Getting off to a good start with new PGRs

By Dr Emma Waters, Researcher Development Specialist (PGRs) and Dr Joanna Royle, Researcher Development Manager

Transitions are disorienting. From getting the first bus to high school, to a first job, moving to a new employer, or even changing your entire discipline, we have all done them, and remember the knotted stomach combining excitement and anxiety as we step into the unknown. PGRs come into research from a range of prior experiences. Some straight from finishing an undergraduate degree, some from taught or research masters. They may have some work experience in the field or even an entire career behind them. But wherever they arrive from, starting this new journey will be accompanied by intellectual, emotional, and cultural transitions.

Starting out feels vulnerable

Navigating transition is not only about doing new activities, but also working with new people, in new cultural contexts.  It demands instrumental learning – mastering new ways of doing and problem solving – but also changing perceptions: shifting our world view to find meaning and understanding in the new setting (Mezirow, 1991, 2000). As a supervisor taking a step back to understand where new PGRs may feel vulnerable can help you provide a supportive and clearer start. 

Their vulnerabilities could be about the research project itself: perhaps it is the first time they owned a large undefined project. Some PGRs have little experience of independently planning and managing their time and work. It could be about positioning new professional relationships: they may or may not have prior experience of being supervised or managed. PGRs bring preconceptions from work or academic culture about what is normal.

But their vulnerabilities could also lie outside of the research setting and beyond your control: a move to a new city, country or continent includes figuring out how to set up bank accounts, register with a GP and a swath of other life admin. The cost-of-living crisis, housing issues, health concerns and caring responsibilities can be as challenging as the research they have come to do. While none of these are yours to fix, understanding their impact will get you off on a more trusted footing.

What do PGRs know about supervision?

Potentially not much! It’s not uncommon to hear about difficulties between PGRs and their supervisors (e.g. Guccione, 2017), and frequently the root of the issue is mismatched expectations of the supervisory relationship. There is no guarantee that your incoming PGR has reliable insight into how doctoral supervision works.

This is not to say that there is a lack of support for PGRs. The Researcher Development team offer regular half-day interactive workshops that explore different styles and ways of being supervised, the value of explicitly discussing expectations with their supervisory team, mechanisms for handling demands on their and their supervisor’s time, and the value of taking ownership of supervision meetings by setting agendas and writing summaries of meetings. Some of the activities we use in these sessions are from Thriving in Part-Time Doctoral Study  (Rainford and Guccione, 2023). 

We can’t guarantee that your PGR will come along to this optional workshop (although please do encourage them to do so), but if they do, they will hear the same messages that are in this blogpost for supervisors:

1. That there are different styles of supervision and what works best for you and them might be different to another pairing 
2. That it is important to establish shared understanding with you early on, to avoid problems caused by mismatched expectations 
3. That the type of supervision they need will very likely change with time and conversations about expectations can be revisited if a change is needed 
4. That open and honest communication between them and you is vital for a productive and effective supervision 

Take an inward look first 

Attending a workshop, however, is no substitute for having early and regular conversations about supervision with you that demystify troublesome threshold concepts (Meyer, 2005) of the hidden doctoral curriculum (Elliott et al, 2020) for your PGRs.

Before embarking on any conversations with your new PGRs, however, it is worth taking time to think about yourself as a supervisor:

• How quickly do you expect your PGR to take leadership of their project? Can you support them to develop this with time or do you expect them to do this from the start? 
• How regularly would you like to check in with your PGR? Some PGRs thrive on regular interaction and guidance while others thrive on the space and freedom to explore independently 
• What are your expectations around how you and your PGR will communicate? Do you have a preference for email, teams, online meetings or face to face meetings? 
• What other commitments do you have on your time in your working day? Do your PGRs know about the demands on you outside of their project? 
• Are you clear as a co-supervisory team about your individual and collective responsibilities to your PGR? Have you discussed this together? 
• Outside of advising on research what do you feel is or isn’t part of your role as a supervisor? Are discussions around professional development and employability part of your role? What about pastoral matters? 

Honest with yourself about how you prefer to supervise and the time you have available to offer, better equips you to be kind, supportive, and transparent in relationship setting conversations with your new PGR. 

Tools for conversations about expectations

It is also fair to say that many of us are more comfortable scene setting the research than the relationship. The good news is that there are well-respected tools that can help you frame that conversation. Perhaps the most famous are the scale rating worksheets, based on the work of Ingrid Moses (1985) such as these ones by the University of Adelaide and Griffith University. Having a discussion that compares your ratings with those of your PGR opens up conversational space to explore where expectations are mismatched.

If a structured worksheet is not your style, co-writing a contract with your PGR addressing topics such as the frequency and format of meetings, writing, feedback, communication and so on, can be an effective way to get expectations into the open, and frame what is in and out of scope of your working relationship. This video resource by Kay Guccione suggests good questions to address. Writing it down can give your PGR an in-road to talk to you if the relationship isn’t working for you: the contract allows them to tell you that the agreement is wrong rather than your supervision.

Mitigating the power differential

A parting thought: any expectation setting conversations need to be carefully planned. Where will it be held? Who sits where? How will it be structured? How will you check-in afterwards? In any supervisory relationship there is a power dynamic to be addressed, and we know PGRs who have found using worksheets or doing contracting intimidating, although this wasn’t the supervisor’s intention.  Ensure this is framed as a kind conversation with the freedom to explore the unknown; that your answer is not necessarily the ‘correct’ one; and that this is the start of an ongoing conversation about how you, your co-supervisors, and your PGR will work together in the best way.