance, so that when ever you are drawing from the data base, you are assured that you have correct information.
A similar system is collecting correct referencing processes at the time of starting with a new piece of literature. Noting somewhere in the Endnote file, which particular page number of the writing style book you have referred to, allows you to develop a body of knowledge about particular referencing, and follow these rules with similar types of literature. Following on from this is establishing an editing checklist of errors which readers of your work point out, so that as the document develops, you can check against your check list to make sure that those errors don’t appear again.
These project managing and project scoping skills are likely to emerge in an overall research candidature without the researcher being overly aware of them. In the current climate, where a research graduate may be asked to identify how their research process contributed to their overall skill development, it is worth these extra efforts so that the research student is fully aware of their acquisitions and able to articulate these to a prospective employer.

A road less travelled – career pedagogy

There was a time with research practice that all a research student needed to do was finish their research degree and this would set them up in a post research degree career. This career was often in academia as a researcher. Research supervisors at that time focussed on teaching the student during their candidature how to do research and how to write about their research in the defined styles of the dissertation. There were limited discussions about what would happen after the student graduated, as the pathway for many research degrees was assumed to lead to an academic position. Aware of this, some supervisors might encourage their research students to supplement their research with some teaching opportunities to begin to build up a teaching repertoire.

The contemporary research trends in Australia, and I suspect in other countries around the world, appear to be governed by three main agendas:

1. Broadening the horizon of employment outcomes from academic to include industry and professional practice.
2. Making the skill set arising from a research degrees explicit.
3. Helping a student achieve completion by highlighting such skills as project management.

These agendas have been an outcome of a Research Training agenda that has been implemented in Australia since 2001 and may well have similar initiatives in other countries.

As many research supervisors base their own research supervision strategies on those they experienced during their own candidature, they may find a lack of suitable strategies to address these emerging agendas. Beyond the encouragement to present at conferences to create opportunities to network in the field, and possibly to co-author with the supervisor to expand their publication list, a contemporary research supervisor may feel they are short of strategies. This challenge can represent a new pathway for many research supervisors.

With a broader range of employment options, and more competition for some of those places, research graduates are being encouraged to articulate the sets of skills that they have acquired through the candidature process. It is no longer sufficient to suggest that completing a particular degree is all that is needed in applying for some jobs. There are criteria and an applicant needs to draw from their candidature experiences to show how those experiences have met the nominated selection criteria.

Industry has taken a lead role in the contemporary research field and has nominated what they consider to be attributes of a good research graduate. These attributes are generally called Graduate Research attributes or capabilities. One way a research supervisor can assist their student’s post research degree career is to expose them to the sort of language that is evident in Graduate Research capabilities and help them to recognise these capabilities in their own research practice.

Project planning is a good example. Potential employers want research graduates to be able to plan and monitor their research projects. A research student may well have done this in the completion of their candidature, but may be unaware of the skills they have been using to meet candidature deadlines, to devise ways to undertake research and to monitor their progress against benchmarks in progress reports. When a research student does any of these things in the process of their candidature, if the supervisor makes this explicit for them, it highlights their awareness of the capability and the experiences that led to that capability.

In many cases of post research degree careers, the candidature explores the field in which they have undertaken their research. If they have been presenting at conferences and networking, these are the likely people whom they will know. Another initiative that a research supervisor can take is to encourage their student to explore alternate fields. Some employers recognise that a research degree brings with it a range of useful skills that can be applied in a variety of settings. They need to view their candidature as an exposure to the research process rather than an investigation into a particular topic. A process can be carried into field much broader than the field in which their particular investigative topic was situated.

Suggesting that these agendas are pedagogies risks contention. Adding them to the repertoire of what is taught in the supervisory relationship provides some insurance that they will not be overlooked, or worse still so taken for granted that they are not even mentioned.

When I suggest taught I am thinking in a reflective way. Helping a student to reflect on what they are learning from the process of undertaking an investigation, and possibly giving some labels to what they are learning, is a useful way to build up their confidence in talking about what they see as the benefits of their research degree; particularly articulating the benefits to potential employers.

The act of facilitating a student’s reflection can also benefit the research supervisor in developing a different window of reflection for their own practice as a researcher, which in turn may enable them to talk about their own research slightly differently.

5 strategies to motivate your research student

Recently I was asked to talk to a group of new research students at the end of their week long orientation course. I was asked to talk about Maintaining the Momentum, which I interpreted as helping to maintain an interest in their research degree after the euphoria of the first week had worn off.

These are the five things I suggested to those students.
They also articulate into a set of strategies that a supervisor can use to help keep their research student motivated during the less energetic parts of their candidature.

1. Know that one outcome of a research degree is that it can progress your career path.
There are many different reasons that research students embark on a research degree. For some it is the next likely step in a continuation of an undergraduate degree. For others, their choice to undertake a research degree is part of a career strategy. For the later, helping them to keep focussed on this viable outcome is a way to maintain the motivation across the long distance. This agenda can also be reinforced by government bodies (such as the one in my country Australia) in expecting specific research capabilities to also arise from the candidature and thus make a research graduate more marketable to potential employers. (Strategy)Along the way, these can be emphasised so that a research student is aware of the repertoire of research related capabilities they are developing.

2. Begin writing immediately.
I am one who believes that the hardest part of doing research is the writing, so I encourage all research students to begin writing immediately. Even after a very short introductory meeting with a student I request that they write no more than two pages documenting what it is they want to investigate and how they thought they might like to investigate it. These two pages form the start of a process of writing development and provide the fuel for subsequent meetings. It is amazing that buried in these initial thoughts are often references to literature, ideas about methodology and deeply held beliefs (that might be challenged) about what it means to undertake a research degree.
Simply asking a student to write something after a first meeting is the strategy for the supervisor to encourage this early writing. They then need to follow that up with feedback about the student’s writing so that they are encouraged in the development of their ideas.

3. Make use of what you already know and start to delve into your current knowledge
One of the things that I found as I embarked on my first research degree was a sense that even though I had already completed undergraduate studies, some of my lecturers treated me as if I knew nothing. As a research supervisor I have tried to reverse this attitude by starting off acknowledging what it is that a research student already knows. This background knowledge, when it is encouraged to come to the surface, may reveal a range of ideas about how a research student positions their understanding of the topic or issue they want to investigate.
The strategy for the supervisor is to ask the question ‘what do you already know about your topic?’ and then in the ensuing dialogue begin to point out evidence in the student’s language of the beginnings of methodology and of a literature review.

4. Mix with other students who are also undertaking research degrees so that you are reaffirmed by the experiences of others
It is often said that the research degree is a lonely journey. Although it is unlikely that anyone will be investigating exactly the same topic as you, mixing with other research students helps to locate the areas that you have in common that you all may be struggling with. It is reassuring to know that you are not the only one who is struggling.

Sometimes the faculty at which you are undertaking your research degree organises meetings for students, and a student can also organise their own meetings. (Strategy)Some supervisors bring together all of their research students for these general motivation type sessions so that ones further along their candidature can inspire those newer to research.

5. Help your research student to identify what inspires them with their thinking so that you can remind them about that when the inspiration seems to have waned.
I remember that when I was undertaking my first research degree I started listening to the music of Enrico Morricone. There was one particular track on the Mission soundtrack that lifted my spirits. I actually used this track of music when I presented my research proposal. Not that my supervisor used this, but it might have been a helpful nudge for me to be encouraged to listen to that music when I was feeling a little bit helpless. Not that it is going to be music for everyone; for some it may be some other stimulus such as literature or art, or even the environment. (Strategy) When you are having your initial discussion with a student ask about how they get motivated. This may be valuable knowledge for them at times when they are feeling a little despondent about their work, and you can remind them of their motivational sources.

Advancing your research supervision through rigorous investigation

In these blogs about advancing research supervision practice I have emphasised the importance of reflecting on practice. Another way to make use of the process of reflecting on one’s professional practice is to formalise it into what I describe as investigative practice. Some would use the term research to apply to the concepts I will describe, but as the term research is often associated with a particular type of scientific research, and as the methods I am going to raise here are all classified as post positivist research methods or inquiry methods, it seems easier to use the umbrella term of investigation rather than research.
By investigating, I mean observing your practice in such a way as to make tacit knowledge about your practice explicit. This can involve making explicit some of the key terms of your practice and acknowledging the dissonance surrounding those terms. For example: recognising that the term research means different things to different people and making it explicit what meaning you ascribe to the term. It can involve rigorously reflecting on your practice and making explicit the often taken for granted knowledge that relates to this practice. For example: a supervisor often assumes that a student understands what it means to do a doctoral degree and may class this as taken for granted knowledge. Making this explicit through a discussion about the student’s understanding of doctoral research brings this knowledge to the surface and leaves a space for addressing any misconceptions. A third aspect of investigating one’s research supervision might involve making explicit the decision making that operates behind the delivery of your practice. For example: Whenever, as a supervisor you make a particular intervention in your relationship with the student, there is usually a rationale behind that decision. Bringing this rationale to the surface may promote rethinking about whether that intervention is the most appropriate at that time.

Investigative practice not only involves making tacit knowledge explicit. By definition it requires that the knowledge is made public so that it benefits from peer review. When you pursue this line of advancing your research supervision, you not only improve your own knowledge about research supervision, but through an agenda of publishing your findings as a way of authenticating the investigation outcomes, you share your knowledge and findings with other people. Even with as few as a single research student, articulating the interventions you make in the pursuit of helping your research student to complete their degree, adds to the body of knowledge about this often private academic practice.

It helps with investigating one’s practice if the process by which you intend to make the practices explicit, is also made explicit. This is part of the rigour of investigation, that the process of investigating is also explicit and transparent. This is not so much to try to replicate the process but to make it easier for a reader to understand how you have gone about investigating your practice.

I want to draw attention to four specific approaches under a banner of practice-related investigation.

The first of these is describing your practice in the form of a Case study. The detail of description enables other practitioners to review your description and through this advance their own understanding of the practice. The descriptor ‘telling the practitioner stories’ is often used to describe this particular approach and, as such, this approach has been part of the literature on research supervision for some time.

A second approach is Action research. This (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988) involves reflecting on your supervisory practice, identifying an area of potential growth or improvement, implementing that initiative and then reviewing the impact of the intervention in a subsequent process of reflection.

The process is iterative and can also be expressed as a cycle of observing events within your practice and by making explicit the window by which you observe these events you can begin to provide maps of operation. (Bawden, 1991)

Another similar approach is Practice-based research (Anderson and Herr, 1999). With practice-based research there is an emphasis on comparing identified practice to the literature available about that practice rather than focussing on iterations of improvement.

Finally, Practice-led research (Gray, 1996) invites deconstruction of the research supervision and identification of the sorts of decisions being made by the supervisor in their undertaking of practice. In this regard it invites critical reflection as it seeks to articulate the rationale behind the decision making and thus the belief systems operating in the delivery of the supervisory practice.

Which ever approach you adopt to reflect on your research supervision, you will find that it expands your knowledge of that practice. Knowledge is at the heart of investigative practice. The purpose of investigation, whether it be research or inquiry, is to expand our knowledge, and these processes will all lead to an increase in your own knowledge of this aspect of your professional practice and the knowledge available for the broader community of research supervisors.

Anderson, G. and K. Herr (1999). The New Paradigm Wars: Is there room for rigorous practitioner knowledge in Schools and Universities? Educational Researcher 28 (5): 12-21.

Bawden, R. (1991). Towards action research systems. in Zuber-Skerrit, O. (Ed) Action Research for Change and Development. Griffith University. Brisbane, Australia

Gray, C. (1996) Inquiry through practice: developing appropriate research strategies. No Guru, No Method. UIAH Helsinki

Kemmis, S and Mctaggart, R (1981) The Action Research Planner. Deakin University. Geelong, Aust.