A Hard Toolbox to Improve Supervision of PhD Studies

Supervision of PhD studies is widely recognized as a difficult task demanding a number of skills which are difficult to master and are often gained through painful experience. In order to identify paths for a more efficient learning of the role as PhD supervisor, dedicated workshops involving both faculty and PhD students have been held in addition to more than 40 exit interviews with PhD graduates. This work has resulted in a series of tools for the diagnostics of PhD supervision which are currently being introduced as part of the regular follow-up of PhD studies at Chalmers University of Technology. The tools are hard in the sense that they involve quantitative indicators which are initially self-evaluated by the PhD student and the supervisor, and then later compared for common reflection and, if needed, agreement on action. Further, the results contain also data on mutual expectations between the PhD students group and the supervisors group, and comparison to the guessed expectations on each.

The presenter was awarded the prize PhD Supervisor of the Year at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), is deputy Head of Dept. for PhD studies, and participates actively in the Chalmers strategic group for pedagogical development of PhD supervisors.