phd supervision problems

How to Cope with a Problematic PhD Supervisor

• by James Hayton, PhD
• January 17th, 2022

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Why you (probably) shouldn’t do a phd, “i can’t contact my phd supervisor until i have something to show”.

“Is there any system that protects PhD candidates from having a problematic supervisor? For example, any ways to make complaints? Or would complaints not help but make the relationship worse?”

The simple answer is yes, usually there are ways to make formal complaints.

My view is that universities and supervisors have a responsibility to provide support, feedback and guidance to PhD students. There’s a trust that you place in them when you invest years of your life and possibly quite a lot of money in tuition fees, and they have a duty to provide adequate support in return.

If you’re not receiving that support, you’ve got to be assertive . You’ve got to speak up, and you’ve got to speak up early while there’s still time to find a potential solution rather than waiting until the last few months of your PhD when it might be too late.

If you don’t say anything because you’re afraid of their reaction, there will probably be much worse consequences later.

However, as you rightly point out, making a formal complaint to the university or to your department is likely to affect your relationship with your supervisor.

I think that it’s always best to try to resolve any issues directly with your supervisor, and formal complaints should really only be used as a last resort if you’ve made every reasonable attempt to sort things out, but the working relationship has completely broken down. At that point, it doesn’t really matter how they react because the relationship is already dead.

So how should you try to address problems in your relationship with your PhD supervisor?

The original question doesn’t specify what the problem is, so I’ll go through a few common issues and how you might be able to approach them.

Problem 1: A lack of contact

The first common problem is simply a lack of contact. This is especially common if you’re doing a PhD remotely and you’re entirely dependent on email for communication.

Sometimes this isn’t entirely the supervisor’s fault. Often I speak to students who say they emailed the supervisor three months ago but didn’t get a reply. They can then get stuck in a cycle of worry about whether the supervisor cares about the project or whether the work they sent was good enough.

But then when I ask if they’ve tried to follow up, often they say they’re afraid of appearing rude, or they don’t want to disturb their supervisor because they’re so busy and important.

But remember that academics struggle too. The day your email arrived, maybe they had 100 other emails in their inbox. Maybe they had a grant application deadline. Maybe they were about to reply and someone knocked on their door. And maybe they fully intended to get back to you and because they wanted to give you a considered reply they didn’t do it in the moment and then it slid further down their inbox.

Personally, I try to stay on top of my email, but sometimes things slip. It doesn’t mean anything that I haven’t replied, and It’s helpful to me if you follow up on a message I haven’t replied to.

So try not to project your fears onto your supervisor. Assume good intentions and just send a polite follow up.

If they consistently don’t reply, then yes, that’s a problem. What I would do is say that you would really value their input and whether it would be possible to have more frequent contact, whether there’s something you can do to make that easier… and if there’s still no response or if they say no or if they get angry, this is when you might consider trying to change supervisor.

Problem 2: Multiple supervisors & contradictory advice

You might have more than one supervisor. Maybe they aren’t communicating with each other or maybe they are giving you contradictory advice.

In this case it’s your responsibility to manage the communication, making sure that they are both copied into emails, and they each know what the other has said.

It’s also worth noting that, often, supervisors are giving you suggestions and it’s up to you to decide what to do with them. They will want you to have counter-suggestions, they will want you to have your own ideas and they will want you to make decisions.

So instead of seeing it as contradictory advice, maybe try to see it as a range of options that you can try, or even modify to come up with another option of your own

Then in your communication with both supervisors, you can say what you’re going to try first.

Problem 3: Harsh feedback

What if your supervisor keeps giving you overly harsh feedback ?

This can be difficult to take, especially if you’ve put a lot of work in and if you’re feeling a bit stressed. So there’s an emotional component that can sometimes affect the way you interpret feedback and it can make you feel demotivated and disengaged.

When you were an undergraduate and you submitted an essay you probably just received a grade and moved on. You weren’t expected to make any changes. But at PhD level, you’re learning to be a professional academic. And when professional academics submit a paper—unless they submit to a low quality journal that accepts anything—there will almost always be things they have to change in response to the reviewers comments.

That’s actually a good result, because a lot of the best journals completely reject the majority of submissions. So I can guarantee that your supervisor, no matter how good their publication record, will have had work rejected and they will have had harsh feedback. It’s not a personal judgement, It’s just part of the job and it’s necessary to improve your work and your writing.

What I’d suggest is really engaging with the feedback, possibly just one section at a time to make it a little bit easier, and making sure you really understand the points they’re making and asking them questions to clarify if necessary.

One of the biggest frustrations I hear from PhD supervisors is students not saying anything. Most supervisors would want you to ask questions, they would want you to tell them if there’s something you don’t understand and they would want you to discuss a point you disagree with.

So try to become an active participant in your feedback, rather than a passive recipient.

For more on this point, check out my video on dealing with harsh feedback .

What makes a good PhD supervisor?

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PhD: An uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life

By james hayton (2015).

PhD: an uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life is your essential guide to the basic principles every PhD student needs to know.

Applicable to virtually any field of study, it covers everything from finding a research topic, getting to grips with the literature, planning and executing research and coping with the inevitable problems that arise, through to writing, submitting and successfully defending your thesis.

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All the text on this site (and every word of every video script) is written by me, personally, because I enjoy writing. I enjoy the challenges of thinking deeply and finding the right words to express my ideas. I do not advocate for the use of AI in academic research and writing, except for very limited use cases.

Why you shouldn't rely on AI for PhD research and writing

The false promise of AI for PhD research

Meta Gorup, Melissa Laufer

When relationships between supervisors and doctoral researchers go wrong.

Doctoral researchers represent a crucial group within the academic workforce. They importantly contribute to their departments’ and universities’ research efforts by, among other, carrying out data collection, running experiments, helping with or leading publication writing, presenting at conferences, and sometimes applying for research funding.

In 2018, doctoral programs across OECD countries enrolled over a million and a half doctoral students and granted a total of nearly 278,000 PhD or equivalent degrees (OECD n.d.).

However, this large, vital group of researchers faces numerous challenges connected to managing a several-years-long research project while learning a host of new skills and  coming to terms with the unwritten rules of academia. It is thus perhaps not unexpected – although rarely openly talked about – that around 50 percent of doctoral researchers discontinue their doctorates (Council of Graduate Schools 2008; Groenvynck et al. 2013; Vassil and Solvak 2012).

In this blog post, we explore what is behind this worrying statistic. Specifically, we examine the role the relationship between doctoral supervisors and their students plays in the latter’s decision to discontinue their doctorates.

Melissa Laufer

We first shed light on the existing research pointing to the crucial role of supervisors in and their control over students’ doctoral journeys . Furthermore, we demonstrate that supervision-related issues are a common concern among PhD students. We then show that doctoral researchers’ problems with supervisors are often exacerbated by an institutional environment which discourages PhD students from addressing these issues.

The remainder of the text presents our own study of international doctoral student dropout , revealing patterns of ‘control’ and abuse thereof by doctoral supervisors which in several cases played a decisive role in the PhD students’ decision to discontinue. Drawing upon the empirics of our study, we explore:

• How is control exercised and abused within relationships between doctoral supervisors and their students?
• What happens when PhD students challenge this control?
• And how do we break free of this cycle of control?

Supervisors Play a Central Role

While the reasons for a doctoral researcher’s decision to discontinue their doctoral studies are multifaceted – from personal and family issues to departmental and disciplinary cultures (Gardner 2009; Golde 2005; Leijen et al. 2016) – issues with supervisors often contribute to a doctoral student’s decision to discontinue their PhD (Gardner 2009; Golde 2005; Jones 2013; Leijen et al. 2016).

This is hardly surprising since, to a doctoral student, their supervisor is commonly “the central and most powerful person” who controls many crucial aspects of the PhD trajectory: the doctoral researcher’s integration into the academic community and discipline, the topic and process of their dissertation research, their career path following the doctorate (Lovitts 2001: 131), and sometimes the PhD students’ funding (Golde 2005; Laufer & Gorup 2019).

Doctoral Supervision Needs Improvement

The essential role of doctoral supervisors in the PhD students’ experience and success makes the statistics that report on persistent supervisory issues all the more worrisome.

A global survey of over 6,300 PhD researchers initiated by Nature found that doctoral researchers based in Europe were very likely to list “impact of poor supervisor relationship” as one of their top five concerns (Lauchlan 2019). In the UK, a study of over 50,000 postgraduate research students – which included both PhD-level and research master’s students – found that 38 percent of respondents listed “learning and support” as an area in need of improvement, and out of those, 46 percent referred to various supervision-related is sues (Williams 2019).

What is more, the previously mentioned Nature survey found that 21 percent of respondents experienced being bullied. Among those, 48 percent listed their supervisors as the most frequent perpetrators of bu llying (Lauchlan 2019)

A Disempowering Institutional Environment

What further hinders those doctoral researchers who experience difficulties with their supervisors is an institutional environment which disempowers them to proactively address their situations. Because PhD students “are in a subordinate and dependent position socially, intellectually, and financially,” they are unlikely to challenge those superior to them (Lovitts 2001: 34–35).

Studies report that doctoral students “fear” raising an issue to or about a supervisor (Metcalfe et al. 2018) and are plagued by “fear of repercussions” because they cannot address their concerns anonymously (Lauchlan 2019). At the same time, universities are generally seen as reluctant to address supervision-related problems (Metcalfe et al. 2018) and academics tend to place the blame on PhD researchers for their issues rather than on the doctoral program or the university (Gardner 2009; Lovitts 2001).

To this point, a survey of almost 2,500 doctoral researchers at the Max Planck Society in Germany reports that only half of doctoral students who experienced conflicts with those senior to them reported the conflicts to an institutional body. Among those who did, over 50 percent indicated the reports were not dealt with in a satisfactory manner (Max Planck PhDnet Survey Group 2020).

The International Doctoral Student Experience

One group of PhD researchers particularly vulnerable to the extreme challenges of the doctorate is international doctoral students (IDSs). They are required not only to adjust to a new academic system but also to a new society (Le & Gardner 2010; Campbell 2015; Cotterall 2015).

I DSs make up 22 percent of doctoral enro llments across OECD countries (OECD 2020), with their dropout rates comparable to local students, at circa 50 percent (Groenvynck et al. 2013). However, despite similarities in discontinuation rates, studies point out that IDSs are especially susceptible to disempowerment .

They are more inclined to experience issues with their su pervisors (Adams and Cargill 2003; Adrian-Taylor et al. 2007; Campbell 2015) and may encounter discrimin ation (Mayuzumi et al. 2007). The previously mentioned Max Planck Society survey (2020) for instance found that non-Germans were exposed to more bullying from supervisors than their German colleagues, with doctoral researchers coming from outside the European Union experiencing the most cases at 15 percent.

A Study of International Doctoral Student Dropout

Our 2019 study, The Invisible Others: Stories of International Doctoral Student Dropout , also highlights the vulnerability of IDSs. Specifically, it demonstrates how their statuses as cultural outsiders and academic novices contributed to their disempowerment and the eventual discontinuation of their studies.

We conducted in-depth life story interviews with 11 IDSs who had discontinued their doctorates at a Western European university. Across their narratives, we identified a pattern of ‘control’ that was exercised, and in some cases abused, by those in positions of power as well as institutionalized within the university structure.

Moreover, eight out of 11 participants described how issues with their supervisors to a greater or lesser degree prompted them to discontinue their doctorates .

Supervisors Controlling the Academic Conversation

Below we look at a selection of a broad spectrum of aspects in which supervisors exercised control over their IDSs’ doctoral journeys and show how the scale of power regularly tipped in the favor of supervisors.

Problematic Feedback and Mentorship Practices

Nearly all the IDSs reported some level of dissatisfaction with their supervisors’ feedback and support practices, with some explicitly pointing to supervisors’ control over their progress, learning and even future career.

Some IDSs explained, for example, that it was difficult to get any time at all with their supervisors, in some instances also sharing that this was not a challenge for local students. One PhD student described how they – as internationals – were “ all on our own completely, since the very beginning .”

One participant reported how the feedback he received largely focused on pointing out deficiencies and how he was not given opportunities to engage in dialogue about his work. This made him feel that the comments were delivered from the supervisors’ “ clearly defined position of power .” Similarly, another IDS explained how he felt he was “ not learning anything because I’m doing all that she’s [the supervisor] saying .”

For one research participant, the extent of his supervisor’s control explicitly extended to his future career. Initially, the supervisor agreed with the PhD student’s choice to discontinue and offered to write recommendation letters for his doctorate applications elsewhere. However, our interviewee later found out that his supervisor told a potential employer that he was not actually interested in pursuing a PhD.

Struggles Over the Ownership of the Research Project

A number of IDSs also felt their research projects were largely controlled by supervisors who did not give them the freedom to choose their research topic or decide how to approach it.

One doctoral researcher described how he felt that the “ research project doesn’t belong to me ,” together with feelings of “ working for someone else .” Another IDS shared that she was successful in winning an external grant which was supposed to give her the freedom to choose her research topic. However, in reality, she “ couldn’t make any decisions [about] my own work ”.

Some IDSs also reported the supervisors’ micro-management and lack of trust in them. One research participant explained how her supervisor

was completely behind my back, all the time. Like if I was coming in from an experiment, he would be like, what are the results? … He was all the time behind me and there was no trust in what I was doing, I was surveilled all the time.

This doctoral student was not alone in experiencing a constant pressure to perform and feeling surveilled. One IDS even shared he thought his supervisor “feels like she owns a person.”

Funding in Supervisors’ Hands

Another aspect where the supervisors’ power abuse was very apparent was finances, likely more so because at the case study university, supervisors were in large part directly in control of the PhD students’ funding.

Some IDSs reported how they were promised funding for a full PhD of four to five years, but were told after a year or two that their contract would not be extended. One research participant shared:

during the job interview on Skype and on site I have been told that there was funding for a PhD. That they would make a contract until the end of the first year, at the same time I would apply for an external grant … but not to worry because there was the funding for the entire project. … Which turned out not to be true.

In a couple of cases, doctoral researchers were offered only short-term contracts – of a few months – after their initial one or two-year contract expired. One research participant described what his supervisor did when she perceived at the end of his first two-year contract that he might not be able to finish his PhD:

she [supervisor] told me that she was only going to sign my contract for three months. … So that will give me like the added pressure and should be like a testing time, if I was going to be able to finish my PhD.

Following an evaluation after the first three months, the supervisor planned to continue extending this IDS’s contract every three months rather than offer him a longer-term contract.

Supervisors Using the PhD Students’ Status as Internationals

For IDSs coming from outside the European Union (EU), the supervisors’ control over their funding was also linked to the control over the PhD students’ immigration status. To stay in an EU country, non-EU students need to prove they have financial means to do so – and if their contract ends, that is put at risk.

One research participant shared how his supervisor explicitly referred to her control over his stay in the country:

she [supervisor] told me if I didn’t meet … all the deadlines that she had made for this project … she wouldn’t sign my contract and … that would put my residence here in [the country] and in Europe at risk, if I didn’t do exactly what she said. So that was openly like a threat. … so I think she used that. I mean … like a point of power, like … your stay here [in this country] relies on me.

Another narrative underlying some of our interviewees’ accounts was their perception that IDSs were more vulnerable to exploitation by their supervisors. One interviewee explained that he was “ an easy target for her [supervisor] ” because “ [s]he thought it doesn’t matter how bad she treats me or any other international students. ” He speculated that this group of PhD students was less likely to discontinue their doctorates because it was more difficult for them to find another opportunity in a country away from home. Thus, they were likely to put up with more mistreatment than their local counterparts.

Challenging Supervisors’ Control

As the previous examples illustrate, supervisors exercised and abused their control in various aspects of the PhD students’ lives. Although in most cases, doctoral students were aware of this control and openly spoke about it, it also seemed to be understood that there was little they could do to counter it. In the words of one IDS, “ nobody ever dared to talk to the professors .”

Those who brought up issues to their supervisors were often disappointed and disillusioned with the results. Some IDSs reported that challenging their supervisors resulted in the supervisors becoming furious, storming out of the room or threatening the PhD student with no contract renewal.

Another problem identified by our research participants was that there was simply not enough oversight of what was actually going on behind the scenes. An IDS shared,

apparently I was one of the many who had been quitting in this lab, which is strange because I thought, come on, there has to be some kind of follow-up on this … In the same lab, you have all these students quitting, don’t you think you have a problem? With this group?

At the same time, this PhD researcher seemed resigned to the situation. When asked if she had officially approached anyone about her issues, she responded,

I didn’t because who’s my reference? … I mean what is going to change, really, you know? I didn’t see it was going to help me out. Or who to go to, to begin with.

This notion that professors were somehow ‘untouchable’ was echoed in a number of doctoral researchers’ accounts. As a result, in relation to issues with their supervisors, only two of our interviewees used official university resources such as filing an official complaint with the faculty ombudsman or speaking to the internationalization office.

Moreover, these university resources did little to help the PhD students who approached them. One IDS who got in touch with the internationalization office and the office overseeing her scholarship was told they could not help her because “ this is quite a [personality] problem. So it’s not very academic. So they can’t really interfere .”

Another doctoral student shared how the faculty ombudsman dismissed and joked about his complaints when his supervisor offered him a series of short-term contracts in place of a longer one. Moreover, the intervention had no effect on the supervisor and his supervisor later explained to the PhD student that this practice was legal – and therefore acceptable.

Breaking the Cycle of Control

In the doctoral researchers’ accounts above, we see how supervisors, due to their seniority and institutionalized positions of power, may exercise and abuse their control over various aspects of the doctoral journey. For a number of our interviewees, this abuse was made worse due to their international status .

The fact that supervisors have the power to undertake the actions like those we illustrate above with limited to no consequences speaks to a much larger issue. We are no longer talking about a few bad apples in the barrel, but a systematic problem occurring across academia , as evident from the abovementioned surveys initiated by Nature (Lauchlan 2019) and the Max Planck Society (Max Planck PhDnet Survey Group 2020).

But this cycle of power imbalance does not need to continue. The change begins by rethinking how we characterize the doctorate. In academia folklore, the doctorate is often fashioned as a trial, a time of enormous hardship, of which only the fittest survive – but not without battle scars. Instead of seeing the doctorate as a grueling rite of passage, we need to shift our focus to building confident, empowered scholars , who value collaboration over competition.

Such change can be sparked by focusing on practices embedded within the institutional environment. In our practitioner-geared publication, Pathways to Practice: Supporting International Doctoral Students , we discuss in detail the small and larger steps institutions, supervisors and (international) doctoral students can take to create an inclusive doctoral experience for both international and local PhD students.

In this blog post, we would like to highlight two steps university stakeholders can take to ensure a more empowering institutional environment:

• We encourage institutions to set up training for supervisor s to reflect on their supervision styles and the assumptions embedded within them. Supervisors should also gain insight into giving constructive feedback and building professional partnerships with PhD students.
• We propose a number of formal and informal support structures institutions may make available to doctoral students, ranging from setting up an independent ombudsperson to forming peer and collegial support communities, such as study groups, workshops and online forums.

However, the concerns we raise in this blog post about power imbalances in the relationship between doctoral supervisors and their students are symptomatic of a phenomenon occurring across all levels of academia: the privileged few have power over the subordinate majority. Consequently, the larger question at stake is: how do we change deeply ingrained behaviors in academia that perpetuate inequalities?

Some of these issues are complex and may require a system-level overhaul, but others are within our reach. The relatively simple change actions we propose above can be a good starting point for how we want to shape the next generation of scholars. Let us begin by bringing the discussion of power abuse in academia into the light and, step by step, empower doctoral students, supervisors and institutions to break free of the cycle of control .

Author info

Meta Gorup is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent at Ghent University in Belgium. Her research explores topics in research management and doctoral education through the lens of university members’ identities and university cultures.

Melissa Laufer is a senior researcher in the research programme “Knowledge &; Society” at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. She is interested in investigating change processes at universities.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Gorup, M., Laufer, M. (2020). More Than a Case of a Few Bad Apples: When Relationships Between Supervisors and Doctoral Researchers Go Wrong. Elephant in the Lab . DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4213175

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There are so many issues with the quality and attitude of supervisers, in my view – at least in the UK system.

Some of the challenges that I experienced were:- 1) A supervisor who spent a lot of time telling me how certain people (and even a faculty member) – and he named names – had only got their PhDs because he had written their thesis for them, or built their experiemental equipment, run their clinical trials etc. He seemed to almost believe that the world did not turn without his assistance.

2) He regularly wanted to take-over and design or work-out sections for me. I kept telling him that I wanted it to be my work and that the only way I could learn was to do the work. I wanted to know that I had earned it, but he did not stop or respect that and it caused disagreement and bad feeling.

3) There was no help or understanding for the things I really needed his help with; a poor administration where my ID card/computer and library access kept beinng cancelled every three weeks for three years. A computer that could not cope with all I demanded of it and could not cope with the extensive calculations and graphics processing.

4) There was never any time or interest in discussing what I had learned or discovered during my work – I felt so cut-off and isolated. For me, the joy of a doctorate was learning something surprising and new. But this was lost, as I had no one to share it with.

5) His mood would either be over the top nice, where everything was wonderful – or utterly condemning and condescending, depending on the day. So during one meeting I might feel pleased with myself and during the next, for exactly the same points of discussion, suddenly my work was complete rubbish. So I could never trust or believe him either way and that left me feeling wary, on-edge and bewildered.

6) Many supervisors appear to have little understanding or concern for the university rules and purpose of supervising and just muddle along doing whatever they deem fit.

7) Many have long forgotten the struggles and loneliness of research at doctoral level and view students as cannon fodder.

8) When I tried to raise a complaint, they just closed ranks and ignored me. The only way to get them to address my supervisory issues was to go through the formal complaints process and ask for it to be looked at by another faculty. The result was them saying that they had added my supervisor to a “watch list” and they would have liked to get rid of him, but for legal reasons they could not. But they still let him supervise !

9) The university seemed to be split into a myriad of defensive islands that were at war with each other and no one really listened or helped. Whenever a problem arose, the standard practice seemed to be to refer the person to another group of department and then it turn, that group would deny responsibility and you would be passed somewhere else – and so it would go on. In my case, even writing an e-mail to the “President” (as Vice-chancellors like to call themselves now – how pretenious) and the VP Education got nowhere, as my complaint as bounced back to my faculty – who continued to ignore it. So what was the point of the falsely proclaimed “exceptional student experience” ?

10) Faculty like to think that they work really hard and I am sure some do – but my research group/faculty would disappear for two hour lunches and, on Fridays, never come back until Monday. My supervisor would often not turn-up for supervisory meetings and I would find him having coffee and hiding behind a broad-sheet newspaper in the nearby Costa Coffee.

11) The best part was when my supervisor recommended a comference for me – which I paid the fees, booked the flights etc for – only to discover that it did not exist and was a phoney/scam conference. When I complained, he claimed that I had not paid attention – fortunately, I kept a copy of his e-mail with the link he sent me to that supposed conference.

12) When I finally started with a new supervisor, he was upset because the reearch topic I had been given by the previous Professor was actually an area he had “taken” from my new Professor. So I was dragged into a long-standing, ‘silent’ war of mistrust between them.

13) There was an unspoken but firm ritual where other academics names might be added to a paper’s author list, even though they had no involvement – just to boost a colleague’s research profile.

The fundamental issue seems to me to be the lack of supervision of supervisors. It all seems to work on the principles of a gentlemen’s club, where – when something goes wrong – no one mentions or acknowledges it. The academic equivalent of a black hole could open-up and they would just walk around it and comment on how clear the sky was around there. SO bizarre..,…

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• Challenges that PhD Students Face

Written by Ben Taylor

What to expect in this guide

Navigating the journey of a PhD can be challenging, however, with the right strategies, you can turn these hurdles into stepping stones that lead towards a successful completion of your doctorate. Key points we cover in this guide:

• How to handle PhD supervisors who aren’t quite supporting you the way you need them to.
• The importance of seeking support and guidance from other academics and researchers.
• Strategies for maximising the benefits and outcomes of your PhD journey. .

PhD problems arise for almost every student. After all, the PhD is the culmination of your academic work to date and represents a substantial, complex research project. It's unlikely that you'll make it through an entire doctorate without facing at least a few obstacles.

It pays to understand some of the most common PhD struggles and pressures before you begin a doctorate, so that you’re better equipped to deal with them if they crop up in your own journey.

This page gives advice on tackling a range of PhD struggles, from dealing with a bad supervisor to the ‘second year blues’.

On this page

#1 signs of a bad phd supervisor.

The majority of supervisor-supervisee relationships are healthy, productive and mutually beneficial. Chances are you’ll find in your PhD supervisor someone who is an expert in their field and a dedicated mentor to you.

However, as with any other situation in life, there is a possibility that you might not get on with your supervisor. We’ve covered some common PhD supervisor problems below and suggested how you can go about solving them.

A lack of communication

Often the root of disagreement and difficulties between a supervisor and a PhD researcher is a lack of communication.

Ideally, you should discuss and agree on expectations in this area with your supervisor at the beginning of your PhD. But it’s never to late to address the subject if you don’t think these expectations are being met or if you’re worried that you’re not contacting your supervisor enough.

Showing that you have doubts or concerns about the progress of your PhD or asking for help aren’t signs of weakness, but a signal on your part that you want to succeed. These are a few pointers to think about when getting in touch with your supervisor

• Identify where you need training or help
• Share your concerns about where your project is and where it is going
• Ask about techniques, resources and recommended reading

You’ll be surprised what effective communication can achieve. You may find that your supervisor had no idea you were struggling (or, rather, that you are not struggling at all but experiencing the same emotions as most doctoral students).

However, you should be realistic with your demands and expectations. After all, supervisors are busy academics and researchers themselves, often juggling teaching, research, pastoral or administrative roles along with their duties as a supervisor.

PhD supervisors who don’t get back to you

Having stated the importance of communication, how do you reach out to someone who just doesn’t get back to you or respond to emails?

Perhaps the first step is to try and find out, without being indiscrete, why your supervisor is not available. Do they have research commitments abroad? Are they involved in senior-level work with your institution, the government, public organisations or industry? Are they part-time?

Next, you should arrange a meeting where you can discuss a pattern of contact times that would suit you both.

If your supervisor isn’t available because of the number of students they have responsibility for, try and find out how the other students deal with it.

Remember that in most cases you will have a second supervisor and they are there to help you. If you don’t have one, speak to your graduate school (or equivalent) and try to identify one, but keep your main supervisor informed.

Overbearing supervisors

Overbearing supervisors who look over your shoulder constantly can be as much a problem as absent supervisors.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many ways to deal with this other than to have a chat with them and (diplomatically!) explain that you would welcome taking a more leading role in planning and conducting your research. Gently let them know that meeting too frequently is counterproductive and you feel you have the skills and the enthusiasm to take your project forward.

Supervisors who leave

Thankfully, this doesn’t happen very often, Hopefully, if your supervisor is leaving, for whatever reason, you will get advance notice so that you can work together to make alternative supervisory arrangements.

• Retirement – It’s unlikely that someone will agree to be your supervisor if they know that they’ll be retiring soon. However, if you do find yourself in this situation, you should ask your supervisor what their retirement means for you. Will they still be able to supervise you? Are they discharging supervisory responsibility to other academics? If so, do you think it is okay? You could propose your own choice or ask your second supervisor if they can step up.
• Leaving for another university – You really have two choices here – go with them or stay and find another supervisor.
• Going on sabbatical – Ask whether they think they can offer an adequate level of supervision while on research leave (especially if they are abroad) or if you should look for an alternative supervisory structure.

Changing PhD supervisors

There are many reasons why you may be considering a change in supervisor, and not all of them have to do with a bad supervisor-supervisee relationship. For example, if your research has changed in scope considerably, it’s reasonable to think about having an additional supervisor or to switch completely. Your university will probably have a process in place for this.

Make sure you discuss your decision with your current supervisor – especially if the reasons are any of the issues discussed above – so that they know what went wrong.

You should also bear in mind that one of the main skills PhD students develop is self-reliance. Being able to work without constant supervision is a valuable attribute, so it might not be the end of the world if you have less frequent contact with your supervisor, or if you find that you need less and less advice.

Of course, depending on where you are in your PhD, a change of supervisor may be a disruption rather than a benefit. Don’t forget the old adage that the grass always looks greener on the other side...

What does a good relationship with your PhD supervisor look like?

Our guide has more information on what to expect from your PhD supervisor and how to maintain a healthy relationship with them.

#2 Being overworked

Teaching, tutoring and marking are often part of PhD training (especially in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences). However, it shouldn’t prevent you from doing your research. If you feel your workload is too high or that your supervisor is asking too much of you, it’s completely fine to say no to new tasks. While a certain amount of PhD pressure is to be expected, it shouldn’t negatively impact your mental health or contribute towards depression and anxiety.

A workload that seems reasonable in the first two years of your PhD may not be towards the end of your doctorate. If your supervisor is asking you to take on more (non-PhD) work, let them know that, while you welcome the opportunity to gain experience and new skills, you don’t want your PhD work to suffer as a result.

If you need a visa to study wherever you are, there are generally restrictions on the number of hours you can work (in the UK it’s 20 hours per week on a student visa ). Some funders have their own restrictions so make sure you are not in breach of your visa or your funding agreement.

#3 Isolation

The level of independence required by a PhD is a big step up from what students might have been used to during their undergraduate or Masters degrees. As a doctoral student, you’re expected to have a lot of autonomy, along with the ability to set and meet your own targets (as well as those of your supervisor).

While this sense of freedom can initially be very exciting, once you get into the daily routine of a PhD , you may begin to feel a sense of isolation – particularly if your research doesn’t necessitate much collaboration with others.

Getting involved in extra-curricular activities like academic conferences and teaching can be a good way of combatting loneliness and isolation, giving you the chance to meet other research students in a similar position to you.

#4 Loss of motivation

You need enthusiasm, optimism and dedication to do a PhD. It is a long project, probably more so than you expected. As with all things, your motivation will have highs and lows unless you find ways to keep things varied, interesting, realistic and rewarding. Also bear in mind that you are primarily doing your PhD for yourself. So, be proactive and don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do.

Yes, there will be time when it feels that nothing is going your way and that everything you do fails but don’t despair. Among the qualities you’ll develop as a PhD student are determination and a desire to succeed (both highly valued by employers too!). This is what will see you through.

It is normal to avoid tasks that are difficult or that you do not want to do. For example, looking at a blank page and imagining your completed thesis is one of the biggest challenges that you will face. However, a doctorate requires you to undertake such a variety of tasks that it is unlikely that you will find them all equally easy and interesting. You’ll find it much easier to set yourself some realistic goals and to break up tasks in smaller chunks.

#5 ‘Second year blues’

This is a well-known phenomenon. Following the initial high of being a PhD student and the enthusiasm of taking forward your beloved research project, your morale may slump, causing you to experience the ‘second-year’ blues. This happens to many students, but by year three you’ll be so busy trying to race to the end of your project and writing up that you won’t have time to think about it.

If you feel out of your depth and that you’re doing badly in your PhD, discuss it with your supervisor or someone in an advisory position. Are you really not up to the task? Or are you just lacking in self-confidence and actually suffering from impostor syndrome? It’s probably just a temporary period of uncertainty and loss of motivation.

Be aware of your own self-confidence levels and learn to recognise when your self-belief goes down so you can address it. Boost your confidence by seeking positive feedback (presenting your research at an academic conference can seem difficult but discussing your research with others in the same field is really rewarding), try new things or go on training courses and remind yourself what you are good at.

Dealing with PhD problems

The best strategy to solve any problem that arises during your PhD should begin by talking to someone about it (and the earlier the better). Best of all is to try and resolve things informally.

Top of the list is talking to your supervisor. If you don’t feel confident speaking to them directly, why not put it in writing? Not only will it be documented but it may be easier to order your thoughts and to put your point across. This can be particularly useful when dealing with PhD pressure.

Alternatively, if you feel that you can’t approach your supervisor, you can raise the issues at your next formal progress meeting or speak to the PhD programme director, another research colleague or fellow students.

In addition, remember that universities often have support services designed to help you such as:

• Counselling
• Student unions
• Career advisers
• Research development advisers
• International officers

The last resort, if you feel that you have exhausted all other avenues, is to start a formal complaint procedure , either through your university or through an external body such as the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education.

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Ben worked in the FindAPhD content team from 2017 to 2022, starting as an Assistant Content Writer and leaving as Student Content Manager. He focused on producing well-researched advice across a range of topics related to postgraduate study. Ben has a Bachelors degree in English Literature from the University of Sheffield and a Masters from the University of Amsterdam. Having also spent a semester at the University of Helsinki through the Erasmus programme, he’s no stranger to study abroad (or cold weather!).

What happens during a typical PhD, and when? We've summarised the main milestones of your PhD journey to show you how to get a PhD.

The PhD thesis is the most important part of a doctoral degree. This page will introduce you to what you need to know about the PhD dissertation.

This page will give you an idea of what to expect from your routine as a PhD student, explaining how your daily life will look at you progress through a doctoral degree.

PhD fees can vary based on subject, university and location. Use our guide to find out the PhD fees in the UK and other destinations, as well as doctoral living costs.

Our guide tells you everything about the application process for studying a PhD in the USA.

Postgraduate students in the UK are not eligible for the same funding as undergraduates or the free-hours entitlement for workers. So, what childcare support are postgraduate students eligible for?

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What to do if your doctoral supervisor is unresponsive or disengaged

Advice and recommendations on what steps to take if your doctoral supervisor is unresponsive or disengaged..

Every supervisory relationship is different so use your judgement to decide which steps to take, what the appropriate timescale is and what your personal approach should be.

Read this guide for additional information on what to expect from your doctoral supervision and how to make the most of it.

You may also wish to consider the Responsibilities of the Supervision Team as well as the Responsibilities of the Doctoral Student , both of which are appendices of QA7 which sets out the principles for doctoral study (including integrated PhDs and Professional Doctorates).

• For a short period (e.g. 1-2 weeks)

Check they are not on holiday or on leave; check their online calendar or ask close colleagues (e.g. other members of the supervision team, department support contact ).

Check whether their other doctoral students have heard from them.

Send a friendly email or message to check they are OK.

Ask yourself how urgent it is; does the matter require their immediate attention? If it is urgent, send an explicit email (highlight it is urgent by putting the word "urgent" in the heading of the email), go to their office or call.

• For a longer period (e.g. 3-4 weeks)

You might not want to wait this long before taking these actions if it is an urgent issue.

If it is non-urgent and they continue to not engage then you can:

Talk to a member of staff informally to ask for advice (e.g. other members of the supervision team, Doctoral College department support contact , Director of Doctoral Studies or someone else you trust). They may be able to give suggestions on how to proceed, or help broker the discussion.

Send a direct email requesting a quick response explaining why you need their input. Explain you are stuck and can’t make progress (be mindful they may have their own personal challenges of which you are unaware).

Ask for a meeting to discuss the process for future engagement. Set expectations - how do you want the relationship to work and what progress would you like to make?

If there is continued lack of engagement from your supervisor talk to the Director of Doctoral Studies or Head of Department. This is a more formal option as it is likely that the DoS or HoD would need to communicate with the supervisor in order to set expectations. Discussions will remain confidential and they may not need to be communicated directly to your supervisor.

• If the problem persists

If you find that it is often difficult to contact your supervisor(s) and you have tried resolving it using the above methods, you can confidentially report an issue affecting your research by accessing a link available in your six-monthly progress reports or by reporting an issue online . This link will connect you to a simple form that when completed can be routed via the Doctoral College to your Faculty/School Director of Doctoral Studies or the Academic Director of the Doctoral College, who will get in touch to discuss the issue in confidence.

If required, there is a formal process to change supervisor or raise a complaint:

• to change your Supervisor, complete PGR8
• student complaints policy and procedure

If issues are more serious or you would prefer some independent advice, then you can contact the following teams for advice and support:

• The Independent Advice Service for PGR students
• Student Support
• SU Advice and Support

Support for doctoral students

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Doctoral College support

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 10 December 2021

Managing up: how to communicate effectively with your PhD adviser

• Lluís Saló-Salgado 0 ,
• Angi Acocella 1 ,
• Ignacio Arzuaga García 2 ,
• Souha El Mousadik 3 &
• Augustine Zvinavashe 4

Lluís Saló-Salgado is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Twitter: @lluis_salo.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Angi Acocella is a PhD candidate in the Center for Transportation & Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. LinkedIn: @angi-acocella.

Ignacio Arzuaga García is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. LinkedIn: @ignacioarzuaga.

Souha El Mousadik is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Augustine Zvinavashe is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

When you start a PhD, you also begin a professional relationship with your PhD adviser. This is an exciting moment: interacting with someone for whom you might well have great respect and admiration, but who might also slightly intimidate you.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03703-z

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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“I didn’t want to be a troublemaker” – doctoral students’ experiences of change in supervisory arrangements

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education

ISSN : 2398-4686

Article publication date: 4 October 2021

Issue publication date: 23 March 2022

During the lengthy process of PhD studies, supervisory changes commonly occur for several different reasons, but their most frequent trigger is a poor supervisory relationship. Even though a change in supervisors is a formal bureaucratic process and not least the students’ rights, in practice it can be experienced as challenging. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how doctoral students experience a change in supervisory arrangements.

Design/methodology/approach

This study highlights the voices of 19 doctoral students who experienced at least one supervisory change during their doctoral studies.

The findings were structured chronologically, revealing the students’ experiences prior, during and after the changes. In total, 12 main themes were identified. Most of the interviewed students experienced the long decision-making processes as stressful, difficult and exhausting, sometimes causing a lack of mental well-being. However, once the change was complete, they felt renewed, energized and capable of continuing with their studies. It was common to go through more than one change in supervisory arrangements. Further, the students described both the advantages of making a change yet also the long-lasting consequences of this change that could affect them long after they had completed their PhD programs.

Originality/value

The study fulfills an identified need to investigate the understudied perspective of doctoral students in the context of change in supervisory arrangements. A change in the academic culture is needed to make any changes in supervisory arrangements more acceptable thus making PhD studies more sustainable.

• Thematic analysis
• Doctoral student
• Student experience
• Supervisory change

Schmidt, M. and Hansson, E. (2022), "“I didn’t want to be a troublemaker” – doctoral students’ experiences of change in supervisory arrangements", Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education , Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 54-73. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-02-2021-0011

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Manuela Schmidt and Erika Hansson.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

“Yes, I think a big lesson is that [change] does not have to be [so dramatic]. Okay, it was a bit dramatic [in my case], maybe, but really […] it doesn’t need to be that dramatic to change supervisors. It's just […] It's like just filling out a form. And I think it's important to understand as a doctoral student that it's actually one's right to change supervisors. You are allowed to do that. And I also think that many supervisors think that they are sitting on some kind of knowledge that no one else can convey, but in most cases, there are 20 other potential supervisors who are in line.” (interview 19)

PhD education is often compared to a journey, a roller coaster ride or even white water rafting (Schmidt and Umans, 2014 ; Christie et al. , 2008 ). Many different factors can influence a doctoral student’s experiences either positively or negatively and these experiences can change rapidly. On this journey, a student’s relationship with her/his supervisor is often singled out as the most important factor for the success of PhD studies. The supervisors and the relationship with them play a central role not only in the doctoral students’ outcomes such as degree of completion and attrition but also in the students’ overall experience and satisfaction with the program (Pyhältö et al. , 2015 ; Barnes et al. , 2010 ; Devos et al. , 2017 ). When the relationship between doctoral students and supervisors is experienced as something positive and empowering, the two parties are engaged in the process of mutual learning and the more academic seniors enable socialization and acculturation of the juniors into academic life and practices (Lee, 2020 ; Mendoza, 2007 ). However, the relationship with the supervisor may also have the potential to develop into something more negative, even to the extent that it might be experienced as destructive by the students. Negative relationships with the supervisors can be primarily explained by the expectation gap where the two parties might prioritize different things. For example, doctoral students might view social support from their supervisors and interaction with them to be the highest priority (Basturkmen et al. , 2014 ), while the supervisors might perceive the importance of financial resources and student characteristics such as motivation and an internal locus of control to be of the highest priority (Gardner, 2009 ).

Remaining in an “unhappy” supervisory relationship;

Quitting; and

Opting for a change in supervisors.

A limited number of studies focus on the choice to remain in an unhappy supervisory relationship (Barnes et al. , 2010 ; Kulikowski et al. , 2019 ; Al Makhamreh and Stockley, 2019 ; Owens et al. , 2020 ). Those studies usually focus on “overcoming” and emphasize doctoral students’ pride in succeeding despite negative experiences and supervisory problems (Bryan and Guccione, 2018 ). Most of the studies explore the second choice – quitting, which is also referred to as attrition. The interest in this choice may be particularly motivated by soaring attrition rates of up to 50% in PhD programs (Groenvynck et al. , 2013 ) and indications of many doctoral students considering quitting their PhD studies (Sowell et al. , 2008 ; Cornér et al. , 2017 ; Schmidt and Hansson, 2018 ) with a poor supervisory relationship being the primary reason (Jacks et al. , 1983 ).

Although supervision issues were considered the most researched topic in a review in 2018 (Sverdlik et al. , 2018 ), very few studies report on the third choice – change in supervisory arrangements and doctoral students’ experiences who make that choice (Wisker and Robinson, 2013 ; McAlpine et al. , 2012 ). These nascent studies describe doctoral students’ experiences of supervisory change in terms of confusion, rejections and traumatization. They suggest that the change adds to the students’ insecurities, decreases their well-being (Wisker and Robinson, 2013 ; McAlpine et al. , 2012 ) and has long lasting effects on their careers. According to Wisker and Robinson (2013) , further exploration of the topic from the doctoral students’ perspective is needed. This is important, as doctoral students’ negative experiences in the supervisory process in general and of a supervisory change in particular, might be fundamental in shaping the future roles that doctoral students will play in academia and society at large (Barnes et al. , 2010 ; Schmidt and Hansson, 2018 ).

Responsibilities, duties and supervisors and doctoral students’ expectations are often loosely defined or are lacking at the university level and differ between different national contexts (Barnett et al. , 2017 ). For example, in Sweden, the higher education ordinance (SFS, 1993 ), clearly regulates a change of supervisors and states it as a doctoral student’s right. Yet, in general, implementation of supervisory change remains to be an ambiguous process. This ambiguity could be one of the reasons that contribute to the negative experiences of supervisory change, often felt as some sort of failure by one or both parties involved (Wisker and Robinson, 2012 ; Wisker and Robinson, 2013 ). Even if both parties do not enter into supervisory relationships with anticipation to change, change in supervisory arrangements is common and happens for various reasons such as retirement, change of workplace or relocation of a supervisor or difficulties in supervisory relationships (Wisker and Robinson, 2012 ). Further, models of doctoral student supervision vary across countries and PhD programs (Paul et al. , 2014 ). Yet, most commonly discussed in the literature is co-supervision, also referred to as joint or team supervision. In this study, co-supervision implies supervision of one doctoral student by two or more supervisors, of which one is appointed as main or principal supervisor. Roles and responsibilities among supervisors might differ depending on supervisory constellation, can change over time and are often individually agreed on among the supervisors. A plethora of studies so far has focused on the concept of supervision, the nature of the relationship between doctoral students and supervisors and supervisors’ styles (Lee, 2020 ; Gatfield, 2005 ; Murphy et al. , 2007 ; Gurr, 2001 ). Yet, most of these studies focus on the supervisors’ perspective and shun discussing doctoral students’ experiences. Taking a rather positive view, these studies fail to consider that supervision itself might not be the solution for the issues experienced by the doctoral students, but instead can be a cause of the problems, thus overlooking students’ negative and damaging experiences of supervision (Wisker and Robinson, 2013 ).

With an increasing number of doctoral students entering tertiary education (The World Bank [Unesco Institute for Statistics], 2020 ; Shin et al. , 2018 ), this occupational group has been gaining more attention and rights. Given these gains, doctoral students have become increasingly demanding of their supervisors, expecting them to be trustworthy, good listeners, encouraging, having faith in the student and being knowledgeable and informative (Denicolo, 2004 ; Barnes et al. , 2010 ). Although these demands can be exhausting for supervisors, they can be explained by doctoral students feeling disoriented, being aware of their dependency position and stressed about juggling competing expectations and financing their studies. From the doctoral students’ perspective, to express dissatisfaction with a senior researcher remains to be a challenging and delicate matter due to dependency issues. However, despite the initial stress and negative emotions because of a change in supervisory arrangements, it may also represent the possibility of a new start (Wisker and Robinson, 2012 ). With increasing demands by employees for better work conditions in academia and elsewhere (Schmidt and Hansson, 2018 ; Dobre, 2013 ), doctoral students – mindful of their well-being – might be gradually more weary of remaining in poor supervisory relationships that have shown to decrease their work and life satisfaction (Schmidt and Hansson, 2018 ; Evans et al. , 2018 ; Cornér et al. , 2017 ), and thus, are more prone to opt for supervisory change. It is, therefore, important to highlight the students’ perspectives and experiences of this process. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore how doctoral students experience a change in supervisory arrangements.

Material and methods

The study follows a qualitative, explorative design, which is considered suitable for exploring human experiences including people’s perceptions, opinions and feelings to shed light on the phenomenon of interest.

Sweden as a context of this study

In Sweden, PhD studies comprise 240 European credit transfer and accumulation system credits (equivalent to four years of full-time studies). Teaching is often part of doctoral students’ curricula when they are employed by a university, which can prolong their studies by one to two years. The number of newly enrolled doctoral students and those taking their doctoral degrees during 2018 was similar, coming to a total of around 17,000 doctoral students (SCB [ Statistics Sweden], 2019 ). No gender differences were reported among them in 2018. Of those who started their studies in 2010, 75% gained their degrees after eight years ( SCB [Statistics Sweden], 2019 ). The median age of the students was 32 years. As the majority (64%) of doctoral students are financed by being employed at a university ( SCB [Statistics Sweden], 2019 ), PhD candidates need to apply for the position in competition and cannot choose their supervisors when enrolling. Instead, supervisors and project leaders choose their doctoral students. For supervising a doctoral student in Sweden, one needs to have a PhD. Some universities also mandate completing a doctoral supervisor training course ranging from a few days to a few weeks.

Participants

Participants were recruited by applying purposeful sampling in combination with snowball strategy. Inclusion criteria for participation were being currently enrolled or having been enrolled at a Swedish university for a PhD program (graduation no later than 2010) and having experienced a change in supervisory arrangements. In total, 26 doctoral students were asked to participate in the study of which 19 agreed. Of the remainder, three did not reply and four declined participation.

To start with, three former doctoral students belonging to different subject areas and who had changed their supervisors (which the authors were aware of) were purposefully selected; they all agreed to be part of the study. After the interviews, the three participants were asked if she/he knew other doctoral students who had changed supervisors. These students were contacted by the authors and were asked to participate in the study.

The participants were between 31 and 58 years old (mean = 41.1) and were enrolled in five different universities in Southern Sweden. Of the 19 participants, 15 were women. In total, 12 of the participants had finalized their studies, mainly between 2018 and 2020 (of which two had a licentiate degree). The remainder were still enrolled as doctoral students and were at different stages of their program. Overall, they belonged to 11 different subject areas within social sciences including business-related and health-related subject areas, informatics and psychology.

Data collection

Data were collected from May to October 2020 through face to face, individual interviews with 19 doctoral students. A semi-structured interview guide was used that outlined a set of issues that were to be explored with each participant. However, the interviews allowed and welcomed openness to changes to follow the stories of the participants. Examples of the main questions are given below:

Can you tell me why you started your postgraduate education?

Could you describe your experiences of your postgraduate education (so far)?

Can you tell me about how do/did you experience your relationship with your supervisor/s?

What was the reason for the supervisory change?

How did you experience the process of the supervisory change?

How did the supervisory change affect you?

What are your recommendations to other doctoral students who are considering changing a supervisor?

One pilot interview was conducted to test the interview guide, which led to a minimal revision. Thus, the pilot interview was included in the analysis. Seven interviews were conducted in person while the remainder were conducted via the video communication tool Zoom, which guaranteed a face to face conversation. This latter option was mainly used due to current circumstances concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Five interviews were conducted in English while the remainder were held in the participants’ native language, Swedish. On average the interviews lasted 57 min (ranging from 36 to 105 min). All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Ethical considerations

The study was conducted in accordance with the Swedish law concerning research involving humans (SFS, 2003 ). Informed consent was given by all the participants prior to the interviews. The consent letter included information about the aim of the study, the right to withdraw at any given time without providing a reason, that participation was voluntary, that the interviews would be audio-recorded and that material would be stored in a safe way. Further, the participants were informed that the collected data would be treated confidentially and that only the authors of the study would be able to access it. The findings were presented at the group level.

Data were analyzed using thematic analysis (TA) by Braun and Clarke (2006 , 2019 ). TA is a method for identifying and interpreting patterns in what people say in data and why. TA is seen as being flexible and can range from a basic descriptive analysis or sematic meaning to the underlying or latent meaning in data. Though not linked to any theoretical framework, it is important to inform which theoretical position TA is being used in (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). In this study, the authors applied a “contextualist” method. Thus, the study rests on the assumption that the relationship between doctoral students and supervisors does not exist in a vacuum but is integrated and influenced by certain contexts such as a collegial environment, the scholarly community and the university or society at large. Further, it entails that the authors acknowledge the way the participants made meaning of their individual experiences but also consider that these individual meanings were influenced by a wider social context (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). This “in-between” epistemological position resonates with Willig (2013) assuming that “while experience is always a product of interpretation, and therefore, constructed […] it is nevertheless ‘real’ to the person who is having the experience” (p. 12). Thus, the authors consider the reality of changing supervisors by exploring the participants’ experiences and the meanings they make of it, which are embedded in a social context that influences their meaning making.

TA as proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) follows a systematic and thorough yet flexible and organic process involving six steps. Step one started with becoming familiar with the data that is the authors read and re-read the interview texts. The next step was organizing the data into meaningful groups. Codes were formed inductively that is they were “data driven” and this step was carried out individually by each author. This step resulted in a list of initial codes. At this stage, the authors could see that the doctoral students’ experiences did not differ when it came to a change in the main or co-supervisors, as the change was troublesome regardless of the supervisors’ official supervisory role. The third step involved sorting the different codes into potential themes, as well as identifying relationships between codes and themes and different levels of themes. This step was carried out individually by each author and thereafter in collaboration. At this stage, it was decided to structure the results chronologically, implying that the reported experiences of the supervisory change could stretch over an extended period of time. The fourth step, reviewing themes, showed the non-linear process of this analysis as the authors moved back and forth through most of the steps. Here the focus was on re-doing and breaking up themes and forming new themes as the authors started working together and compared their initial, individual work. More attention was paid to internal homogeneity within and external heterogeneity between themes to create clear distinctions between the themes. Step five involved generating clear definitions and names for each theme. Sub-themes were formed when considered necessary. Finally, the sixth step was the production of the report. Here the focus was on selecting appropriate quotations for each theme. The analysis thus, included both the semantic meaning and the latent meaning of the data.

There were regular discussions among the authors during the last three steps till consensus was reached. In this way, the trustworthiness of the results was enhanced (Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ).

As qualitative research is seen as a creative, reflexive and subjective process, researcher subjectivity is understood as a resource rather than a liability (Braun and Clarke, 2019 ). Thus, the authors were aware and open-minded about their pre-understanding and reflexivity during the entire research process. Both authors are women close to the mean age of the data sample who have successfully undergone a PhD education. Both authors have also experienced supervisory changes. Thus, it was important for the authors to reflect on their own biases or pre-conceptions and to have member checks, that is, to report back the preliminary findings to the participants for possible feedback to the authors, to verify the results and increase the study’s credibility (Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). While one author was familiar with qualitative studies and analyzes, the other was familiar with behavioral science. Both authors had experience in conducting research on doctoral students and doctoral student-related outcomes.

To get an overall understanding of the nature of the participants’ often complex situations, the authors now provide an overview of the reported reasons for the changes.

Reasons for a supervisory change

The participants had two–four supervisors prior to the change and after, with one exception where one doctoral student only had one supervisor after the change. In total, 14 out of 19 participants changed their main supervisors; in some cases, this was followed by yet another change of one of the co-supervisors. In addition, more than half the participants went through more than one change; often two to three changes and in two cases four changes. In a few instances, additional supervisory changes were being considered at the time of the interview. As the inclusion criteria included having had a supervisory change, a certain degree of initial problems was assumed, which was true for 18 out of 19 participants. In one exception, the change was experienced overall as positive prior, during and after the change. In this case, the change was not initiated by the doctoral student as it was due to the supervisor’s retirement plans. This felt natural in the research process as the change could be implemented smoothly with existing competence within the supervisory team and happened very late in the doctoral student’s research process, and thus, did not affect her/him. All the other participants, however, experienced some problems prior to the change and an improvement in the situation after the change, as least when compared to their previous situation.

The reasons for change highlighted by the doctoral students varied but often originated from a poor supervisory relationship. A dominant supervisory style, lack of communication and pedagogical skills and lack of belief in the students’ abilities were examples mentioned by the participants for the supervisory changes. Some students also experienced a lack of structure and clarity concerning what was expected of them. However, in some cases, a change of supervisor also indirectly or directly originated from the supervisor/s. In one case, the doctoral student was forced to change supervisors three times in a row because of supervisors moving away, while in two other cases, the supervisors’ moves were thought to be not an issue initially but resulted in the doctoral students choosing to switch supervisors after all. The retirement of the main supervisors also led to supervisory changes for two participants; in one case, the retired supervisor left and in the other, she/he stepped down to become a co-supervisor. Internal swaps within the supervisory team occurred frequently as well, and doctoral students were usually not part of these decisions. Organizational changes at the university level or cultural clashes were also issues for the participants, particularly for those not born in Sweden.

Experiences of changes in supervisory arrangements

The doctoral students often experienced a change in supervisory arrangements as a lengthy process that matured over several months or years. Therefore, the findings section is structured as “doctoral experiences prior to the change,” “doctoral experiences during the change” and “doctoral experiences after the change.”

Doctoral experiences prior to the change.

Doctoral students were hesitant in reaching a decision on whether to change a supervisor or not. They usually handled their thoughts and emotions originating from a supervisory problem on their own before communicating them. The following four main themes could be derived in this section, namely, “thinking twice,” “being emotionally drained,” “seeking distractions” and “who helps? Or not […].” The main themes are given in Table 1 .

Thinking twice.

Even though the doctoral students might have been informed about the possibility and their right to change supervisors during their studies, it was implicitly communicated to them that doing so would be wrong. For example, one participant said: “it was during an introduction day or something, when you got to see all the different forms and how everything works and such […] this person said ‘here are different forms, including one form for changing supervisors, but you are not supposed to do that. However, there is such a possibility’” (interview 15). Thus, the students were fostered in an academic culture that imposed on them the view that supervisory change was bad, wrong and a failure. This, in turn, could evoke feelings of shame and stigma, which prevented the students from expressing problems associated with their PhD studies or supervisors. Doctoral students were aware of their right to change supervisors, yet they were mindful of the risks and consequences of a possible change. This made some of the students remain in harmful and destructive supervisory relationships for strategic reasons while others stayed keeping their approaching graduation in mind.

Being seen as a troublemaker by other scholars or the management was another reason for doctoral students “thinking twice” before changing supervisors. Instead, the students felt the need to appear accepting and thankful as they had been given the possibility to carry out their research. They felt that they were expected to behave this way.

“Interviewer: Why did you stay for such a long time? Doctoral student: I do not know. Good question. I just wanted to finish. I did not want to cause trouble. […] I did not want to cause trouble. I did not want to cause trouble. I just said. ‘OK, if I try enough to please her, if I just work hard enough, eventually she will realize that I can write; I can do this.’ Till in the end, after four years, I realized that she never wanted me to pass” (interview 7).

Being in an inferior position, the doctoral students believed that supervisors were more experienced in academia and trusted their supervisors’ assessment of how the supervision process should be formed. One participant said: “as you have never had a supervisor before, you take it for granted that they know what they are doing. So, you just go along and do not ask that many questions” (interview 4). These feelings restrained the students from taking any action. In retrospect, many of them were surprised with themselves and questioned why they had not reacted and been more questioning, demanding or inquisitive before the change. Finally, fear caused by a very dominant supervisory style led to not daring to speak up and becoming passive, thus prolonging the process of decision-making further, which paralyzed the students.

“Now when I think about it and when I’ve become my normal self, I just get mad at myself, ‘Why did you believe his bullshit? It’s not like he had that power. Why did you let him over-rule you like that or put you down so much? You should have just like told him: ‘Show me’!” (interview 5).

Being emotionally drained.

An underlying feeling of irritation due to recurring relational problems was common among the doctoral students, with one exception. Most students experienced high emotional strain prior to taking a decision to change supervisors. One participant said: “I tried to quit. I took it to heart and I felt really bad. And I was probably very close to going into the wall […] or getting into depression or something. It was so bad. I cried every day for weeks” (interview 4). Bitterness, loneliness, depressive symptoms, anger and a sense of loss of self-confidence, drive and motivation were among the feelings expressed by the participants. Crying for long periods of time was repeatedly mentioned by several students. This long period of coming to a decision posed the risk of an increased level of mental health problems. It could also affect their private lives thus, spilling over to their family lives, influencing sleeping patterns and they felt it was difficult to distance themselves from the problem. This was also noticed by their spouses.

“I have never felt that way, the way I did then. Not even in the worst phases in my life. He broke me down, where I was like just being numb. I wouldn’t […] I didn’t […] I didn’t know what. I just woke up, and I slept. But what happened in between those […] that time, I had no idea. Like I was just numb. He broke… He managed to break me down” (interview 5).

“I can say that in that group I felt very oppressed. I can say I did not want to kill myself, but I felt […] Damn how bad I felt in her relationship. So, it's […] I cried every day, and it was awful. It was […] I felt really bad, and really, really, really downtrodden” (interview 6).

Seeking distractions.

When the strain for some doctoral students became very high and they felt they were not moving forward and were just enduring their situation, they tried to distract themselves from the research process and from the poor supervisory relationship to find other domains that they could succeed in, for example, taking courses. One participant turned to teaching: “I tried to improve my teaching skills instead and I started teaching. I started getting, you know, positive feedback from the students. I tried to improve all my teaching techniques” (interview 3). In this way, they felt that they were not just wasting time. However, it could also be brought up against them by the supervisors who might claim they were focusing on the wrong things and were not interested in research.

“It might have affected me more than I thought. Although there was an advantage; during the toughest time I took the courses. I could get really into it and leave the research process totally […] And not give a crap about it. I hoped that it would be solved within ten weeks’ time or so. Or something like that” (interview 12).

Who helps? Or not […].

After acknowledging that there was a problem that was not about to disappear, the doctoral students communicated their feelings and thoughts to someone else. In a few cases, the students were approached by either another supervisor or other doctoral students as they appeared sad and down. Being able to air one’s feelings opened a gateway for some, as they finally talked to someone and could get support, be empowered and be pushed forward; it was as if they had been waiting for informal approval. For several doctoral students, there was a person who directly or indirectly helped them embark on the endeavor of moving forward with a supervisory change. This could be the study director or a supervisor. Others were left entirely on their own or even discouraged and told that they were not allowed to change supervisors. The management/leadership was usually experienced as a letdown by the doctoral students as they prioritized protecting their own interests, that is, the reputation of the supervisors and the university, rather than protecting the students’ rights.

“I told them, ‘I want to switch, and I have the right to do this. Enough is enough’. And then we all met. I contacted the labor union and everyone, the head of the department. Everyone was involved […] Everyone was involved. Then I tried to switch. And then there was an e-mail that came, saying that ‘You know what? We have decided that you are not allowed to switch. You have to continue’” (interview 5).

“What I really want to say is that as a doctoral student, if you end up in any kind of conflict with your supervisor, it is totally clear that there is no one who will support your perspective. There was vast support for the supervisors and professors within the senior research group. There they supported each other and had each other's back. But there was nothing like […] From a working environment perspective, there was no support. There was no one who said, ‘How are you?’ or something…” (interview 14).

Doctoral experiences during the change.

Often a crucial event resulted in students’ reaching a point of no return. The change itself could be experienced as positive despite having a troublesome prehistory, but some experienced the change as traumatic. Four main sub-themes are discussed in this theme, namely, “keeping a clean conscience,” “fighting for your rights,” “entering the battlefield” and “the execution.”

Keeping a clean conscience.

The doctoral students wanted to be fair and humane in the process of changing supervisors. Taking a long-term perspective, they did not want to be burdened with a feeling of regret over their behavior in the future. As one of the participants said: “but like if I meet him in 10 years, I do not want him to be able to accuse me of anything […]. Then, I want my back completely free and I want to know that I have done what I could to try to sort it out, to try to save the situation” (interview 12). Many understood that they had to take some part of the responsibility and were eager to keep fairly good relationships with their supervisors after the change as none of them wanted to hurt someone deliberately. Having come to a decision, the students wanted to communicate it in a transparent way, acting in an honest and upfront manner.

“Because I was told, ‘We would like to help you to start a dialogue [with the supervisor that you want to replace]’ I said, ‘But I do not want it [decision to change] to come from anyone but myself’ […] I do not want there to be any consequences in retrospect […] or schisms in the group” (interview 9).

Fighting for your rights.

Those doctoral students who felt that they had been treated unfairly by the organization, the study director or supervisor could be motivated by the lack of fair play and fought harder for their right to change supervisors. Feeling reluctant, indecisive and hesitant at the beginning and often even considering quitting rather than taking on the struggle of changing supervisors, could now change into feeling spurred and fight back. This feeling was sparked by others’ unfair and offensive behavior toward them. One participant said: “so I am fighting back this time. I have learned my lesson. I cannot keep retreating. So, I am fighting back. […] I will fight back. I will come back. I will come back. Yeah. So, we will see” (interview 7). To give up might be seen by others as admitting being the cause of the problem; therefore, the students tried to hang on. Seeing other doctoral students who in fact had quit due to poor supervisory relationships encouraged them not to go down the same road and give up.

“I cannot live with myself knowing that, ‘OK, you gave up because of that [problems]’. I mean I’ve been so close to giving up so many times. But every time I thought, ‘You know what? I mean who are you?’ […] like what the hell? You know. At least I have to fight back. Try something” (interview 5).

Entering the battlefield.

In a few cases, when consensus could be reached and interests were aligned (for example, by internal swaps for merit, career possibilities for junior supervisors or by making the project leader the main supervisor) the change was unproblematic and undramatic with no hurt feelings. However, changes due to poor supervisory relationships could often end traumatically and were experienced as a declaration of war by the students. They came to some sort of realization as expressed by one of the participants: “and it was probably like I came to some kind of tipping point, where I felt, ‘now that’s it. I am not taking any more of this shit […]’” (interview 19). The most traumatic cases involved a final dispute between the supervisor and the student that escalated into an open conflict with open attacks.

“When the other supervisors joined us, I think she realized […] When we had a meeting, which we rarely had, where all of us, the three supervisors and I met. And I think what happened then was that maybe she felt a little threatened. When she verbalized that I was not happy […] informed the others […]. Admitting it to the others, maybe she felt a bit stressed. And felt that she had to put some blame on me too. She attacked me terribly during this meeting. And I felt so stressed that I […] She asked, ‘Do you want to replace me? Do you want to replace me?’. I felt that I couldn’t say anything else. Yes, so then […] I guess I have to take that road. I felt extremely pressured by her, that she suddenly changed strategy 180 degrees and attacked me like this, so that I just felt that I had to say that I wanted to replace her” (interview 2).

The execution.

The official change itself was often experienced as fast and unbureaucratic and was perceived as unimportant. It involved signatures of all involved that is the doctoral student, the supervisor who was removed, the new supervisor (if any) and the study director. Most of the students did not care much about the formal procedures of the change and often this task was handled by the study director or one of the supervisors. The part that mattered most to the students was the practical side of the change, that is, with the new supervisory constellation starting afresh.

“But we changed it informally first. So, we started having […] supervision meetings with the main supervisor and the new supervisor, without the former co-supervisor. We continued with that for another six months. […] No one cared actually! Hahaha! No one cared! Until the former supervisor said […] ‘Oh [student’s name] you know, I will send you an application that you have to sign’” (interview 16).

“Administratively, it was quite effortless. The difficulty was getting hold of the former main supervisor so he could sign the papers. […] And that took at least another month till we got the signature. For a while we thought, ‘We’ll go on anyway, he can sign when he feels like it’. But you have to get it done, formally. It was quite […] it took some time to get hold of him” (interview 8).

Doctoral experiences after the change.

Although the doctoral students’ experiences before the change could in many cases be negative and unpleasant, they mostly talked positively once the change was handled. All the students reported an improvement, in some cases not optimal but still somewhat better. However, many had several supervisory changes. Four main themes were derived in this section, namely, “a new beginning,” “looking for confirmation,” “oops! I did it again” and “dealing with the aftermath.”

A new beginning.

After completion of the change, the doctoral students felt relieved, free and energized. As one of the participants said: “I think the strength came after I fired her and I felt that I had renewed energy to do research. Then, I realized I liked to do research. I really, really enjoyed doing research” (interview 7). If the supervisor was replaced by a new one, he or she came into the supervisory team very fast to avoid further delays. They experienced the new supervisor constellation working better than the previous one and the same was true for the relationships between supervisors. The new situation motivated the students; they found a new interest in their projects and were eager to continue. Issues such as poor writing ability or lack of structure or direction that were criticized earlier disappeared instantly. As those problems previously impacted negatively on the students’ self-confidence, even this had changed now and they regained their strength to go on.

“I felt so incredibly uplifted. I felt motivated. It felt so enjoyable. It was like, ‘Is this how supervision should be? Oh, really!’ And you can almost get sad about that. So […] But then the work took off, when the two [new supervisors] took over. And […] It was such an incredible process, so much more fun” (interview 12).

“So, from a short-term perspective, right before, I probably repressed everything, it was tough when the change was obvious. It was certainly difficult. I cannot say anything else. But in the long run, it was great not to have a relationship anymore that did not work. So, in the long run it turned out great. I got […] I got to experience a supervisor whom I could actually discuss things with, even discuss the questions I had. It was fantastic. Yes” (interview 11).

The students felt safe and supported and dared to step forward with their ideas; their productivity increased dramatically as their motivation and energy were renewed after the change.

Several students had the possibility of choosing the new supervisors themselves. They carefully chose the new supervisors depending on the problems that they had faced with the previous ones. Supervisors who abused their power were often replaced by supervisors known to be fair, correct and with pedagogic skills; supervisors lacking expertise in method or the subject area were replaced by those who were experts and accomplished researchers in the field.

Looking for confirmation.

The doctoral students were very self-critical and appreciated getting some sort of confirmation of having taken the right decision. They could, however, ponder over how much of the problem they had actually caused themselves. Confirmation was, thus, a very important factor that empowered them in continuing and being reassured that they had taken the right decision. One participant expressed her way of getting confirmation as: “and then, he [replaced supervisor] wrote quite clearly in this e-mail that his goal from the beginning was to have communication with [my supervisor]. So, he hoped that they could work together. In addition, that was confirmation for me that I had taken the right decision” (interview 17). This confirmation could come from those persons who had helped and supported the students like colleagues who knew about the change or even from the supervisor who was removed when acting out of line or making other mistakes in the organization.

“She supervised another male doctoral student, and they got into trouble. And then she took on a third doctoral student, a woman. And there was trouble too and it ended. So […] Maybe, earlier I thought it might have been my fault, that I hadn’t acted correctly somehow. But because I got this confirmation […] that it was not just me who was a problem, but other students came forward… and I talked to those students […] they had the same problems that I had” (interview 1).

“I felt that some people understood what I was going through and that I definitely was not the problem. And I wanted to hear that. Because I felt […] […] because you buy it […] how much have I contributed to the problem? How much of the problem have I created and caused? Should I have done something differently? So, I was happy to hear comments, that […] Then I was in contact with [name], a former doctoral student [of the same supervisor]. And […] And she understood me very well. That felt good, too. Also, some colleagues, teachers who had courses together with her [supervisor], they knew what she is like. So, I got confirmation that [the change] was something all had been waiting for, or thought would happen. It was not surprising for them” (interview 2).

Oops! I did it again.

Considering the lengthy process of the PhD education, around half of the doctoral students (10 out of 19) went through two–four changes in their supervisory arrangements. Several of them were considering new changes even while the interviews were conducted. It was, thus, rather common and certainly not exceptional to have to handle different reasons for the changes involving different supervisors. Students could decide to add new supervisors to the team or internal swaps within the team were agreed on by supervisors. Sometimes other supervisors’ superfluity became obvious to the students once a supervisor was removed from the team. This was experienced as additionally problematic and caused further feelings of stigma among the students as the likelihood now increased of being really seen as the problem and the real troublemaker. One of the participants expressed her worries as: “I have already switched. I cannot continue like this. I cannot have the label ‘the switcher’” (interview 5). However, a change often involved different supervisors and was experienced as unique. Thus, calling it “repetitive” only simplifies the matter, as supervisory changes can occur for multiple reasons.

“How will I be perceived? Everyone deserves a second chance. I will be that super awkward doctoral student who just brushes away her supervisors. So somehow I did not accept it” (interview 12).

“And that’s when it became clear to me. Because if you do it once, it is what it is. But if you do it twice in a row, I thought, ‘Oh. Now people will understand that I am the problem. It will be clear if I start all over again and change my co-supervisor.’ So, I thought about it a lot, but in the end I did it anyway. And it was taken very badly by my other supervisors, I can tell you” (interview 2).

Dealing with the aftermath.

Apart from being happy and satisfied after making the change(s) and having a better research process, some doctoral students also experienced negative long-term consequences. Some supervisors who were removed from the supervisory team took it personally and behaved in vengeful ways such as talking badly about the students in the workplace, refusing to register any obtained course credits or trying to interfere in their career plans. Data loss or issues concerning ownership of data or publications of manuscripts that the students had started also needed to be handled in a few cases, which was time-consuming.

“He spread nasty things about me everywhere around our workplace […] He was on a lot of committees and stuff” (interview 4).

“He just wanted to put sticks in the wheels [for me]. Probably because he lived a lot on trying to paint a picture that there was nothing wrong with him, something was always wrong with the doctoral students” (interview 19).

The doctoral students understood that bitter feelings could impact them negatively long after the change and they wanted to avoid this risk and instead move forward. They wanted an outlook that included seeing the bigger picture and being among the next generation of supervisors. A few of the students were supervising or were about to become supervisors and were aware of which approach they would take.

“I feel like I wasted so much time of my life which I could have invested in so many other things. On the other hand, if it taught me something, it is to always be humble. Don’t ever ditch someone, or don’t ever abuse your power. If you have some type of power or something, don’t ever abuse it; never. If you’re […] like I believe the one who’s strong is the one who can lift others” (interview 5).

Some doctoral students felt that they had come out stronger after changing their supervisors and were able to tackle any kind of problem after the unpleasant experience and had gained mental strength.

“So, I’m just like a spear. I just went through everything. And maybe I taught myself to be resilient. So, I was resilient in this sense” (interview 16).

The purpose of this study was to explore how doctoral students experienced a change in supervisory arrangements. It takes the much-overlooked perspective of the doctoral students. The findings show that changes in supervisory arrangements stretched over several phases and doctoral students took many aspects into account before deciding to change their supervisors. Even though in Sweden doctoral students have the right to change a supervisor (SFS, 1993 ), the findings of this study suggest that the decision to change a supervisor, the process of change and the time after the change were traumatic and troublesome when the doctoral students experienced supervisory relationships.

Prior to the change

Prior to the supervisory changes, the doctoral students often thought twice before bringing up the question of change either for strategic reasons or because they were hesitant, eager to please or passive. Due to the lengthy pre-phase of the decision-making, the students felt emotionally drained and exhausted, which led to thoughts of quitting their studies. The doctoral students also tried to seek distractions and, in some cases, though help was offered, often they felt alone with their problems. The internal struggles and expressed hesitance when considering supervisory changes may be explained by the institutionalized attribution of the lower status of doctoral students in academia (Mendoza, 2007 ). The students appear to be conditioned to feel being on the lowest levels of the organizational hierarchy and as a consequence, they are fearful of being seen as troublemakers – “stepping on the toes” of their superiors. Moreover, presented with an ideal picture of a doctoral student’s journey (such as a friction-free supervision relationship and a smooth path toward dissertation defense), any deviation from this ideal might create an intrapersonal dissonance. This predisposes the students to maintain the status quo in focal relationships, that is, with their supervisors and other powerful actors (Bicchieri and Mercier, 2014 ). The political agenda of powerful internal actors could be yet another explanation for the internal struggles faced by the students in deciding to go for a supervisory change (Lucey and Rogers, 2007 ). Reluctant to tip the balance in established power structures in their research groups or departments, doctoral students might forfeit their right to change and instead opt for upholding the power structures that they are a part of as they fear reprimands or reprisals (Manathunga, 2007 ; Grant, 2008 ). However, it appears that holding back on a decision to change, doctoral students experienced the tension that was reflected in their decreasing well-being. According to Kiley and Wisker (2009) , these unresolved relational tensions in the supervision process and internal struggles experienced by the doctoral students may lead to attrition, non-completion and mental illnesses among students. Internal struggles experienced by the doctoral students lead to their falling into a liminal, suspended state (Meyer and Land, 2006 ). There, they may experience difficulties in finding their identity as researchers or even finding motivation and self-confidence to continue their education (Kiley and Wisker, 2009 ); aspects that this study discusses. The liminal state observed in this study is highlighted by education research that shows that learners entering such stages during the learning process usually see this stage as long-lasting, confusing, irreversible and alien (Perkins, 1999 ; Kiley and Wisker, 2009 ). Thus, the findings provide a better understanding of the internal struggles and lack of well-being doctoral students experience during the early stages of supervisory changes. Further, the study’s findings suggest that reliance on a trustworthy network of colleagues and fellow doctoral students may be one way of overcoming these internal struggles for doctoral students and getting through this stage. Opening up to one’s inner circle helps students resolve their struggles and make sense of the situation. Those students who isolate themselves or withhold their negative experiences of supervision are faced with the risks of losing faith, motivation and self-confidence and developing mental health problems.

During the change

Coming to the actual change, the doctoral students wanted to keep a clean conscience initially, however, when met with resistance and unfair treatment, they felt forced to fight for their rights and burocratic were willing to enter the battlefield , almost like a war declaration. The official side of the change, t he execution , was merely perceived as unimportant paperwork, while the students focused on continuing their studies with the new supervisory constellation.

While the previous phase mostly involved doctoral students’ internal struggles, this phase included open fights and public discussions, which was equally exhausting and emotionally draining for doctoral students. The difficulties and frustration experienced by the doctoral students who participated in this study have been described in similar terms by Carter (2016) , who explored supervisors’ experiences of challenging supervision. Like doctoral students, these supervisors too reported feelings of loss of academic identity, lack of confidence and exhaustion when struggling with supervision. At this stage, doctoral students come to terms with their decision to change and make a conscious choice to stay in academia no matter the difficulties associated with changing a supervisor. This process of “overcoming” illustrated by these findings is similar to the findings of other studies describing how learners cross an invisible threshold in their development, which stimulates further learning and also changes one’s perceptions of learning capacity (Meyer and Land, 2006 ; Carter, 2016 ). At this stage, doctoral students included in this study overcame a threshold (Kiley and Wisker, 2010 ; Meyer and Land, 2006 ) by externalizing their previously internalized struggles by being more vocal about their experiences and bringing them into the open (Bryan and Guccione, 2018 ). In the process of this externalization, they gained a new way of understanding, interpreting and viewing the situation (Kiley and Wisker, 2010 ; Meyer and Land, 2006 ), which potentially helped them to progress further in their doctoral studies. Thus, these findings provide a better understanding of the “threshold overcoming” process and highlight how externalization of internal struggles occurs. Further, the study’s findings suggest that through externalization of their previously internalized struggles, doctoral students may gain a better understanding of academia by experiencing how and which different forces worked for and against them in the process of change. Moreover, the findings indicate that going through this difficult period, doctoral students might come to realize their own strengths and weaknesses, which could enable them in their learning. Finally, it is in this stage that the role of the study directors of doctoral programs becomes acutely important as they could be expected to deal with the situation and manage different stakeholders in the process of supervisory change. They appear to be one of the most important shapers of doctoral students’ experiences at this stage and their actions could have long lasting consequences for doctoral students’ further journeys in academia.

After the change

After the supervisory changes, doctoral students embarked on a new beginning , which was perceived to be re-energizing and which contributed to a feeling of entering a productive research phase. Still, shaken by the event, confirmation from others helped them move forward and regain self-confidence. Capitalizing on the gained experience of changing supervisors who did not fit their needs, some of the doctoral students proceeded with further changes in supervisory arrangements with the goal of composing a team that they felt comfortable with. With the aim of arranging a well-functioning supervisory team, doctoral students were weary of how they may be perceived by others for changing their supervisors yet again . Even though some doctoral students had to deal with the aftermath of vengeful supervisors and were negatively impacted long after, they were eager to move forward and had a feeling of accomplishment.

The findings of this study show that once the supervisory changes were complete, doctoral students regained strength, energy and resilience and were able to move forward. These findings echo Wisker and Robinson’s (2013) findings that suggest that doctoral students who had “survived” being left by their supervisors and who had completed their studies, that is, after the supervisory changes, felt resilient with regard to “becoming unstuck,” being able to tackle problems, coping with new demands and regaining ownership of their projects. Further, this analysis resonates with Bryan and Guccione’s (2018) findings that doctoral students feel proud of their accomplishments and became resilient despite negative experiences. This study describes doctoral students’ experiences as being reminiscent of war, suffering, being in a battlefield and survival. This description is similar to Bryan and Guccione’s (2018) study in which former doctoral students described negative experiences during their doctoral studies using the same terms.

Developing resilience and gaining a feeling of accomplishment was reinforced by positive experiences that most of the students had with their new supervisors. Regaining confidence in their scientific capacity was especially obvious when doctoral students could choose their new supervisors (Lovitts, 2001 ; Schlosser et al. , 2003 ). Moreover, students’ ability to see a successful end to their doctoral journeys, can be explained by their feeling of mastery over their own destiny and control that was partly reflected in the concept of “becoming unstuck” described by Kiley and Wisker (2009) . In the process of becoming unstuck, learners were enabled to develop a new way of approaching their own learning and understanding of the roles that different stakeholders play in this process (McKenna, 2017 ).

Thus, these findings provide an insight into the aftermath of the change and reveal the processes through which doctoral students gain resilience and renewed energy. Further, the study’s findings suggest that by moving into this phase, doctoral students may gain a feeling of independence and control. This suggests that going through the other stages, doctoral students might look forward to a brighter future of their academic career. They might also expect to become a more resilient person, ready to deal with any further challenges on their further academic journey.

The findings of this study make a number of contributions to the extant literature on doctoral students’ experiences during their studies (Devos et al. , 2017 ; Schmidt and Umans, 2014 ). First, by highlighting doctoral students’ experiences during a crucial event – supervisory change – in their doctoral education, this study contributes to this nascent stream of research (Wisker and Robinson, 2013 ) and paves the way for further investigation of these experiences. Second, by highlighting how doctoral students experience supervisory changes in different stages, this study provides an in-depth understanding of the process of supervisory change from the doctoral students’ perspective. Third, the study contributes to the literature by exploring the supervisory relationship in PhD education (Lee, 2020 ; Gatfield, 2005 ) and highlights how the dynamics of that relationship evolve and are reflected in doctoral students’ experiences and decisions related to supervisory changes. Fourth, by highlighting doctoral students’ experiences of their well-being throughout the process of a supervisory change, this study contributes to the extant literature on doctoral students’ experiences of their well-being (Schmidt and Hansson, 2018 ; Evans et al. , 2018 ). Finally, this study contributes to the literature describing doctoral students’ experiences in an academic context (Mendoza, 2007 ; Kulikowski et al. , 2019 ) and their perceptions of this context being both enabling and disabling in the process of supervisory change.

Practical implications and future research directions

This study highlights the importance of process management not only from within the student-supervisor constellation but also among powerful external actors. The findings suggest that academic institutions should establish clear guidelines that are not only documented but are also implemented in practice, and that de-dramatization of the changes in supervisory arrangements should be an important institutional practice.

The results of this study suggest that more awareness about doctoral students’ experiences of the relationships with their supervisors is needed at all involved levels in doctoral programs. Study directors already have regular meetings with all doctoral students as stipulated by the study plan. However, a more open-minded environment will be helpful for doctoral students to be able to come forward with problematic supervisory relationships. In several cases, the study director was not seen as helpful and students felt alone in the process of supervisory change. Thus, it is crucial to recruit individuals who are well-fitted for the position as study directors; they should be willing to hold uncomfortable discussions and their authority should not only rest on their position in the line organization but also on their proven record of successful supervision at the doctoral level. For supervisors, it would be desirable to initiate and continue a transparent agenda and planning process that involves doctoral students as much as possible. More acceptance for the fact that doctoral students have the right to choose supervisors will help doctoral students avoid feelings of wrongdoing. As for doctoral students, it is suggested that they have a tight network with other doctoral students and remain observant of their emotional state as the study shows that doctoral students often choose to share their experiences with other doctoral students. While this study has been conducted in a Swedish context, its findings are relevant for academia in general because institutions of higher education are structured and organized similarly.

This study has highlighted the doctoral students’ perspectives. Future studies should explore supervisors’ and study directors’ perspectives in the context of supervisory changes and are seen as equally important. Moreover, future research should further explore other relational aspects of changes in supervisory arrangements. For example, inter-relationships focusing on the supervisory team, relationships between doctoral students and institutional management or supervisors’ status and standing in the institutions that they are employed in could be further explored.

Limitations

This study is not without its limitations. First, the snowball sampling method is prone to bias (Atkinson and Flint, 2004 ). This means that doctoral students often chose those similar to them which poses the risk of a homogenous sample. In this case, 15 of the participants were women. Yet, of those seven students who declined to participate in the study/did not answer, five were men, which could indicate that it is more difficult to involve men in such a discussion. In fact, two of those men declined to be a part of the study as they had difficulties talking about their unpleasant experiences.

Second, even though the doctoral students varied in age, the average age of the sample was around 10 years older compared to the average age of all doctoral students in Sweden impacting on the representativeness of the sample. It further may raise questions whether younger doctoral students could experience supervisory change differently compared to more mature students.

Third and finally, this study only included persons who were currently enrolled or had finalized their studies, discarding the perspective of students who had quit PhD programs. It is believed that valuable information could be gained by including former doctoral students who decided to quit their studies, perhaps, because they found the change too hard to go through with.

Overview of the main themes from the thematic analysis

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Acknowledgements

The authors thanks all participants for sharing their stories with them. Schmidt, M. acknowledges support from the Media, Management and Transformation Centre (MMTC) at Jönköping University.

Conflict of interest : The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Types Of Difficult PhD Supervisors And How To Successfully Deal With Them

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Supervision is a difficult task, and there is often conflict between supervisors and their PhD students. Even if you find a supervisor with whom you have excellent rapport, there can still be problems. Here are some of the types of difficult supervisor which you might encounter, and tips on how to manage them.

Micromanagers

A micromanager is one who is overly controlling and wishes to make input on all of your decisions, however small. For example, they may want to check every single slide or piece of writing which you produce, multiple times. Or they may try to dictate the way in which you divide up your time and how you prioritise. Micromanagers can be difficult to deal with, as different students and supervisors have different ideas about how much management a supervisor should perform. For some PhD students, having a lot of guidance and having their work checked regularly can be reassuring, while for others, it feels patronising. So if you find you supervisor to be too involved, remember that this is an issue of preference and not necessarily an indication that your supervisor thinks that you are not competent.

To deal with a micromanager, you'll need to take a dual approach: firstly, demonstrating that you can perform tasks competently without their guidance. If you show that you can prepare a presentation well, for example, without their influence, then they will feel less need to manage you in the future. The other approach is to talk with them and try to discover their underlying concerns. Do they feel like they need to micromanage because they are concerned about your ability to organize your time? Do they worry that your research will go over budget? Or are they trying to be supportive by giving you lots of feedback on your writing? Identify the underlying concern which is leading to the micromanaging behaviour, and try to demonstrate that their worries are not founded.

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Absentee supervisors are those who are not present during your PhD, either physically (i.e. they are away travelling a lot) or metaphorically (they are so busy that you never see them). This is a common problem with senior professors and those who supervise lots of PhD students. Without advice and guidance from a supervisor, performing your PhD research is much harder.

To deal with an absentee supervisor, you can first try laying out an agreement with them about regular meetings. If you can arrange a meeting with them once a week or once every two weeks at a set time, you'll know that you at least have the chance to get their input on any issues. Often professors can be bad at replying to emails, so a face-to-face meeting is the best way to get their attention. If you can't get regular meetings with them, you can turn to your second supervisor or other senior researchers who you trust, and ask for input from them instead. However, if it is truly not possible to see your supervisor regularly, you should consider moving to a different supervisor who can give you and your research the time and attention which you deserve.

Overly Critical

It is part of the supervisor's job to offer criticism of your work, but some supervisors take this too far. Supervisors who yell at their students, who belittle them, or who make unpleasant personal comments are not unheard of. Dealing with such a supervisor can leave students stressed, depressed, and insecure about their own abilities . Doing a PhD can certainly be an emotional experience, but if students are regularly leaving the office in tears after speaking with their supervisor, then something is very wrong.

To deal with such a supervisor, you will need to assess how severe the situation is. If you supervisor is generally well meaning but rather harsh with their feedback, you can try talking to them about your overall progress in your PhD. Some supervisors, especially if they are new to management, forget that it's important to give positive feedback as well as pointing out errors. They may in fact be very satisfied with your work, but they only mention the negative points that they see. In this case, by talking to them about your overall progress you can get a more positive picture of your work.

In severe cases, however, this may not help. If a supervisor is abusive towards you and they are having an overall negative effect on your life and your work, then you need to protect yourself by leaving their group and finding a new supervisor. Remember that a supervisor should support you and assist you, not make you feel like a failure. You can always get another supervisor, but your mental health is of the highest priority.

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10 truths a PhD supervisor will never tell you

There are some important dos and don’ts to bear in mind when choosing someone to oversee your doctoral thesis, advises tara brabazon.

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My father used to tell a joke, over and over again. It was a classic outback Australian, Slim Dusty joke that – like the best dad jokes – I can’t remember. But I do recall the punchline. “Who called the cook a bastard?” To which the answer was, “Who called the bastard a cook?”

This riposte often comes to mind during discussions about doctoral supervision and candidature management. Discussions go on (and on and on) about quality, rigour, ethics and preparedness. Postgraduates are monitored, measured and ridiculed for their lack of readiness or their slow progress towards completion. But inconsistencies and problems with supervisors and supervision are marginalised. In response, I think of my father’s one-liner: Who called the supervisor a bastard? Who called the bastard a supervisor?

To my mind, I never received any satisfactory, effective or useful supervision for my doctorate, research master’s or two coursework master’s that contained sizeable dissertation components. I found the supervisors remote and odd. A couple of them tried to block the submission of the theses to my institution. Indeed, on three separate occasions in my career, academics informed me that if I submitted this thesis, it would fail. The results that followed these warnings were a master of arts passed with distinction, a master of education with first-class honours and a dean’s award, and a PhD passed without correction. I was left with the impression that these supervisors had no idea what they were doing. The worst supervisors share three unforgivable characteristics:

• They do not read your writing
• They never attend supervisory meetings
• They are selfish, career-obsessed bastards

I am now an experienced supervisor and examiner, but I still remember my own disappointments. For the doctoral students who follow, I want to activate and align these personal events with the candidatures I have managed since that time. Particularly, I wish to share with the next generation of academics some lessons that I have learned about supervisors.

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As a prospective PhD student, you are precious. Institutions want you – they gain funding, credibility and profile through your presence. Do not let them treat you like an inconvenient, incompetent fool. Do your research. Ask questions. Use these 10 truths to assist your decision.

1. The key predictor of a supervisor’s ability to guide a postgraduate to completion is a good record of having done so

Ensure that at least one member of your supervisory team is a very experienced supervisor. Anyone can be appointed to supervise. Very few have the ability, persistence, vision, respect and doggedness to move a diversity of students through the examination process. Ensure that the department and university you are considering assign supervisors on the basis of intellectual ability rather than available workload. Supervising students to completion is incredibly difficult. The final few months require complete commitment from both supervisor and postgraduate. Make sure that you are being guided by a supervisor who understands the nature of effective supervision and has proved it through successful completions.

2. You choose the supervisor. Do not let the institution overrule your choice

As a postgraduate who is about to dedicate three or four years to an institution, you have the right to select a supervisor with whom you feel comfortable. Yet increasingly, as the postgraduate bureaucracy in universities increases, administrators and managers “match” a prospective candidate with a supervisor. Do not let this happen. Do research on the available staff. Talk directly with individual academics. Ascertain their willingness to supervise you, and then inform the graduate centre or faculty graduate administrators of their commitment.

3. Stars are attractive but may be distant. Pick a well-regarded supervisor who does not spend too much time away

It may seem a tough, unusual or impossible task to find a supervisor who has a strong profile but rarely goes away on research leave or disappears to attend conferences. Postgraduates need to be supervised by people with an international reputation whose name carries weight when they write references. But they must not be jet-setting professors, frequently leaving the campus and missing supervisory meetings to advance their own career. They must be established and well known, but available to supervise you rather than continually declining your requests for meetings because they are travelling to Oslo, Luanda or Hong Kong.

4. Bureaucratic immunity is vital. Look for a supervisor who will protect you from ‘the system’

There is an excessive amount of university doctoral administration. I understand and welcome the value in checking the ethical expenditure of public money; a programme of study submitted in the first year and an annual progress report through the candidature will accomplish this task. But now we have to deliver milestone reports, public confirmations of candidature sessions, biannual progress reports, annual oral presentations of research and – in some universities – complete a form that must be signed off at the conclusion of every supervisory meeting.

Every moment a student is filling in a form is one less moment they are reading a book or article, or writing a key page in their doctorate. Time is finite. Bureaucracy is infinite. A good supervisor will protect you from the excesses of supervisory administration.

The irony of many graduate centres is that they initiate incredibly high demands on students and supervisors yet are incredibly lax during crucial periods of the candidature when a rapid administrative response is required. One of my postgraduates had to wait 16 months for a decision on her doctorate. Two examiners had returned timely reports and passed with minor corrections. The third academic, however, did not examine the thesis, did not submit any paperwork and did not respond to any communications. I sent email after email – made phone call after phone call – to the graduate centre trying to facilitate a resolution to this examination. Finally, after a rather intensive period of nagging, a decision was reached to accept the two reports and no longer wait for the third. The question remains – why did the graduate centre take 16 months to make this decision? If I had not phoned and emailed administrators, would they have forgotten about this student? A good supervisor must be an advocate for the postgraduate through the increasingly bureaucratised doctoral candidature.

5. Byline bandits abound. Study a potential supervisor’s work

Does your prospective supervisor write with PhD students? Good. Do they write almost exclusively with their PhD students? Not so good – in fact, alarm bells should start ringing. Supervision is a partnership. If your prospective supervisor appears to be adding his or her name to students’ publications and writing very little independently, be concerned. Some supervisors claim co-authorship of every publication written during the candidature. Do not think that this is right, assumed, proper or the default setting. The authorship of papers should be discussed. My rule is clear: if I write it, it is mine. If you write it, it is yours. If we write it together, we share the authorship. It is important that every postgraduate finishes the candidature with as many publications as possible. Ask supervisors how they will enhance and facilitate your research and publishing career. Remember, you are a PhD student. Your supervisor should assist you to become an independent scholar, not make you into their unpaid research assistant.

6. Be wary of co-supervisors

Most institutions insist on at least two supervisors for every student. This system was introduced not for scholarly reasons but to allay administrative fears. There is a concern that a supervisor might leave the institution, stranding the student, or that the supervisor and student might have a disagreement, again leaving the student without support.

These arguments are like grounding all aircraft because there are occasional crashes. Too often I see an academic “added” to the team to beef up his or her workload. I have been in a university meeting where research-active professors were “added” to a supervisory panel not because they were excellent supervisors (far from it) but rather because they needed to boost their profile for the research assessment exercise.

Certainly there are many occasions where a co‑supervisor is incredibly valuable, but this must be determined by their research contribution to the topic rather than by institutional convenience. I once supervised a fine thesis about Russian television. I had the expertise in television studies; a colleague held expertise in Russian studies and the Russian language. It was a great team. We met weekly as a group, with specialist meetings held with either of us as required to complete the doctorate. The candidate submitted in the minimum time.

At times, an inexperienced co-supervisor is added to a team to gain “experience”. That is, perhaps, understandable. But damage can be done to students through bad advice. I know of a disturbing case in which an inexperienced co-supervisor chose a relatively junior friend to examine a doctorate. Before the senior co-supervisor had been informed, this prospective external examiner had been approached and had agreed, and the paperwork had been submitted. Two years later, the candidate is still progressing with corrections. Each time he submits revisions that supposedly verify the concerns expressed during the oral examination, he is presented with another list because the inexperienced supervisor agreed to “corrections to the satisfaction of the examiner”. This problem was caused by an overconfident but inexperienced co-supervisor being added to the team and then going on to appoint an overconfident but inexperienced examiner.

Sometimes – in fact frequently – less is more. A strong relationship with a well-qualified, experienced and committed supervisor will ensure that the postgraduate will produce a strong thesis with minimum delay.

7. A supervisor who is active in the area of your doctorate can help to turbocharge your work

Occasionally students select a “name” rather than a “name in the field”. The appropriateness of a supervisor’s field of research is critical because it can save you considerable time. Supervisors who are reading, thinking and writing in the field can locate a gap in your scholarly literature and – at speed – provide you with five names to lift that section. A generalist will not be able to provide this service. As the length of candidatures – or more precisely the financial support for candidatures – shrinks and three years becomes the goal, your supervisor can save you time through sharing not only their experience but also their expertise.

8. A candidature that involves teaching can help to get a career off the ground

In Australia, teaching with your supervisor is often the default pattern, and it is a good one. In the UK, tutoring is less likely to emerge because of budgetary restraints. But a postgraduate who does not teach through the candidature is unprepared to assume a full-time teaching post. Many doctoral candidates are already academics and are returning to study. Others work in a diversity of professions and have no intention of taking a job in a university. Therefore, this “truth” is not relevant. But for those seeking a career in academia who intend to use the doctorate as a springboard, teaching experience is crucial. A postgraduate may see themselves as a serious researcher. But it is teaching that will get them their first post (and probably their second and third). The ultimate supervisor is also an outstanding teacher who will train their postgraduates in writing curricula, managing assessment and creating innovative learning moments in a classroom. None of these skills is required for or developed by a doctorate. You can be supervised well without these teaching experiences. However, if you have a choice, select the supervisor who can “add value” to your candidature.

One of my proudest moments emerged in a tutors’ meeting for my large first-year course at Murdoch University : creative industries. I apologised to my tutors for the hard work and low pay that was a characteristic of sessional university employment. Mike Kent – who is now Dr Mike Kent and a tenured lecturer in internet studies at Curtin University – stated that the pay was an extra. He was being trained to teach. That was the value from the process. I still think tutors should be paid more, but I valued – and value – Mike’s insight.

9. Weekly supervisory meetings are the best pattern

There are two realities of candidature management. First, the longer the candidature, the less likely you are to finish. Second, a postgraduate who suspends from a candidature is less likely to submit a doctorate.

The key attribute of students who finish is that they are passionately connected to their thesis and remain engaged with their research and their supervisor. I have always deployed weekly meetings as the best pattern for supervision to nurture this connection.

There are reasons for this. Some postgraduates lack time-management skills and would prefer to be partying, facebooking or tweeting, rather than reading, thinking and writing. If students know that written work is expected each week, and they have to sit in an office with a supervisor who is evaluating their work, that stress creates productive writing and research. So if a meeting is held on a Thursday, then on Tuesday a student panics and does some work. Yet if meetings are fortnightly, this stress-based productivity is halved. It is better to provide a tight accountability structure for students. Weekly meetings accomplish this task.

10. Invest your trust only in decent and reliable people who will repay it, not betray it

This truth may seem self-evident. But supervisors – like all academics – are people first. If the prospective supervisor needs a personality replacement, lacks the life skills to manage a trip to the supermarket or requires electronic tagging so that he (or she) does not sleep with the spouses of colleagues, then make another choice. Supervisors should be functional humans. They can be – and should be – quirky, imaginative and original. That non-standard thinking will assist your project. But if there is a whiff of social or sexual impropriety, or if there are challenges with personal hygiene, back away in a hurry. At times during your candidature you will have to rely on this person. You will be sobbing in their office. You will need to lean on them. You must have the belief that they can help you through a crisis and not manipulate you during a moment of vulnerability.

I knew a supervisor whose idea of supervision was a once-a-semester meeting in a bar where he would order three bottles of red wine and start drinking. The meeting ended when the wine finished. Another supervisor selected his postgraduates on the likelihood that the students would sleep with him. Yet another was so completely fixated by her version of feminism that all the doctorates completed under her supervision ended up looking incredibly similar. Any deviation from a particular political perspective would result in screaming matches in her office. This was not only unpleasant but destructive to the students’ careers.

The key truth and guiding principle is evident

Do not select a supervisor who needs you more than you need him or her. Gather information . Arm yourself with these 10 truths. Ask questions. Make a choice with insight, rather than respond – with gratitude – to the offer of a place or supervision.

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Tress Academic

#10: Good PhD-supervision: What you can expect

May 14, 2019 by Tress Academic

Are you wondering what one might typically be able to expect from a good PhD supervisor? Are you uncertain if your own supervision ticks all the boxes? Are you having one issue or another with supervision and you’re not sure if this is normal? We’ve compiled this exposé of ‘Five pillars of good PhD-supervision’ to give you more clarity on what to expect, plus an added bonus self-check ‘How good is my PhD supervision?’

We often find that PhD students are uncertain as to what they might actually be able to expect from a PhD supervisor, and what actions a good supervisor would or wouldn’t take. We also often meet PhD students who are having issues with supervision, but do not know if what they’re experiencing is common, normal or actually an exception. 

There is evidence from a range of studies of how important good supervision is for the PhD experience, process and outcome ( Woolston, C. 2017 , Max Planck PhD-net 2018 ). It is quite clear, that the difficulties in undertaking a PhD study become easier with a great supervisor by your side. That is not to say that individual PhD students- who do not have good supervision won’t make it, but there is a significant difference between just ‘completing ’ or handing in a great dissertation with a fantastic learning experience behind them. Everyone can benefit from the expertise of a superb and experienced supervisor. 

The aim of this blog-post is to give you an idea about these five essential elements, which together constitute the pillars of good PhD-supervision. This can help you to make an informed judgement about your personal situation and eventually encourage you to start improving aspects of your supervision, if you feel it necessary. For those of you who are right at the beginning of a PhD and have not yet chosen a supervisor (or not appointed all your supervisors), our five features can give you some orientation of whom to pick. Ideally, you get a trusted supervisor who will meet all five features. If you’re curious how yours stack up, we’ve included a self-check ‘How good is my PhD-supervision?’ for you to take at the end of this post! 

However, there is no black and white standard of exactly what your supervisor should do, so it can be difficult to evaluate based on a formula of “if this does not happen, then they’re not a good supervisor”. The boundaries are rather grey and a good relationship to your supervisor does not hinge upon the fulfilment of a single aspect. There are many ways  for good supervision to express itself. 

Still, we believe there are a couple of features that are essential and constitute “good supervision” and we want to outline these for you. If your supervisor lacks several of these essential features, it can be tricky to get sufficient support for your PhD in the long run. 

Today in many countries and disciplines, it is common to have a supervisory team, so you are advised by multiple people. The responsibilities are often shared between one main supervisor and 1-3 (and eventually more) co-supervisors. Supervisors may also be called mentors or advisors(just so you know that this is the same thing unless your PhD regulations specify another meaning in your case). 

So here are our five pillars of good PhD supervision:

1. Guidance

Guidance is the no.1 pillar of good supervision. You should receive guidance from your supervisor for all matters – big and small – regarding your PhD study. Your supervisor should give guidance in particular, regarding:

• Your research and individual aspects hereof. What do you research and how?
• The planning of your project. That means guidance on how to design, set-up and carry out a project in the given time span. 
• The outcomes of your PhD in terms of publications, patents or potential applications.
• The educational part of your studies. How you acquire the necessary skills to succeed with your project, and in a broader sense, how to become an independent researcher. This also includes complementary skills courses like the ones from TRESS ACADEMIC .
• The administrative aspects around your PhD , such as: PhD regulations of your university, deadlines and documents that have to be handed in to your graduate programme , composition of a supervisory team, examination board, submission of your dissertation, etc… 

2. Expertise

Good supervision means to have a supervisor who has expertise in the very subject area in which you undertake your PhD project. So they should have excellent knowledge of the discipline, know the latest innovations and cutting-edge questions, can anticipate future trends, and are  recognised scholar in your scientific community. Their research interest is your research interest and vice versa. 

Ideally, your supervisor is also trained pedagogically on how to supervise PhD students. The pedagogic expertise is complementary to the research expertise. You won’t benefit much from a superstar from  your field who shows little interest in transferring their knowledge to you, or does not concern themselves with  how they can help you learn. 

Your supervisor should support you in pursuing your goal of getting the PhD degree. Having a supportive supervisor means you have a person you can trust and who will be on your side. Support should include mental support, but it also means having  a helping hand when needed – to make contact with other scientists, get help with data permits or ethical clearances, gaining you access to data, or financial support. Having a person you know you can rely on when things get tough is a big plus. 

A supportive supervisor maintains a positive attitude towards your project and displays empathy. They should display a keen interest in seeing you succeed, encourage you to broaden your horizons and try out new things. They offer sympathy when something goes wrong, show understanding for your situation, and motivate you when you’re feeling down. 

While guidance emphasises the procedure of successfully steering you through the 3-4 years of a PhD, support is your safety net, when you’re off track or when there’s something to handle that exceeds your power.   

4. Regular interaction

Although ‘having regular interaction with your PhD supervisor’ sounds almost too obvious, we know that many PhD students struggle with this aspect. We often hear comments like ‘my supervisor is difficult to get hold of’, ’my last meeting with my supervisor was months ago’, ‘my supervisor often cancels/postpones meetings’, ‘it takes ages for my supervisor to give me feedback on my work’ and so on. 

The problem with a lack of interaction is that it is key to the other pillars. If you have little interaction, most other features become problematic as well. If you lack interaction, you also lack support and guidance. You can have the ‘internationally-acknowledge-no.1-specialist’ in your field as supervisor, but if they hardly ever meet with you, you won’t get much out of their supervision. 

A good supervisor maintains interaction by way of regular supervisory meetings and spontaneous encounters. Here’s a short characteristic of both types: 

4.1. Supervisory meetings

In these meetings your supervisor and you meet regularly to discuss aspects of your project and PhD progress. This is the time when you get your supervisor’s full attention. You get input, can exchange ideas, you receive constructive feedback, and – as part of the package –  quite a lot of –  criticism as well. Through feedback in regular meetings you learn and grow. Your supervisory meetings are scholarly disputes about your work among the expert and the novice. Supervisory meetings are also necessary to administer and manage your project – setting targets, checking progress, and making sure that whatever you have to hand in to the university or grad school gets there on time and as required. 

4.2. Spontaneous encounters

You should also be able to approach your supervisor spontaneously with a question, a problem, or some great news you want to share and vice versa. Spontaneous interaction allows you to ‘be-in-touch’ and get to know each other in different ways and built a collegial relationship. It can help to clarify an urgent question so that you can proceed with your work without having to wait until the next meeting. 

But ad-hoc encounters are never a substitute for the regular meetings. If you have no meetings, and you receive all your supervision in form of spontaneous chats or advice, there’s something wrong. 

5. Advice on progress

You’ve got a limited time to complete your PhD of 3-4 years normally. Your supervisor should be keen to see you finish in this time-frame. A good supervisor is aware of your time-constraints right from the start, and supports you in getting through the entire process in a timely manner. But, apart from guidance and support, advice on your progress needs specific actions from your supervisor. It is conscious and deliberate checking of the adequateness of your progress in the different phases of your PhD that will make the difference. 

At the beginning of your PhD project, you should get advice on the adequateness of the project itself. Your supervisor should be checking if the project you want to work on is suitable for completion, with the expected outcome, in the given time-frame. A good supervisor will also warn you if that is not the case, and suggest changes to your project. 

After the onset of your PhD project and further into the process, you’ll need a supervisor who is regularly checking-in with you regarding the progress of your work and it’s quality. Towards this goal, many PhD programmes have included ‘TAC’ (Thesis Advisory Committee) meetings as a fixed requirement that has to be completed in order to progress with the PhD, or getting the necessary credits for the accompanying graduate programme. In case you’re not familiar with this: during the ‘TAC’ meetings, which take place 1-4 times a year (frequency depends on your programme), all of your supervisors formally meet with you. You present your recent progress and latest results to  get feedback on the adequateness of your advancement. ‘TAC’ meetings may also be called ‘PAC’ (PhD advisory committee) meetings, or ‘Supervisory Committee’ meetings.

The crucial point here is that you have at least one supervisor (but ideally multiple) who give you candid feedback once in a while so you know if you are on track or not. If you have a main supervisor who regularly checks your progress, and you hold the required number of TAC-meetings, you’re minimising the chance that there will be problems with the acceptance of your PhD thesis and the potential for lengthy demands to make fundamental changes to your dissertation in the end. 

In the final year and months, a good supervisor will advise you on the completion of individual parts of your work and requirements for submitting your thesis and preparations for the defence and final examination. 

How good is your supervision?

Now, are you pondering how your supervision scores on the five mentioned pillars? Are you happy with your supervision? Do you get good guidance? Are you benefitting from your supervisors’ expertise? Does your supervisor meet regularly with you? Do you receive support when you’re feeling down and demotivated? And, is someone giving you frank feedback on your progress? 

If you’re curious, take our self-check ‘ How good is my PhD supervision?’  

So how were your results? Did you score super high and you have an amazing supervisor? Well great! You’ll get all the necessary support along the path to PhD completion. 

Or are you among those with quite modest scores and feeling  unhappy with your supervisory situation? Think about what you might do to improve it. Like in any other relationship you have a great deal of influence! Have you spoken to your supervisor about your requirements and made them explicit? Have you been honest about your struggles or difficulties? Your supervisor only has a chance to respond to your needs if you let them know what they are! Stay tuned to the SMART ACADEMICS blog for more supervision topics that give more detail on how to improve your relationship with your supervisor!

Related resources:

• Expert guide: 8 reasons why supervision can fail. 
• Self-check: ‘How good is my PhD supervision?’  
• Smart Academics Blog #12: PhD graduate school: Your game changer!
• Smart Academics Blog #57: Can’t get your message across to your supervisor?
• Smart Ac ademics Blog #68: PhD Support: Pick the perfect co-supervisor
• Smart Academics Blog #80: Do I have to include my supervisor as a co-author?
• Smart Academics Blog #81: Meet your PhD supervisor online!
• Smart Academics Blog #98: Should I replace my PhD supervisor?
• Smart Academics Blog #114: PhD-journey with obstacles and happy end!
• Woolston, C. 2017: A love-hurt relationship. Nature, vol. 550, pp. 549-552 .
• Max Planck PhD-net 2018: 2017 PhDnet report.  

More information: 

Do you want to complete your PhD successfully? If so, please sign up to receive our free guides.  

© 2019 Tress Academic

#PhDStudent, #PhDEducation, #Supervision, #PhDSatisfaction, #Doctorate 

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Doctoral supervision as an academic practice and leader – member relationship: a critical approach to relationship dynamics.

• • Identification of how the diversified pathways to productive cooperation or destructive relationship are constructed.
• • Illumination of the critical moments in the supervisory relationship and their effect on doctoral students' self-confidence.
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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 28 September 2013

The experience of disagreement between students and supervisors in PhD education: a qualitative study

• Ronny Gunnarsson 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Grethe Jonasson 1 &
• Annika Billhult 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  13 , Article number:  134 ( 2013 ) Cite this article

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PhD supervision is mostly individual and disagreement between supervisors and PhD students is a seldom-discussed topic at universities. The present study aimed to describe the experience of disagreement between PhD students and supervisors.

Nine supervisors and seven PhD students from Sweden and England were interviewed using a video recorder. The recorded material was analysed using inductive content analysis.

Disagreements in PhD education can be described with the overarching theme: the nature of the disagreements changes over time. Five categories emerged to describe the variations of the experiences: involvement in important decisions, supervisors not being up-to-date, dubious advice from supervisors, mediating between supervisors, and interpersonal relationships.

Conclusions

There is a gradual shift in competence where PhD students may excel supervisors in subject knowledge. Early disagreements may indicate immaturity of the student while disagreements later may indicate that the student is maturing making their own decisions. Consequently, disagreements may need to be addressed differently depending on when they occur. Addressing them inappropriately might slow the progressions and result in higher attrition rate among PhD students. The five categories may be elements in future PhD supervisor training programs and should be further evaluated for their importance and impact on PhD education.

Supervision in higher education is a pedagogical challenge [ 1 ]. It is an old phenomenon as doctoral programs were formed over 100 years ago, starting in Germany and then spread to other countries and universities. Johns Hopkins and Clark Universities were among the first to issue PhD diplomas [ 2 , 3 ]. PhD education does not, however, take place without some disagreements between supervisors and students.

Earlier research points out areas for improvement in PhD education. PhD education e.g., in the Netherlands, has faced criticism regarding the long process towards completion, a high percentage of non-completion, and inadequate funding. Supervision problems exist such as an inadequately low meeting frequency and depth, resulting in a stressful and lonesome PhD-education as well as frustrated supervisors [ 4 ]. Critique of PhD education has been documented by the Evaluation Committee on PhD education in Sweden [ 5 ]. A disproportionately lengthy time from registration to graduation, a high mean age of doctoral students, and a high attrition rate from PhD education by registered students, were issues brought up as areas of dissatisfaction. Discontent with the supervisor was documented by twenty-five per cent of the students, and as many as one in ten seriously considered a change of supervisor [ 6 ]. Furthermore, attrition from PhD education has been measured, and concluded to be costly and resource demanding [ 7 ].

Supervision in higher education appears to be a lonely task, as it is mostly an activity involving only the supervisor and the student. Supervisors may discuss supervision with colleagues, but these discussions are more of a formal nature seldom elaborating on individual cases in the task of supervising PhD students [ 8 ]. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate and document PhD student and supervisor experiences that may perhaps lead to decreased attrition levels and more satisfied students and supervisors within PhD education.

Since no one, to our knowledge, has specifically studied the experience of disagreement between supervisors and students, the aim of the present study was to describe the experience of disagreement between supervisors and PhD students in the context of higher education at university.

Sample and context

A strategic sample to achieve variation in age and experience in PhD education was chosen to include nine supervisors: one woman and eight men. Five supervisors were tenured members of the staff at a British university interviewed in England, and four were employed at a Swedish university and interviewed in Sweden. Their experience of supervising varied from 2 to 30 students supervised in PhD programmes. Seven PhD students were included, four women and three men. Five were enrolled at a British university, and thus interviewed in Britain. Four of these students were interviewed as a group. Two were enrolled at a Swedish university and interviewed in Sweden. The students had between 1–5 years experience in the PhD programme. The study was conducted in the context of higher education at university.

Research ethics is regulated in law in Sweden. Studies with no intention to harm or influence humans, only being interviews or questionnaires, not dealing with sensitive personal information such as sexual orientation, political views or similar sensitive information do not need to be evaluated by a formal ethical review board. Thus, this study was not submitted to a formal ethical review board. However, the authors made efforts to ensure the study was performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki as revised in 2000. The informants in this study all had own experience in research and could be expected to understand the given information. The informants were told that they could withdraw participation at any time without stating any reason. Furthermore, each informant signed a written informed consent before the interview began.

Data collection

Data were collected by means of a digital video recorder. The first researcher, RG, briefly introduced himself and then gave a short presentation of the practicalities of video recording, for example avoiding looking straight into the camera. The camera was placed on a tripod and switched on. RG afforded the informant a short period of time to get used to the camera. The interview started with the opening phrase: “Please tell me of a situation where you and the PhD student/supervisor (depending on the informant being interviewed) had different views on an issue”. The informant was then encouraged to elaborate on the phenomenon of disagreement between the supervisor and PhD student. Interviews lasted as long as the informant added substance pertaining to the research question, roughly 35–60 minutes.

Data analysis

When human experience of a phenomenon is to be described, a qualitative research method is suitable [ 9 ]. Content analysis, a qualitative research method used to quantify phenomena systematically [ 10 ], was used to analyse the present material. The main aim of the analysis was to condense the extensive material into a few content categories by way of inductive content analysis as described by Lauri & Kyngäs [ 11 ]. Analysis was carried out in three phases: preparation, organization and reporting. In the preparation phase, the raw video material was watched repeatedly until a sense of the whole was obtained. The organizing phase consisted of coding the data into main aspects of the video recordings, which were noted along with the location on the timeline in the raw video material. These were then transferred to a coding sheet and condensed categories were formed. Categories were then classified to fewer, higher order groups and finally, as last part of phase two, a general description, or overarching theme was formulated through abstraction. In phase three of the analysis, the analysis process and results of the study were reported [ 9 ].

The experience of disagreement between supervisors and PhD students in the context of higher education at university can be described with the overarching theme “the nature of disagreements changes over time”. Five categories emerged to describe the phenomenon of disagreement: important decisions, supervisors not being up-to-date, dubious advice, mediating between supervisors, and interpersonal relationships.

Disagreements changes over time

Disagreement between PhD students and supervisors often exists during PhD education. PhD students experienced disagreements more often than did supervisors. Supervisors acknowledged that transient disagreements, but not conflicts, existed. Disagreement between student and supervisor could be aggravating and arouse strong emotions. However, as PhD education progressed, the nature of disagreements changed as the relationship between supervisor and PhD student developed. Sometimes supervisors found themselves being “outmanoeuvred and outthought” by the students as there was a shift in subject knowledge over the course of the PhD education. PhD students also matured, gained confidence and became more involved in important decisions regarding the direction of their project. They also acquired the possibility to identify dubious advice as time went on. Similarly, they learned to mediate between supervisors in an efficient way in order for the research to progress. Since the PhD education lasted several years, the interpersonal relationship between the supervisor and the PhD student developed, and they learned to balance critique and communication.

Involvement in important decisions

Participation in key decisions was equally important to both supervisor and student. Important decisions could include changing the aims of the thesis, or choosing which analysis to use. The rationale for wanting to participate in important decisions differed for the PhD student and supervisor. Supervisors found that student influence on important decisions sometimes created problems:

“There have been occasions when I have found students making major decisions about the project without discussion”.

Another supervisor expressed worry because the student wanted to perform an analysis unknown to the supervisor:

“ He [the student] made a very strong case that this was the methodology to use. In this case, because I didn’t understand the methodology, I wouldn’t have been able to detect that because of my lack of knowledge… … so I felt uncertain”.

In this case, the supervisor did not mind that the student wanted to make a major decision, but was rather concerned by the consequences, for the student, supervisor and department, if the analysis was flawed in its methodology. Furthermore, supervisors were concerned whether students were capable of carrying out the analysis. PhD students felt they matured as education progressed. At first they needed more support, but eventually felt confident enough to influence major decisions. One doctoral student expressed:

“…initially to do with what exactly would be in my PhD. Perhaps my feeling that the content of my PhD was being led by their research interests rather than what I wanted to do… …I ended up doing what I wanted to do. So it was fine in the end”.

Supervisors not up-to-date

The supervisor was not always up to date concerning the project. PhD students felt they had the best knowledge of what was going on in the project. One PhD student expressed frustration, as his supervisors were not up to date:

“Okay, I have reached this result. And they’ll have kind of forgotten about what I had been doing up to that point. I know a little bit more especially about my own work than they do. So they’ll disagree on something that I had already dealt with”.

Sometimes the supervisors were not updated as they were discussing and disagreeing on matters that the PhD student had already dealt with and solved on his own as he gained confidence. The PhD student went on to say that the supervisors thought that he [the student] was being dismissive toward their objections, which was not the case. The supervisor, on the other hand, explained the difficulties of being a supervisor:

“The student thinks about nothing else, and you [the supervisor] think about it sometimes for one hour every three or four weeks. So it is quite difficult in a PhD supervision session to get up to date, to get your mind up to speed as quickly as you need, so you occasionally find yourself being outmanoeuvred, and outthought by the student”.

Dubious advice

PhD students claimed that supervisors sometimes gave dubious advice. At times, the supervisor gave advice that was not well thought out. That led to lost time for the PhD student, trying to follow the path set out by the supervisor. One PhD student told of moments at the start of the PhD education where the supervisor said:

“-Yeah try that, why not. And he [the supervisor] just thought about it at just that instant. Especially when I started I thought, well, he is a professor… … he is experienced, he knows about these things, so I kind of treated every suggestion he made as a very serious thing that I should definitely pursue until I had exhausted that possibility”.

However, as time went on, the student came to ignore some of the supervisors’ suggestions as he realised that the supervisor had not reflected on the idea thoroughly. The supervisors, on the other hand were not always confident of which ways were correct:

“ Sometimes I have been quite sure that my way was right. But that is very rare. It occurs more often that you try to find something that is common, and that what is right or wrong is very difficult to say”.

Another supervisor expressed how it was not possible to know everything. Keeping an open mind as a supervisor allows for new knowledge. One way of dealing with uncertainty could be to ask someone else:

“Methodological questions can be resolved in another way. Concerning different methods, or adding methods, we often ask a third person… …it is good to get the view of a third person”.

Mediating between supervisors

The student may have to mediate between supervisors. As the PhD student had two, sometimes three supervisors, they often had different views making different comments and giving different advice. The student then had to act as mediator to unify the members of the team. If not, research would stagnate. A PhD student noted this regarding the writing of an article:

“In the case of writing an article, more than one supervisor is involved in the article. They are then co-authors and I am supposed to maintain a dialogue with everyone… … I then have to balance this”.

The student immediately took on the role of mediator, realising that it was in his best interest to keep supervisors informed in order to get the article published. The student had to learn of efficient ways to mediate between supervisors. Another PhD student experienced difficulties in the collaboration between supervisors as they were at separate locations:

“I have an external supervisor at a different university … … I find it difficult to manage the relationship between my external supervisor and my internal supervisor here …”.

When commenting on this to the principal supervisor, she was told that managing different personalities was part of the education, and thus a learning experience.

Supervisors were also aware of the fact that it was always the student that had to mediate when supervisors held different views:

“ The two supervisors have completely different views, and the PhD student has to be the mediator. That can be very hard on the PhD student”.

Interpersonal relationship

Personal chemistry and emotions played a role in PhD education. Preconceived notions and stereotypic labelling of reactions on behalf of the student and supervisor existed from the student’s point of view:

“There are emotions on both sides, and you don’t want to acknowledge that might happen. That actually you people [supervisors] might get emotional about it. I find it particularly difficult to believe that I would ever get angry with my supervisors for some reason”.

This student expressed a notion that PhD work is mainly rational and based upon logic. At the same time, he knew that emotions existed on both sides.

Supervisors were aware that different personalities must be met differently. One supervisor reasoned that some PhD students might experience a challenge when opposed, while others just fell apart:

“ I don’t think that you should go along too much. The extent depends on the personality of the PhD student”.

The supervisor expressed it as a balancing act to oppose and challenge the student just enough to get a proactive response rather than a collapse on the behalf of the student. Another supervisor spoke of the relationship with the PhD student as becoming a long lasting friendship even after the PhD education ended.

The findings of the present study imply that disagreement between PhD supervisors and students occurs and the nature of disagreements changes over time within the PhD education. When occurring, it can be condensed into five categories: important decisions, supervisors not being up-to-date, dubious advice, mediating between supervisors, and interpersonal relationships. Parts of this material can, with the informants’ written consent, be seen on the Internet [ 12 ].

Discussion about results

The nature of disagreements changes over time.

As PhD education continues several years, it is not surprising that the nature of the disagreements change over time. In what particular ways it changes over time was not expressed by the informants but our implicit impression was that it was mainly due to the student’s increasing knowledge and ability to make own decisions. Early disagreements may indicate immaturity of the student while disagreements later may indicate that the student is maturing making their own decisions. Consequently, disagreements may need to be addressed differently depending on when they occur.

The severity of disagreements, whether the disagreements were resolved or what impact they may have had on the research project, were not addressed in this study. It is possible that inclusion of supervisors/PhD students with experiences of serious disagreements may have yielded quite different results. Our view is that the disagreements in the present study were mainly not of serious character.

Supervisors in the present study did not mind that students were involved in important decisions, but rather concerned for the consequences of such decisions. Since supervision is part of the supervisor’s career as well as the student’s, outcome is very important for the supervisor, and thereby, the department. However, Cullen et al. [ 13 ] noted that some supervisors left it up to the student to make major decisions. The students then, in retrospect, felt a general lack of moral support from the supervisor [ 13 ]. The PhD students in the present study claimed autonomy and a wish to influence major decisions, but not until having matured sufficiently to feel confident enough to do so, implying that supervising seems to be a balancing act as to the degree of influence by the supervisor.

The model adopted at the university also influences degree of student involvement in important decisions. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a model for contract research with the industry. In this model, the PhD projects are short term, limited in scope, and with clearly identified milestones for delivery [ 14 ] leaving the student with few possibilities to be involved in important decisions. Work is directed by the supervisor and the industrial sponsor, and the student is often employed by the sponsor after finishing the PhD-education. This model often provides financial security. Another model is adopted in Cambridge. It is up to the student to form his or her own project with guidance from the supervisor. To be able to influence the research project offers a powerful motivating factor for the student [ 14 ]. The freedom to choose research direction has also been highlighted in the model of the Vienna University of Technology, together with the requirements to have a PhD by publication, to let students work in shared offices towards joint deadlines, and to involve students in reviewing articles [ 15 ]. The supervisors are supporting and helping, but most criticism is given by external sources [ 15 ]. The freedom to define own research topic entails that the supervisor educate the student to take high-level decisions and become owner of the project [ 15 ]. The shared offices may help to socialize the students. Theories of socialization have been connected to the issue of attrition in doctoral education where inappropriate socialization may be related to students departing the PhD program [ 16 ].

As supervisors often have more than one PhD student in progress, they cannot keep up to date the way students do. This creates disagreements as the student feels time is lost dwelling on issues already dealt with. As supervisor hours are scarce, this affects not only the student but the supervisor as well. Lauvås & Handal gives advice for optimal use of feedback in research supervision: “Do not try to conceal inadequate preparation” [ 17 ]. PhD students need to be able to thoroughly rely on advice and comments from their supervisor. Unacceptable work ethics such as trying to conceal inadequate preparation or adopting an attitude of neglect is not usually accepted by students [ 17 ].

A source of disagreement between supervisors and PhD students arises when the student receives dubious advice. Inadequate knowledge and skills of the supervisor is a known criticism of PhD supervision [ 18 ].

Students, in the present study, expressed concerns that dubious advice was time wasting. However, students must also mature in their abilities to judge what is correct and what is dubious. A physicist interviewed by Gumport [ 19 ] articulated the following:

“I try to teach them a set of skills. The biggest one is to know when you’re right and when you’re wrong. It’s common for them to miss it when they’re wrong. After a while they can see it. It’s intuitive partially” [ 19 ].

Although the student is ultimately responsible for his or her own work [ 20 ], and may feel the supervisor should have all the right answers, a more nuanced picture of dubious advice is realizing that there is in fact no manual and both the supervisor and PhD student learn during the process.

Supervisors in the present study adopted a humble attitude saying they were not always sure of what was right or wrong. This is in accordance with Delamont et al. [ 21 ] who discussed the nature of academic supervision. They mean that the skills of academic judgement, evaluating research and assessing publications, must be learned over the course of a career and there is no manual with instructions. Confidence is of fundamental importance in the supervisory process [ 21 ]. The supervisor needs to be confident in the student and the student needs to feel confident in the overall judgment of the supervisor, but the confidence has to be ‘informed’ not blind faith [ 21 ]. It is then only natural that a PhD supervisor is not always precise when providing advice, but sometimes gives dubious advice.

Halse [ 22 ] has investigated the question of learning generated through the practice of doctoral supervision. She described that supervisors, like those in our study, learn to become a supervisor by doing it and thus represent the participatory and practice-based learning theory [ 22 ]. In Sweden as well as in many universities across Europe, Australia and New Zeeland, professional development programs for doctoral supervisors have become mandatory. Even experienced professors should get a “driving licence” for PhD supervision. This formal training is based on the idea of the transmission model of learning. This model implies that good supervision is accomplished by attending a course, thus presuming that deficits in supervisor’s expertise can be remedied through formal, structured transmission of knowledge from instructor to learner/professor [ 23 ].

Previously, some supervisors tended to perceive the students as causing difficulties, making the assumption that the same supervisory resources and structures were adequate for all students; thus the structural and systemic problems that may exist were made invisible [ 24 ]. Now supervisors’ and universities’ role have been penetrated in many studies. The idea of a learning alliance has been proposed, meaning that the goal of doctoral supervision is praxis and involves a learning alliance between each student, supervisor and university grounded in mutual respect to ensure a high quality PhD education [ 25 ].

As a rule, PhD students have one principal supervisor and one or more co-supervisors [ 20 ]. The persons involved in PhD studies can therefore be seen as a team, with different roles. The findings from the present study suggest that it is most often the student who must take on the role of mediator between supervisors when needed. One supervisor even thought that managing different personalities could be considered a part of PhD education. This view was, however, not shared by all supervisors, whereby one supervisor expressed that mediating could be hard on the student. In any case, students are ultimately responsible for their work, and thereby responsible for making progress [ 20 ]. By nature, the mobility of researchers is fairly high, creating geographically distributed teams and further difficulties. Disagreements in widespread teams are common [ 26 ], confirmed in the present study by students expressing difficulties in managing cooperation and mediating their in-house supervisor with other supervisors located at another university.

Both supervisors and students in the present study acknowledge that their relationships affect the process of the PhD education. Different personalities seem to require different behaviour. The relationship between the supervisor and student changes as the PhD education progresses. Handal & Lauvås [ 1 ] noted that the level of competence may shift from the supervisor to the PhD student, as the student in time acquires knowledge superior to that of the supervisor in his/her narrow field. For some supervisors, this is an affirmative event, but for some it may be threatening.

Disruptions in the relationship between student and supervisor can, according to Delamont et al. [ 21 ], be intellectual, personal or structural. In the case of intellectual or personal disruption, a change of supervisor is advisable as soon as possible. A structural disruption, such as the death of a supervisor, or more commonly, the transfer of a supervisor to another location, may be detrimental to the process in PhD education. Some of the supervisors in our study were careful to establish intellectual and personal boundaries between them and their students, whereas others did not mind to be personally involved with their students and eventually became friends. The duality in the supervising situation: to support and demand at the same time may generate tensions and strain within the tutoring relation [ 27 ]. Constructive criticism is necessary if good work is to be produced, since this assists students in thinking analytically and moving forward in their development. Supervisors’ educational development throughout the Western world is located largely within an administrative framework that emphasises supervisors’ and students’ mutual roles and responsibilities [ 28 ]. Yet some of these programs focus solely on the administrative roles and responsibilities of supervisors, attempting to provide technical “fixes” that deny the genuine difficulties and complexities involved in supervision relationships [ 28 ].

Discussion of methods

Limitations of the methodology used in the present study include the notion of the researcher’s knowledge of the phenomenon and openness. Human science research builds upon intersubjectivity [ 29 ]. The researcher must acknowledge the fact that he or she interacts with the informant and thereby also has the possibility to influence the thoughts and expressions of the informant. It is by acknowledging and reflecting on past knowledge of the phenomenon that the researcher can keep an open mind, thus refraining from dominating the interview. It has been the aim of the researchers to adopt an open mind throughout data collection and analysis of the present study. Recognizing that RG, GJ and AB are supervisors in higher education, we reflected on our past knowledge and throughout the analysis striving to set it aside to benefit openness. If we have been successful, these limitations turn to strengths, as we thereby convey the experiences of the informants in a nuanced manner.

Another methodological concern is validity of the results [ 30 ]. It has been the aim of the researchers to include informants able to convey experiences relative to disagreement between supervisors and students of higher education at university. However, as their experiences are contextual and from individual perspectives, it has also been the aim of the researchers to form a broader understanding of the phenomena, bearing in mind that no truths are presented, merely the experiences of the informants, sensitive to the receiver of the message.

Furthermore, we strived for a high level of trustworthiness of the results in the present study by reflecting on the concepts of credibility, dependability and transferability [ 31 ]. Credibility was attained through carefulness in selection of the context, the informants and data collection. Furthermore, videotaping the interviews enabled preservation of silent expressions such as body language. Dependability was strived for by truthfulness when collecting the data in a predetermined, condensed time frame. Describing the context, informants, process of gathering data, and giving the methodological description and presentation of data as complete as possible facilitated transferability.

The researchers had an intention to achieve a strategic sample with variation in age, gender, and experience in PhD education. One female and eight male supervisors agreed to participate. It is possible that a more even spread in gender among the supervisors, would have influenced the results.

Four students were interviewed as a group due to practical circumstances. It is possible that interviewing them one by one may have changed the type of data received. However, the interviewer focused on an open attitude, leaving room for everyone to comment and freely speak about their experiences.

Disagreements between supervisors and PhD students occur. Since PhD supervision seems to take place “behind closed doors” it is important to illuminate the experiences of both PhD students and their supervisors. This study shows that the nature of disagreement changes over the course of the PhD education. There is a shift in competence where PhD students excel supervisors in subject knowledge. Early disagreements may indicate immaturity of the student while disagreements later may indicate that the student is maturing making their own decisions. Consequently, disagreements may need to be addressed differently depending on when they occur. Addressing them inappropriately might slow the progressions and result in higher attrition rate among PhD students.

The five categories should be further evaluated for their importance and impact on PhD education. Raising the question of disagreements between PhD students and supervisors, in PhD supervision training, using the five categories, may lead to cost effectiveness by decreasing attrition rates and aid in reducing individual distress during PhD education.

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Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank the informants who, by sharing their stories, made this research possible.

This study was financed by grants from the Research and development council of Södra Älvsborg county, Boras, Sweden and the Focus foundation, Boras, Sweden.

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Ronny Gunnarsson, Grethe Jonasson & Annika Billhult

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Ronny Gunnarsson

Department of public health and community medicine, Institute of Medicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

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RG planned the study, performed the interviews, and participated in the analysis of data and draft of the manuscript. GJ and AB participated in the analysis of data and draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Gunnarsson, R., Jonasson, G. & Billhult, A. The experience of disagreement between students and supervisors in PhD education: a qualitative study. BMC Med Educ 13 , 134 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-13-134

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Abuse and Exploitation of Doctoral Students: A Conceptual Model for Traversing a Long and Winding Road to Academia

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This paper develops a conceptual model of PhD supervisors’ abuse and exploitation of their students and the outcomes of that abuse. Based on the literature about destructive leadership and the “dark side” of supervision, we theorize about why and how PhD student abuse and exploitation may occur. We offer a novel contribution to the literature by identifying the process through which PhD students experience supervisory abuse and exploitation, the various factors influencing this process, and its outcomes. The proposed model presents the Dark Triad, perceptions of goal blockage, and perceptions of ethical culture as potential characteristics of the PhD supervisor and implies the mediation of the perceptions of power and politics in the relationship between the Dark Triad and student abuse and exploitation. Institutional policies and practices concerning doctoral students and their characteristics are proposed as moderators in such a relationship. Finally, the model suggests that student abuse and exploitation may hinder or even end students’ academic careers. The manuscript discusses the theoretical and practical contributions and managerial implications of the proposed model and recommends further exploration of the dark sides of academia.

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Cohen, A., Baruch, Y. Abuse and Exploitation of Doctoral Students: A Conceptual Model for Traversing a Long and Winding Road to Academia. J Bus Ethics 180 , 505–522 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04905-1

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Received : 07 April 2021

Accepted : 25 July 2021

Published : 31 July 2021

Issue Date : October 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04905-1

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PhD student in Scientific Computing focusing on Computational Inverse Problems

Do you want to contribute to cutting-edge research that could improve medical diagnostics, infrastructure safety, and more? Are you interested in working on problems at the intersection of scientific computing, applied mathematics, and data-driven engineering, with the support of competent and friendly colleagues in an international environment? Are you looking for an employer that invests in sustainable employeeship and offers safe, favorable working conditions? We welcome you to apply for a PhD position at Uppsala University.

The Department of Information Technology holds a leading position in both research and education at all levels. We are currently Uppsala University's third largest department, have around 350 employees, including 120 teachers and 120 PhD students. Approximately 5,000 undergraduate students take one or more courses at the department each year. You can find more information about us on the  Department of Information Technology website .

The position is hosted by the  Division of Scientific Computing (TDB)  within the Department of Information Technology. As one of the world’s largest focused research environments in Scientific Computing the research and education has a unique breadth, with large activities in classical scientific computing areas such as numerical analysis, mathematical modeling, development and analysis of algorithms, scientific software development and high-performance computing. The division currently hosts 20 PhD students, with more than 90 doctorates awarded. Several PhD alumni from the division are successful practitioners in the field of scientific computing and related areas, in industry as well as in academia. 

eSSENCE graduate school

This PhD position is part of the eSSENCE graduate school in data-intensive science.

The school addresses the challenge of data-intensive science both from the foundational methodological perspective and from the perspective of data-driven science applications. It is an arena where experts in computational science, data science, and data engineering (systems and methodology) work closely together with researchers in (data-driven) sciences, industry, and society to accelerate data-intensive scientific discovery.

eSSENCE is a strategic collaborative research program in e-science between three Swedish universities with a strong tradition of excellent e-science research: Uppsala University, Lund University, and Umeå University.

Project description

The focus of this PhD project is computational inverse problems, specifically ultrasound imaging. Inverse problems are the art and science of looking into a box without opening it. Mathematically speaking, in inverse problems, we reconstruct the coefficients of a partial differential equation from partial observations of a field, for instance, the acoustic pressure. In ultrasound imaging, we try to reconstruct the interior of an object from the recordings of scattered acoustic waves.

In this project, we design, analyze and implement algorithms and methods to solve inverse problems. Most imaging algorithms perform poorly in strongly scattering environments due to simplifying assumptions made in their derivation. The goal of this project is to develop imaging algorithms that overcome such limitations and apply them to 3D ultrasound imaging.

A PhD student is expected to devote their time to graduate education mainly. The remainder of the duties may involve teaching at the Department as well as small administrative tasks (at most 20%)

Requirements

To meet the entry requirements for doctoral studies, you must

• hold a Master’s (second-cycle) degree in applied mathematics, scientific computing, technical physics or a related field, or
• have completed at least 240 credits in higher education, with at least 60 credits at Master’s level including an independent project worth at least 15 credits, or
• have acquired substantially equivalent knowledge in some other way.

We are looking for candidates with

• a strong interest in numerical methods, mathematical modeling/analysis, and computational physics,
• good communication skills with sufficient proficiency in oral and written English,
• excellent study results,
• programming proficiency,

Additional qualifications

Experience and courses in one or more of the following subjects are valued: numerical analysis for partial differential equations, inverse modeling, high-performance programming, optimization.

Application

The application must include: 

• a statement (at most 2 pages) of the applicant’s motivation for applying for this position, including a self-assessment on why you would be the right candidate for this position; 
• degrees and transcript of records with grades (translated to English or Swedish); 
• the Master’s thesis (or a draft thereof, and/or some other self-produced technical or scientific text), publications, and other relevant documents; 
• references with contact information (names, emails and telephone number) and up to two letters of recommendation.

Applicants who meet at least one of the entry requirements are strongly encouraged to apply. All applicants should state their earliest possible starting date.

Rules governing PhD students are set out in the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5, §§ 1-7 and in Uppsala University's rules and guidelines .

About the employment

The employment is a temporary position according to the Higher Education Ordinance chapter 5 § 7 . Scope of employment 100 %. Starting date as agreed upon (earliest 1 December 2024, latest Summer 2025). Placement: Uppsala

For further information about the position, please contact: Assistant Professor: Jörn Zimmerling, email: [email protected]; Head of Division Emanuel Rubensson, e-mail: [email protected].

Please submit your application by 10 November 2024, UFV-PA 2024/3213.

Are you considering moving to Sweden to work at Uppsala University? Find out more about what it´s like to work and live in Sweden .

Uppsala University is a broad research university with a strong international position. The ultimate goal is to conduct education and research of the highest quality and relevance to make a difference in society. Our most important asset is all of our 7,600 employees and 53,000 students who, with curiosity and commitment, make Uppsala University one of Sweden’s most exciting workplaces.

Read more about our benefits and what it is like to work at Uppsala University https://uu.se/om-uu/jobba-hos-oss/

The position may be subject to security vetting. If security vetting is conducted, the applicant must pass the vetting process to be eligible for employment.

Please do not send offers of recruitment or advertising services.

Submit your application through Uppsala University's recruitment system.

• ST/TCO  [email protected]
• Seko Universitetsklubben  [email protected]
• Saco-rådet  [email protected]