Practical Approaches Towards Independent Ph.D. Students: Perspectives from Supervisors

Abstract

Development of independence and autonomy is one of the criteria that Ph.D. students are evaluated on
when defending their thesis. However, unlike other key skills that the student is expected to develop during their education– such as scientific reasoning, communication and expertise within their discipline – independence is an elusive trait that can be challenging to assess. There is a clear line in the pedagogic literature about the importance of the supervisor and the local research environment on the development of independence, but how supervisors work to achieve this is has been described to much less degree.

In this small-scale study performed as part of the Docent course at LTH, seven senior academics were
interviewed about their experiences and thoughts on development of Ph.D. student independence as part
their supervision practice. It was found that the approaches and methods differed from supervisor to
supervisor, and from student to student. In fact, a common theme among the supervisors was that the
individual personality and previous experiences of each student necessitates a case-to-case adaptation of the supervision style. It was agreed that the degree of dependency varies over time during the PhD education, and that the supervision generally needs to be adapted dynamically to support the student’s needs at a given time. The supervisors also highlighted the importance of the other members of the research environment on the successful development of independence in the Ph.D. student.