The evolution of doctoral students’ competence and independence throughout their education is associated to changing needs during the different stages of this process. These changing needs call for supervisors’ adaptability to be able to support the PhD candidates at the different stages of their education. This interview study explores the adaptability of supervision style throughout the different stages of doctoral education. Interviews with 5 supervisors and 5 doctoral students at the end of their education were conducted, where each on was questioned about different supervision practices performed in the beginning, in the middle, and close to the end of the PhD education. The findings reflect the complexity of supervisor-doctoral student interaction. Hence, supervision style needs to adapt to various circumstances affecting PhD students. A trend seems to be a reduction in the amount of guidance by the supervisor as doctoral students become independent. However, this changes case-by-case.
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