He Rautaki mo te Akoranga Kairangi is a series of resources for Māori doctoral students and their supervisors. These resources are derived from the Teaching and Learning in the Supervision of Māori Doctoral Students project, funded by the TLRI (No. 9250) in 2007-2008. The research team comprised Elizabeth McKinley and Barbara Grant (The University of Auckland), Sue Middleton (Waikato University), Kathie Irwin (Te Puni Kokiri) and Les Williams (Nga Pae o te Maramatanga).
He Rautaki mo te Akoranga Kairangi
1. The nature of doctoral supervision
One bit of advice an experienced colleague gave me which is very valuable: ‘Be friendly but not familiar.’ Even though the Māori version of friendly is probably more familiar than the Pākehā version of friendly. (Māori supervisor)
There’s much more reciprocity. There’s much more of a kind of flat learning experience rather than a pupil–teacher one because you should be both learning from the process. (Non-Māori supervisor)
My supervisor’s absolutely amazing. He’s got this ability to look at something and just listen to you and then draw out the key points. He just cuts away all the stuff and says, ‘That’s what you’re doing.’ Putting up plans and models and structures, he’s in a league of his own. (Student)
Introduction
Formal academic supervision is an essential ingredient of doctoral study in our country. At this highest level of education, the underlying model is something like an apprenticeship in which a novice researcher (the student or candidate) learns through a close, almost “hands-on” working relationship with one or more experienced researchers. Most institutions have some kind of guidelines for supervision that spell out the responsibilities of supervisors and student—it’s worth looking at these and discussing them with your supervisors. Generally, most people argue that having good supervision makes a big difference to students’ experience of undertaking doctoral research. Our research supports this, but it also shows that “good supervision” means different things to different students and supervisors.
When Joan Metge wrote of traditional ako that “learning is a very personal process in which the affection, respect, awe, maybe even a love–hate relationship, between learner and ‘teacher’ play a key part” (1983, p. 14), she could have been writing about doctoral supervision. It, too, is a very personal process in which emotional, sometimes even conflictual, elements can play a part. This does not necessarily mean the supervision is failing, although you need to find ways to cope with these emotions and still keep going. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
Doctoral students are more like colleagues
Doctoral students are kind of like colleagues. Colleagues that are still learning—and I’m always still learning heaps anyway, so it’s not a straightforward teacher–learner relationship. (Māori supervisor)
I was very slow to take up an active role. It was an interesting sort of fencing around between us for a year or more—I didn’t want to kind of impose or direct too much but the student was somewhat floundering. (Non-Māori supervisor)
I’d come into contact with my supervisor regularly. I’ve worked in this area all my life and he’s well known in it as well, so we’d meet at conferences, we’d meet quite regularly. He’d be down here for various meetings and so there would be a lot of formal but also informal meetings and gatherings. (Student)
When we asked supervisors to describe the kinds of teaching and learning processes they used in supervision, many responded by emphasising the ways in which their students were their colleagues. Certainly they hoped this would be the case towards the end of the supervision. By then they expected the student to know more than them about the research topic. One implication of this viewpoint is that often supervisors can be quite hands-off, expecting you (the student) to take the lead in getting the supervision you need. As the second quote above shows, this is not always successful, and that supervisor later changed the way she was going about supervision to be more directive in the early stages of the student’s research.
Different supervisors have different styles
I don’t see it as supervision, I see it as training. And so we’re training people to have what they need to be able to become researchers. (Māori supervisor)
I’m not too pushy. I never would confront my student in the corridor and say ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ I treat them as adults. I don’t see it as my role to be mother to them and nag them and remind them. But I’m always available. When they say, ‘Oh, could I have an appointment?’, I say, ‘Yes, let’s have it on Friday.’ (Non-Māori supervisor)
Early on the supervision was about how we’re going to do this research: What is consultation gonna look like? How involved are you gonna be in the process as my supervisor? And I became aware that while my supervisor was alright supporting me, he wasn’t so good at supporting the whole idea of kaupapa-Māori-style research. The second supervisor was very much interested in looking after me as a person. So her understanding of the relationship was that while my first supervisor would look after the research, she was gonna look after me progressing through the research. You know, emotionally, socially, with my sanity intact. (Student)
The supervisors in our research varied in their basic stance towards doctoral supervision. For example, some emphasised the independence of the student while others emphasised the need to direct the student quite strongly at times to save them going off on time-wasting digressions. Such different points of view usually have good reasons (and experience) behind them, and a supervisor might be quite reluctant to diverge too much from what feels best to them. Most supervisors believe they need to adjust their practice to suit different students—sometimes the difficulty is working out what the student needs. Having supervisors with different styles can be a strength in your supervision.
Supervisors will take a range of roles
I think Māori students need and want to feel safe and trusted and trusting and that you’re not going to give them a hard time, that you’re gonna help them when they need help. But there has to be a tension between the friendship and the supervision: those two can’t fall into each other. Because when push comes to shove, I’ve got to say ‘no’, ‘yes’. You know? One of my students calls me ‘Nanny Dragon’ because I honestly get really heavy with her about her academic work. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Mostly my role is in supervising the process of doing a PhD, and ensuring they have the right support. That includes content supervisors on their panel if they need that, and I certainly can’t provide it always. Almost without exception our PhDs are supported through scholarships or through research grants, so I see it as my role to ensure they’ve got the money to do their research. (Māori supervisor)
The supervisors talked about many possible roles as being legitimate, depending on their preferred supervision style, but also on what they think they have to offer any particular supervision. Sometimes they were only too aware that they did not have much content or cultural expertise and that the student would need to look elsewhere for this kind of advice. Some of the various roles that were mentioned by our research participants (students and supervisors) were guide, coach, mentor, model, critic, supporter, friend, research star, financier. Not all supervisors wanted or were able to take all these roles. Some tried to maintain boundaries around their role, like the supervisor above who talks about being “friendly but not familiar”. Most supervisors in our study emphasised that their practice changed in response to different students as well as different stages in the process. Many also described having to make quite tricky judgements at times about how to assist their student most effectively and getting better at this through experience.
Teaching and learning are reciprocal
That was very important growth for me because I learnt a lot about making connections, understanding whakapapa and understanding that this kind of work needed to be done in Māori space and with appropriate Māori support. (Māori supervisor)
God, I’ve learned huge amounts from my Māori students. It’s one of the joys of working with them, actually, because I’m Pākehā and from down south. Ten years ago, I knew nothing. So I’ve learned an enormous amount. I’ve read relatively little, but I’ve learned it through them and they’ve been very generous. (Non-Māori supervisor)
So I chose a supervisor who is a guru in my field. And because he was from overseas, he had no idea really what a Māori was. He didn’t come with all of that background, he was learning as I was kind of teaching him that stuff. (Student)
Both supervisors and students talked about how teaching and learning went both ways in doctoral supervision: the supervisor teaches the student but the student also teaches the supervisor. When supervising Māori doctoral students, supervisors not only learn more about new aspects of their academic field or some domain of professional practice, but also about Māori culture and politics. Non-Māori supervisors mentioned, in particular, the pleasure of being included in and learning about aspects of Māori life that were otherwise not easily accessible to them. Supervisors also talked about learning how to supervise from their students—some acknowledged that, apart from their own experience of having been supervised, this was the main source of their learning as supervisors.
Supervisors are sometimes at the edge of their knowledge
For me, just looking at my programme, and looking at where other Māori staff supervise, it’s much less likely to be within whatever your specialised area is. Probably the most common way I get supervisions is requests from Pākehā academics asking if I would supervise one of their students, often in a secondary role. (Māori supervisor)
The student’s work was not only the edges of my understanding, it was way beyond. I mean, I didn’t know the theory. I could pick up issues to do with consistency and clarity of argument, the way things are referenced and authorities referred to, etcetera, but the content was way outside of my experience. (Non-Māori supervisor)
It’s common in doctoral education, especially when the research topic comes from the student’s own interests, that supervisors feel as if they are working on the edge of their academic knowledge and authority. This was even more complex when non-Māori supervisors were involved in supervising kaupapa Māori research, or Māori supervisors were invited into projects outside their discipline in order to provide cultural expertise. Supervisors talked about the importance of including others who did have relevant expertise, either as formal supervisors or as informal advisers—and they expected students to take the initiative on the latter especially. Even where the student’s research falls outside of a supervisor’s own field of expertise, however, supervisors still have plenty of useful knowledge. For example: ways to survive the process of undertaking a piece of substantial independent research, insight into the writing process, experience with methodology, understanding of institutional requirements and so on. Many have wide collegial networks they can link their students with as well.
Supervision is more effective when the student has other forums for advice
I rely on other people to assist the student. I also rely on and encourage the students to be part of a Māori peer network, and the university’s been particularly good at organising that sort of thing. (Non-Māori supervisor)
The cultural adviser was way more demanding than the supervisor was. She expected to see things, she was prepared to go out of her way to take the student to hui, to introduce the student and then she didn’t want to be embarrassed. So she was very clear about her expectations. And when the student was saying things like they only wanted to read things written by their iwi, it was the community person who said ‘No, no, no, you’ll read everything ever written by anyone on that topic, ’cause we want to be sure you know what you’re talking about.’ She would say those things really frankly. I thought that was great. I thought those community advisers can say things that academic supervisors can’t. (Māori supervisor)
Both students and supervisors talked about the value of the student having a wider base of support for their research than just their formal supervisors. Students talked about learning from other students through workshops and conversations (for example, through participating in local cohort activities of the National Programme for Māori and Indigenous Doctoral Postgraduate Advancement), as well as from iwi or whānau-based advisers. “Going home” sometimes for support and encouragement came up as well, with some students doing a significant part of their writing away from the institution and other daily demands. Also, if your supervisor is unavailable for some reason (we heard about health issues as well as the more usual sabbatical leaves and so on), or your supervision is going through a tricky patch, other people can keep you going.
Some guidelines for dealing with supervision along the way
(Remember Metge’s love–hate relationship.) y Your supervision is likely to change over time—as your supervisor gets to know you and as both your confidence and independence increase.
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Reference:
Metge, J. (1983). Learning and teaching: He tikanga Māori. Wellington: Department of Education.
2. Reasons for doing a doctorate
I was encouraged by the old people at home to complete research to a doctoral thesis level, and particularly by one of our leaders when he was alive. I feel very passionate about the knowledge that I’d acquired particularly from my grandmother when I was a child, and I felt that definitely I had something to contribute. And to be recognised, one has to produce to a certain academic standard and the doctorate was the benchmark. (Student)
My doctoral journey was prompted by he moe tapu, which is a sacred vision. At the core was the advancement of Māori. I had a spiritual vision about this particular place and within that dream was an urgent need for me to advance its kaitiakitanga. (Student)
When I started doing some tutoring, I recognised that I really enjoyed the experience of teaching in the university environment. So I was encouraged that doing a PhD might be a really good idea. But another considerable part about it too is that it’s very hard to go anywhere in science without a PhD. I worked for a little as a technician in a lab, and I didn’t feel like it was an advantage to have a brain in my head. (Student)
Introduction
Students undertake doctoral studies for a wide variety of good reasons. Many we talked to had reasons for doing a doctorate that extended beyond their personal development. Their focus was often on the greater good of their communities, and this would be reflected in the kind of research they undertook—for example, a socially focused study might stem from a student’s desire to benefit their iwi. Many supervisors were also actively committed to contributing to progress for Māori within our society and expected or encouraged students to do the same. Some also actively promoted doctoral studies to Māori students with a view to building Māori representation in academia.
Supervisors in particular emphasised the importance of the student knowing why they were doing a doctorate and of researching a topic that would still excite them in three years’ time. (For more on this, see Choosing a research topic.) Supervisors described how it’s distressing for everyone if a student doesn’t complete their doctorate, and many thought this was more likely where there was a lack of clear reasons for embarking on the project. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
Progressing their career
I had decided by then that academia was the place for me. I’d found my niche as it were. It took me all these years in education to finally find a place that I felt was like home to me. And so my thoughts were that if you choose these places to make a commitment, then a PhD’s mandatory. (Student)
The main reason why I wanted to get into a PhD was primarily for financial gain and also to further my career in the agency that’s currently sponsoring me. In order to get ahead there, you pretty much have to have a doctorate, because the way the system’s set up is for scientists to lead research programmes. And, to be a scientist, you must have a doctorate. (Student)
Many students talked about needing to have a doctorate to further their careers both inside the academy and out. Some students simply loved academia and this fuelled their passion for doctoral research; others recognised that to be taken seriously in their field they must have a PhD. They spoke about not being able to run research projects or get certain positions otherwise. Other students were expected to complete a PhD as a condition of their employment. One Māori supervisor frankly put it to his employees: “Are you going to do [a PhD] or not? If not, your contract will be terminated.”
Although some of these reasons were created by external circumstances, they also became a personal motivation for the student and often meant extra support in terms of funding and/or employment from their institution.
Being interested in the topic
I thought it would challenge me, but also that it would give me a chance to sort of voice some things which are of huge interest to me. (Student)
I was just aware what sort of interesting, exciting things were going on. It was really fascinating to me in a sort of intellectual sense seeing what people were doing and I was really conscious that the only people writing about the process were lawyers advising them and of course they have a particular role and a particular viewpoint. It was a whole lot of wider questions that kept on coming to mind and I was interested in documenting some of that stuff more formally and having an opportunity to think about it, because of course in the day-to-day work you don’t have time to do that reflective process. (Student)
Our students are usually driven by a passion to do it and so not finishing is usually not an option and we find ways to get through. So they’re very committed, they haven’t just wandered into it. (Māori supervisor)
Most of the doctoral students were very passionate about their thesis topics. The topics had come from a personal interest or a desire to contribute to their hapu or iwi, so undertaking research was itself intrinsically rewarding. Some students’ research arose out of prior postgraduate study or employment; for example, a student whose topic and employment were both related to Māori broadcasting. Others built on prior experience; for example, the student who followed a doctoral study path that reflected her desire to advocate for Māori with specific health issues. She was able to produce work that both conveyed her personal struggles and facilitated change in the community. Being motivated to research areas close to their hearts meant that students were more likely to enjoy their doctoral studies, while supervisors pointed out that a student’s interest in their topic was often a crucial component in completing.
Undertaking a doctorate based on whānau or iwi motivation
I completed that project and the Rangatira Hauora or Chief of Health for that tribe said, ‘By the way I need you back here next week because you have to do at least a master’s on this, preferably a PhD please.’ (Student)
It used to be that the PhD was an entrée into becoming an academic worker. For Māori the PhD isn’t always that, it is often about a whole lot of other things. And nothing to do with getting a lectureship at the other end of it. For so many of them, they are the first ones in their whānau, and it’s because they want to show their own children or their whānau or their hapu or their iwi that it can be done. And, if one person goes through, then it creates a pathway that other people can go through. And so it’s not about getting the job at the other end of it, it’s actually about creating openings. (Māori supervisor)
It was common for our participants to have some form of hapu, iwi or tupuna-based motivation for doing a doctorate. A few students had been told explicitly to do a doctorate by their kaumātua for a particular purpose relevant to their iwi. One student’s primary reason for doing a doctorate was a moe tapu from her tupuna in which she was prompted to use her PhD for the advancement of Māori. Another wanted to validate knowledge that had been handed down to her by her grandmother. While many other students may not have received explicit instructions, the concept of role modelling education to their whānau was a strong motive for doing a doctorate. Some spoke about their doctorate becoming a duty at the hapu/iwi level, even in the absence of an explicit mandate. Students with these kinds of motivations often faced the paradox of increased iwi support, but also increased external pressure. So, while this form of motivation was very powerful, iwi pressures and responsibilities could also slow down a student’s progress.
Viewing the doctorate as a natural progression from master’s research
Why did I enrol in a doctorate? At the time I didn’t think there was much difference between master’s and a doctorate. And I had the choice. So I thought, ‘Hmmm, an extra year, that’s alright.’ Turned out to be a lot more extra years. So it was kinda by mistake more than by bigger picture thinking. Uninformed choice as it was at that time, it turned out to be a good decision. (Student)
From my particular situation, and being the person I am, I saw the completion of a master’s as a natural progression for me to complete a doctorate. It was just a thing that I was going to do. (Student)
Some of the students simply considered doctoral studies a natural step after completing a master’s or honours degree. This rationale for undertaking a doctorate was often coupled with another reason, such as wanting to role model education to their whānau. As in the example above, quite a few students were unaware of the actual magnitude of a PhD and began the journey fairly unknowingly. A few students were also invited to upgrade their master’s projects to PhDs. Both situations had in common an element of unawareness on the students’ behalf about what they were getting themselves into. Moreover, several of the students who upgraded wished they hadn’t because they felt underprepared for the demands they faced.
Undertaking a doctorate for political reasons
As I went along though I came to realise the importance of having a PhD was to lift my standing within the community—not the Māori community, but in the mainstream community. So it was to elevate my stance so that I could talk back to local authorities or to Pākehā, and that perhaps with a PhD they might take more notice of me. So it was absolutely not about me being above my Māori people, our Māori people, but it was more being able, being above the Pākehā people at least, at their level as they perceive it. (Student)
I’m very clear there’s a deal going on here, when I supervise. It’s not just about, as it might be in other areas, producing good research, or producing a qualification. Actually we are training these people because we need them in the cause, for the Māori community. (Māori supervisor)
As both student and supervisor acknowledge here, doctorates done by Māori students often end up as political statements. This may be due to the politically useful skills a doctorate equips a student with, or the sometimes controversial research topic, or simply the status a person achieves once completing the qualification. Some theses became political instruments because students were challenging an aspect of society by simply exploring Māori issues within a predominantly Pākehā environment. A few supervisors spoke about recruiting students for “the cause”; that is, producing people and research that from the outset promote the advancement of the Māori community. And some students, too, chose to undertake doctoral studies to challenge some element of society they felt was wrong. However, one supervisor cautioned: “Suspend the cause, suspend the battle while you’re doing your PhD. It can’t be that you will personally solve all the woes of Māoridom in three years.” This comment reflected the view of many supervisors that doctoral students often had ambitions for their doctoral research that exceeded what was achievable within the doctoral framework: in these cases, a big part of supervision in the early stages was to turn that big ambition into a doable project.
Some guidelines for deciding to do a doctorate
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Although you will learn all sorts of valuable knowledge and skills, the world probably won’t be saved through your doctorate—but some doctoral research does lead to significant changes or developments in particular areas of thinking and/or practice
3. Choosing a research topic
I went to a hui at the marae where the old people started getting up and telling stories and they said, ‘Someone needs to record these stories.’ And so I thought, ‘Oh, I want to do a PhD and I like those stories, how can I make those stories into a PhD?’ And so that’s where the idea was born. (Student)
I would definitely say that on the whole, looking around and looking at other people’s projects, that the personal is political for Māori. The students do bring a whole lot to it and often what they are studying is their own communities, their own settings, right down to real specificities. Very, very close stuff. (Māori supervisor)
Introduction
Many of the students we talked to were undertaking projects that had a mātauranga Māori dimension. Often the students also had political intentions, in that they hoped to contribute to improved circumstances for their iwi or for the Māori community at large in a particular sector; for example, health or social work. These dimensions had various, sometimes far-reaching, implications for their work. Other students undertook projects for which they could get funding, or through which they could learn particular skills or work with a particular supervisor. Sometimes their doctoral research was a continuation of their master’s research. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
Topics often came from the heart of students’ lives
The chief of health for [my] tribe said, ‘I need you back here next week because you have to do at least a master’s on this topic, preferably a PhD please.’ So I was corralled into doing the PhD on behalf of the tribe, it was not my idea, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. (Student)
I feel very passionate about the knowledge that I’d acquired, particularly from my grandmother when I was a child, and I felt that definitely I had something to contribute. And to be recognised, one has to produce a certain academic status, or a certain academic standard, and the doctorate was the benchmark. (Student)
My supervisor knew I’d already done all that work and it was a passion, it was an interest of mine. So it was just a case of marrying it together, that passion and interest, into a formal sort of arrangement. (Student)
Many students were researching topics and questions that had a strong connection with their identity as Māori, with their whānau or iwi, or Māori at large. For example, some students described being given their thesis topic by members of their iwi. In these cases complex accountabilities ensued and the ownership of the doctoral work was not simply the student’s. Sometimes the process of doing the research involved intense mentoring or grooming for leadership from a key player in the iwi and so there would be reciprocal responsibilities. Some students designed their research projects to highlight and to validate traditional knowledge. For example, one saw her doctorate as giving status to her grandmother’s teachings, while another moved between the worlds of intellectual and spiritual knowing, and yet another’s thesis presented a defence of the contemporary pedagogical importance of traditional narrative forms. These kinds of examples illustrate different ways in which a Māori doctoral student’s thesis work may have to navigate not only separated, and seemingly incommensurate, knowledge domains but also potentially difficult emotions that may result from competing allegiances—to iwi or loved relatives on the one hand, and to the academic disciplinary community on the other.
Topics were often interdisciplinary in scope
I’d ask the students what their thesis was and it was great, you know, a fantastic idea. And I was saying, ‘Well, how are you doing that?’ Then I actually realised that the idea’s actually all they’ve got. There’s real difficulty, they can’t drill down and a lot of this is either because they’ve come from interdisciplinary backgrounds and they’ve shifted from, say, education and now they’re doing something that’s sort of pushing for the Māori focus. And often they aren’t familiar with—and in some cases can’t even identify—what literatures they are going to need to do this piece of work. (Māori supervisor)
The student was very good at going off and reading and finding stuff from all sorts of other disciplines and bringing it together. So it felt like she was going well, but I didn’t quite realise, until some time had gone on, that it was somewhat directionless. (Non-Māori supervisor)
My topic didn’t fit into indigenous funding and indigenous didn’t fit into the research field’s funding, so I was declined by every scholarship I could find. (Student)
Many students were undertaking interdisciplinary work. This is a likely consequence of pursuing questions that have arisen through their own experience or the experiences of other members of their whānau or iwi. In other words, their research questions haven’t arisen from “gaps in the literature” so much as from urgently felt social needs. Interdisciplinary work can pose challenges for finding a home department as well as supervision (because supervisors tend to be positioned within a disciplinary base). It can also pose a challenge for dealing adequately (as a doctorate requires) with a wider-than-usual range of literatures and concepts. This may become particularly clear at the examination stage: like supervisors, examiners tend to be situated within a home discipline, and they may apply their discipline’s norms more or less singlemindedly in the examination process.
Some research topics had very little literature
I think the biggest challenge, though, is that Māori students are working in whole new areas where there is no supporting literature. Where the literature that they’re working with is full of gaps. Their question is, when you get to the nub of it, it’s a real question in the real world but it’s not a question in the literature world. (Māori supervisor)
So when students come to me and say, ‘Why should I read? Why should I refer to anything? No one says anything about Māori, it’s all international stuff, why should I read it?’, I can come back quite strictly at them about the need to read, the need to learn about what other learned people have to say, the need to structure argument in certain kinds of ways. The need for a certain kind of logic, a linear logic. And they are great skills for you to have. You need them if you’re gonna make a political difference in this environment. (Non-Māori supervisor)
People told me, ‘Don’t do that topic, nobody’s ever done that before.’ I say, ‘Precisely the reason to do it.’ And then it’s, ‘Where’s the literature?’ And I’m like, ‘Somebody’s got to start this.’ Then I thought to myself, ‘Somebody’s going to start this, jeepers, what am I saying?’ Because I was more or less doing it because people told me not to do it, and all of a sudden I found out I was the only one doing it, and, yeah, it’s going to be hard. (Student)
In contrast to the challenge posed by too much literature (sometimes found in interdisciplinary work), we found that another challenge for mātauranga Māori research is that there is often very little published literature. This means the student does not have an established research context in which to situate their work, with which to dialogue, and through which to make their work more intelligible to other researchers. It means students will have to throw their reading nets quite widely, even a bit eclectically, in order to find literatures and arguments that they can connect their work with. Because, as the supervisor above says, through reading and understanding, doctoral students learn more deeply how to make their own arguments in ways that are valued within contemporary political spheres. In this sense, the lack of literature is an opportunity as well as a challenge.
Some topics came through supervisors or previous academic work
I basically said to this potential supervisor, ‘No, look I’ve got my dreams and I really want to go overseas to do my PhD.’ And he was really lovely, he basically said to me, ‘Well, I know a lot of people in this research community and we believe that a PhD in New Zealand has greater value than an overseas one, because you don’t work on one area of the project, you work on all of it.’ And he said, ‘I’ll help you follow your dreams.’ (Student)
My PhD is an extension of my master’s. For my master’s I did not have the tools and the resources at the time to do it properly in the time frame. That was a combination of the technology at the time and also the national controlling body was very precious about what I wanted to study. (Student)
Not all doctoral research topics arose from cultural or political concerns. In some disciplines research is very dependent on significant funding, and in these areas students were likely to be pursuing research topics that could attract funding or that already had funding. Sometimes they might have taken on a topic because they wanted to work with a particular supervisor who was a leading researcher in the area worldwide.
Some topics are dangerous
It’s dangerous when their topics are totally dependent on the fact that they work in an institution or they know a certain group of people with whom they want to do research. Because, you know, there’s been a couple of cases where the person had a fight with the institution, got kicked out or left, so that study collapsed and they had to go and find another topic. (Māori supervisor)
I had a PhD topic before in which I recorded a process between a Māori organisation and a service company. Kaupapa Māori was the framework that was to be used all the way through. It did to the point of the first stage, but what the service company realised was that they couldn’t do a kaupapa Māori system even if they tried. They couldn’t fathom how the organisation worked in a kaupapa Māori framework. In the end that company took everything, they took the first stage, they took the whole documentation, they took everything and the organisation was left with nothing. And, although it was three years of my PhD, I had nothing in the end. (Student)
I’ve found sometimes that you’ve gotta try and put brakes on people’s enthusiasms for going off on tangents and preaching. You have to be really careful about that sort of thing, everything you say must be backed up by evidence that you’ve interpreted. Okay, your interpretation may actually be a personal reaction to something, but the evidence has got to be produced. (Non-Māori supervisor)
One potential student sent me a whole lot of material that she’d written and her whole proposal. And the thing with it was it was boring. My first response to it was, ‘Oh, God, I don’t want to read this.’ But she was so passionate about it. I said, ‘Do you really want to do this for three years? Because if I was doing this, I’d be bored.’ She was kind of shocked, and then I said ‘Well, think about it, if you’re gonna do this for three years, is that really what you want to do?’ I think some of them don’t realise it’s a long time to carry a kaupapa. It does have to have something interesting in it. (Māori supervisor)
We heard about various kinds of dangerous research topics. One kind was those topics where the student thinks from the outset that they know the answer to their research question and so is unable to see anything to the contrary. Sometimes this was because the student had very strong feelings or past experiences in relation to the topic. In such cases, a student may resist any alternative interpretations of their research material, and the supervisor may come to feel that the student is unsupervisable.
Another dangerous kind of topic was one that was totally dependent on another organisation or group of people to complete. In some senses, all research that involves other human beings is risky in this way, but sometimes the risk is particularly acute. Having said that, some students went ahead with projects that were “dangerous” in just that way and produced very successful work.
Yet another dangerous kind of topic was one that was not substantial or interesting enough to keep the student stimulated for at least three years nor to lead to a substantial enough thesis! In contrast, several supervisors and students talked about another kind of research topic that is just as dangerous—the one that is too big, that takes what seems like a lifetime to complete.
Some guidelines for choosing a good research topic
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Be open to unexpected findings, perspectives and answers to your research question.
4. Choosing supervisors
I had taken several papers and one of those was with Jane and also a kaupapa Māori one with Hone and methodology with Michael. So I developed quite a good relationship with each of them, but particularly with Jane, and also she demonstrated she was willing to take on a supervision student. Hone is very busy and he was quite clear that he would be absolutely happy to be a supervisor but in a more of a secondary capacity, because of his time commitments. And Michael was very willing just to cover off the methodology, he’s just been there if I needed him. (Student)
The student started off with a different external supervisor and that didn’t work out, so that person withdrew and so there was some time where the other co-supervisor and I just worked on our own with her. Then I went overseas on leave for a year and, when I came back, a third supervisor came on board and that worked out really well. He was very helpful and, you know, sometimes it’s a matter of getting the right combination, isn’t it? (Māori supervisor)
Introduction
Talk in our interviews focused on how students chose their supervisors and why supervisors agreed to supervise. In some ways, the idea of “choosing” supervisors is a bit misleading as, for any particular student and their project, there will be a finite pool of possible supervisors. Sometimes that pool is very small indeed. At the same time, we found that students had quite a lot of input into this matter and so it’s worth thinking through quite carefully what (and who) would be best for you and your project. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
Choosing supervisors strategically
It was really important for me to have a supervisor that I did not have to enter into a debate with about everything … not at the early stages where I was really exploring things. I didn’t want to have to defend my complete and utter belief that Māori theory actually exists in these aspects of traditional Māori knowledge. I wanted somebody to say, ‘That’s a logical idea. Okay now, how are you going to demonstrate that?’ (Student)
I chose him because he had the strength that I lacked. He had the theoretical knowledge and he is a very pedantic, detail-conscious person, which I’m not. So I knew that we would be a very good balance for each other. (Student)
Many students described in some detail the kind of thinking they went through when considering who their supervisors might be. They were aware of the importance of getting this as right as possible, especially (but not only) if they were doing mātauranga Māori projects. For example, they didn’t want to spend precious time convincing sceptical supervisors that this was a viable field of research. They were often very thoughtful about putting together the right mix of supervisors in order to cover all the aspects of input they thought they would need.
Several students we interviewed were sought out by potential supervisors (or departments). This was seen to be a compliment but, at the same time, some wanted to find out why the supervisor was interested in them. For example, one student described being very clear with a prospective supervisor that she did not want to be a “token brownie” in his research group.
Reasons supervisors take on the role
Each supervision sprang out of a relationship really. We liked each other. So it was not so much ‘I’m working in a field and I’m interested in your field’, and it’s never been like that with Māori students. Well, it hasn’t been like that for me with Pākehā students either to be honest. I find that my supervisions tend to spring out of relationships with people when we just hit it off. (Non-Māori supervisor)
[At our research centre] we’ve never really recruited, people have always sought us out, we’re the only Māori centre of this kind. You know, two friends tell two friends and it’s sort of happened more like that. So we’ve never really advertised or tried to recruit, largely because I don’t think we could cope with the demand if there was one. (Māori supervisor)
Supervisors described a really wide variety of reasons for agreeing to supervise. Most talked about there not being enough academics qualified to supervise mātauranga Māori projects. Many agreed to supervise because they already knew the student in some way or the student’s topic was in their area of research interest. However, even when the student’s project was in an unfamiliar area, some agreed to supervise for other reasons. For example, they were aware of how few options the student had, or they found the project exciting, or they felt a strong commitment to the importance of building the number of doctorally qualified Māori in the New Zealand community. In these cases, they wanted to have other supervisors included who could provide expert advice in aspects of the project.
Māori supervisors in particular reported having high loads of doctoral students. They were aware that they were often invited to be supervisors because they were Māori rather than because they had relevant academic expertise. This sometimes worried them, although less so when the student was highly motivated and making good use of other kinds of support and interaction (such as participating in doctoral student groups, the local National Programme for Māori and Indigenous Doctoral Postgraduate Advancement cohort or other kinds of institutional support activities).
All the supervisors we interviewed talked about enjoying supervision, in particular the exchange of ideas through talking with their students and reading their work.
There’s a variety of supervision arrangements
There was a wide variety of successful supervision arrangements: two co-supervisors; a main supervisor and second supervisor; a main supervisor and several second supervisors and/or advisers as well; or sometimes a supervisory panel. The least common arrangement was to have just one supervisor, probably because most doctoral regulations insist otherwise. In practice, often the student had one main supervisor who they interacted with regularly and who was the main source of advice and support. Students usually consulted with their main supervisor about who the other supervisor(s) might be. Whether or not they all met together, and how often, varied considerably. One of the things that came through our study is the benefits of everyone understanding what their roles were, and the student having ways of keeping their supervisors in the loop about what was happening with the project.
Many students had a mix of Māori and non-Māori supervisors; they sometimes came from different departments or even institutions. Many students also had cultural advisers and, again, they had different kinds of arrangements. (See Getting cultural advice for your research for more on this.)
Changes in supervision are common
I don’t think it’s unusual for Māori students to have a series of supervisors. I think it’s more common than [with] any other students and I think that that does create issues both for supervision and for them. (Māori supervisor)
My secondary supervisor’s workload increased so she had to withdraw over time. And then I asked someone else if she was able to do it and she’d just had two students hand in, so it was timely. So she took it on, and so it was those two supervising me. But when my first supervisor left, the secondary carried on by herself because my university couldn’t come up with another first supervisor. (Student)
So I could see in the future that this was not going to work with one of my supervisors. The differences were too great and becoming wider. I was not going down a Western perspective, I was going much more down a Māori one. So I could see that, and I didn’t want to harm the relationship, and I didn’t want to harm my studies or my future studies or my doctoral scholarship, so that’s when I contacted a senior Māori academic. I felt that he was the best person to turn to and he put me in touch with someone who became my supervisor. (Student)
He played a few more power trip things on me as well, in terms of when he wasn’t giving me feedback as agreed. And then he actually wasn’t giving me any decent feedback at all. And so that’s when I thought, ‘No, I don’t really think that this is going to work. And I don’t trust you any more.’ And so I emailed him to say, ‘This is going to take me longer and I actually need way more in-depth supervision than I originally anticipated, so I’m going to look for someone else.’ (Student)
Lots of students we talked to had experienced changes of supervision for all sorts of reasons. Commonly the main supervisor had moved institution. In such cases, the student had to get a replacement because institutions require main supervisors to be their employee for accountability purposes. Less frequently, it happened because a supervisor was no longer actively contributing to the student’s progress. Sometimes the change was to add a new supervisor rather than replace one, as this was likely to be less disruptive. While changing supervisors did pose challenges for both student and supervisor, in some cases it made a big difference to the student getting finished. New supervisors sometimes gave the student a new lease of life, allowed them to “see the wood for the trees” and to find the energy required to get through the finishing stages.
Overlapping relationships
[W]e [Māori supervisors and Māori doctoral students] have relationships that precede supervision. So sometimes we have to say, ‘Right we’re gonna focus on the thesis first and get that out of the way and then we’ll go have a kai somewhere and talk’, you know, about life in general and moan about our husbands. (Māori supervisor)
We are from the same place, me and my supervisor. He had a little bit of a vested interest in wanting me to complete. So he was pretty regular with me. We did speak about it probably on a weekly basis. And I’d go home and bring him back deer and pigs and drop them off at his house. And I’d spend evenings at his house, even stay at his house. (Student)
Overlapping relationships were common between Māori students and Māori supervisors. As one supervisor remarked, “Māori people aren’t happy till they figure out how they’re related. Or that they’ve someone in common.” From what we heard, this is not necessarily a problem, although some supervisors said that it could make giving critical feedback difficult—especially if the student was resistant to it. If that’s your situation, the best strategy is probably to talk about how to make this work early on. Maybe, like the supervisor above, you agree to get the business done first when you meet and then talk about other things. Maybe you agree that you won’t talk about supervision stuff when you see each other at outside events like hui or tangi (unless you agree to in advance). And so on.
Find someone who will make you work
So I look at my first supervisor [who’s an expert in one area] almost like a father figure … and my second supervisor [who’s an expert in another aspect of my work] is more like a big brother or an uncle. He still kicks me in the arse when I’m not performing correctly but he’ll be the guy at the pub with me. (Student)
You don’t want a student to be frightened of you so that they get paralysed, but you want them to be frightened enough of you to do their best work. So that they’re always trying a bit harder, ’cause they want to impress. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Many students need a supervisor who they are a bit in awe of or who they know will give them a “kick” when they need it. Along the way, lots of things including self-doubt will come along to distract you, and they will often feel like good reasons to put your doctoral work aside. At times like this a staunch supervisor can help you get back on track so that you do get finished.
Some guidelines for choosing supervisors
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5. Getting cultural advice for your research
I also have a couple of kaumātua who I have conversations with. One of those relationships is relatively formal, he’s like a mentor, and he will come over and talk things through. And another one, Auntie Ani, is more informal but we spend a lot of time talking about things, including my research. I take a lot out of those conversations. I’m not related to either of them in a blood sense, they’re just committed to supporting me. (Student)
We set up an advisory team. A lot of it was around both the cultural safety aspect for her but also protection for her, because, you know, she’s looking at Māori and health. We wanted to ensure that she was protected in her process as well and that she had a strong group of Māori practitioners and tikanga specialists. (Māori supervisor)
Introduction
Formal academic supervision was frequently complemented by more or less formal cultural supervision— for example, through an advisory panel or one-to-one mentoring. Both students and supervisors described the value and importance of this advice, especially when the student’s research topic had a mātauranga or kaupapa Māori dimension. In most cases the student took the lead role in setting this up, drawing on existing relationships or obligations. In other cases—for example, if there were potential professional implications coming out of the research—the supervisors assisted. Sometimes the supervisor fronted up with the student before their advisory group or iwi, especially in the early stages of developing the research proposal, but when the arrangement was more one-to-one, the supervisor usually had no involvement. Some supervisors thought the student had a right, as an adult, to involve whomever they wanted in getting advice for their research. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
Secondary Māori supervisors
[He] is officially on my supervision team as my Māori adviser and that was because of the tikanga Māori component. Me and my main supervisor had a really good talk about it. We both said that he’s sort of been my mentor for a long time, so we wanted to officially recognise him as someone who’s contributed to our work. (Student)
Sometimes I’ve become the supervisor—it depends often on the student and the department—but the fact that the student’s Māori is the factor. Because what happens if their topic gets too difficult, or the student becomes too difficult, the main supervisor gets stuck, they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to motivate the student or they let the student play games with them. So it’s often there I’ll kind of intervene and just, say for a year, take over that part of the process. (Māori supervisor)
Several supervisors talked about being invited into supervisions because they were Māori and the main supervisor was not. Often they had little or no relevant disciplinary expertise, and they took more or less active roles depending on the situation. Non-Māori supervisors also talked about including Māori colleagues because they felt anxious about their lack of knowledge and/or they wanted to ensure the student was well supported from a cultural point of view. Or, as in the case cited above, the supervisor did not know how to respond to their student effectively when things were not going well. (Some non-Māori supervisors described actively seeking advice from Māori colleagues as well.) Including Māori supervisors in the supervision “team” gives the advantage of having a cultural adviser with formal responsibility towards the student and their project. It can also benefit the Māori academic, who should get workload recognition for their role, whereas if they do the work informally, they won’t. Inviting Māori supervisors in from outside the discipline is largely a result of insufficient Māori supervisors in some academic areas, which results in a heavy workload for existing staff. One of the long-term effects of there being more Māori doctoral graduates could be to change this situation, as more go on to become academics.
Community-based cultural advisers
The student had a much closer relationship to the advisory team than I did, and just before she submitted she had a big meeting with them, and immediately after submission she did too. She really held tight to that because I’ve seen other people put this into place and then not use it. I think she realised that she actually needed it. (Māori supervisor)
This student has a very strong mentor in his life, who’s also very active. In a sense he’s the student’s other supervisor. The student is actually being groomed for a leadership role and the mentor’s taking a very active hand in that. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Throughout my research I’ve always gone back home and always consulted with my aunty and always consulted with my kaumātua very regularly. So I’ve had a lot of guidance and direction from many of the kuia, although many of them have passed on now. It’s been a journey and experience. The direction may not have come directly from the old people but it was more a spiritual force down through the tūpuna. (Student)
Now what’s really important in that process is a concept that I theorise called ‘apprenticeshipping’, engaging in one’s own apprenticeship in methodology, in the embracement of kaumātua and kuia. (Student)
Community-based cultural advisers can play a very important role for the student and their project, providing all sorts of contextual and local advice, connections and emotional support. However, this advice takes place at the interface between academic requirements and cultural and community-based requirements, and these things don’t always mesh easily. As the supervisor above says, it’s important to think about why you need such advisers and what kind of role they might play. Some of the most successful arrangements described to us were very informal and drew upon pre-existing iwi and whānau relationships. Mostly the student initiated the relationships—but sometimes they also grew out of the research design to include participants. An issue that sometimes arose was when the adviser did not understand the nature of academic work and time frames. Whether or not the supervisor got involved in this relationship varied across the different stories we heard.
Cultural advisers have an essential role in some research
I couldn’t have gone to the old people’s places without my father. It just wasn’t appropriate. The first interview that I did was with a kuia and, when I rang her and asked if she would like to participate, she said, ‘Yes, yes.’ And then she said, ‘But you will bring someone with you, won’t you dear, somebody that I can talk to,’ she said, ‘like your father.’ ’Cause they were friends in the church together. (Student)
The student had to present his proposal and we went into the tribal trust board rooms, which was quite a daunting place for a Pākehā person. So I found to my amazement rather than us telling the board what this was all about and what the student’s role was, they proceeded to interrogate us both on what we thought we were doing, what we wanted to do. They controlled that process very tightly, they asked the questions and we answered. Basically I found to my amazement, and actually my delight as well, though we were very much on edge, that they were running the show and they would find out what they wanted to know. They laid some very strong requirements on both of us to make sure we reported back regularly, to make sure that whatever was written was respectful to the tribe. And that the student should seek advice constantly, which he did. And they were trying to see that I knew enough to know what I was getting into. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Sometimes the role of the cultural adviser was essential for the research to be able to proceed. In the student’s quote above, she describes how access to her research participants depended on the physical presence of someone they trusted from within their everyday world. In the supervisor’s story, he was taken aback but then pleased at the level of involvement that the tribal trust board wanted to have. From his perspective, this gave the student a strong structure to work within and he felt supported as a supervisor. These kinds of stories were quite common in our interviews.
Students often set up the advice on their own initiative
Some of those students have felt that they wanted formal Māori advisers or co-supervisors, and that’s usually happened outside of my knowledge or, not so much knowledge, but I don’t have anything to do with that. They can go off and talk to whoever they like in terms of Māori input. And they do, not just formally, but informally, all the time. (Non-Māori supervisor)
I would go and talk with my kaumātua. It was informal. I would sit with them and get their advice. Like if I was going to a marae outside of my rohe, say down on the Bay of Plenty or West Coast way, I would talk to the kaumātua about what I should do, how I should approach it and did they know those kaumātua there. And I’d give them the names and they knew them. (Student)
In most cases, students set up relationships with their cultural advisers independently of their supervisors, and supervisors were happy with this. Because of the advanced level of doctoral education, the maturity of most Māori doctoral students and the cultural demands implicated in many of their research projects, the student was expected to have autonomy over such matters. At the same time, supervisors appreciated knowing who else the student was consulting and, in some cases, expected to have contact with those individuals or organisations, at least at the beginning stages. In some cases the adviser(s) clearly wanted to have contact with the supervisor in order to assess their awareness of the responsibilities the student was undertaking.
Recognising the work of cultural advisers
Part of my contribution back to my mentor is we’re putting him through a professional certification course, because that’s what he wanted to do. So it’s quite a clear relationship, it’s a reciprocal relationship. And I’ve indicated to him that when I get further into my writing, I’ll need to call on him more. (Student)
Every year I make sure I budget for koha. For example, the student’s kaumātua came to Auckland one time, not specifically about the project, but I gave him some koha for petrol. It becomes very important because the request to assist the student happened at a time when the kaumātua was coming anyway, but he may not have come quite that quickly. My institution is very good, they don’t ever question those kinds of expenses. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Because the role of cultural adviser is usually informal, it often goes unacknowledged and unrecompensed by institutions. Some of our interviewees talked about finding monies (or petrol vouchers etc.) for koha from their institution, and others talked about more personal ways of recognising the contribution their cultural advisers made.
Cultural advisers are not always needed
I’ve had other students who have had advisers in the community, and I’ve had varying degrees of satisfaction with them. I’m always interested in why students think they need all this advisory support. Because some of them want to set up very elaborate sort of advisory structures and it’s all about this shared kind of project under kaupapa Māori. And then I have two anxieties about that. One is that I’m beginning to think, who does the student think’s gonna do the work? And another, you can design neat models but life doesn’t work like that in research, and a student starting off doesn’t necessarily know the advice they need three years down the track in their research. So they set up an elaborate structure, but in fact it can’t deliver what they think it will deliver. (Māori supervisor)
There have been some notable failures of advisories going to senior Māori academics outside of the discipline in an advisory role. In one instance it worked well, in another it didn’t work so well. It was just a matter of never co-ordinating it and being in the right place at the right time and, in some instances, there were mixed messages about the supervision. (Non-Māori supervisor)
There were a small number of stories of cultural advisers (academic and nonacademic) who hadn’t been particularly successful and had sometimes complicated things unhelpfully. It seems to be an aspect of supervision that needs to be approached thoughtfully.
Some guidelines for including cultural advisers
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6. Making the most of supervision meetings
I try and set up regular monthly meetings, sometimes fortnightly meetings, depending on the stage the thesis is up to. If it’s early on in the game, then it’s probably best to meet as regular as anything, but it depends very much on the person themselves. Who they are, where they live, how good they are, how self-motivated they are. (Māori supervisor)
We don’t have a formal meeting at a certain time. If I need an answer from my main supervisor and he’s not responding, or the other supervisor’s not responding, I just bowl into their office and say, ‘Right, what do I need?’, get the quick verbal answer and then shoot off. Even if you have to pop over every so often and wait for that half an hour window when he’ll open his door, you can always find other things to do. (Student)
One supervisor and I would go to a restaurant and there would be at least two bottles of red wine, every fortnight. So it was an entire evening and possibly in that fortnight also we would meet on a particular research aspect. With the other supervisor, it’s lunch. First we sort of discuss broadly how things are going and then we’d spend two hours after that actually going through the nuts and bolts. We have very structured meetings. Every two to three weeks we will have a three-hour session. (Student)
Introduction
Most interactions between supervisors and students took place through supervision meetings. The frequency, style and length of these meetings varied hugely at different stages in a student’s progress as well as between different supervisions. Different disciplines tended to have different patterns with respect to meetings: for example, scientific, lab-based research often featured lots of short, almost daily contacts between supervisor and student, while humanities and social science research featured less frequent, longer meetings. Here are some of the experiences and insights shared with us by students and supervisors, along with some guidelines for you as a doctoral student.
There are different patterns of meetings in each supervision
I used to meet with my main supervisor once a month. At the beginning of the year, we would actually block out our diaries and plot the dates through the year. But that didn’t necessarily mean to say that that’s how it remained. Sometimes she wasn’t in the country and she would email me and say ‘I’m going to be away, can we make another time?’ (Student)
Meetings are totally individualised. And they’re individualised over time, sometimes it’s more intense than others. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Meetings were a challenge. They were not always structured in the form of a formal appointment, although we certainly had those roughly monthly. But quite often we’d find, because we had outside interests together, there were lots of opportunities to do supervision on the run. A number of times we sat together on little planes, going from A to B, talking about what was coming up next and what needed to be done. And that was certainly helpful with both those students. (Non-Māori supervisor)
My goal is, and the university standard is, monthly meetings. But the challenge of distance supervision has several levels. One is that you see the students less frequently. The other thing, which I often find difficult, is to have someone going through a whole day to supervise. Things get kind of too intense. You’ve given them so many jobs, they don’t wanna have a meeting after lunch. And I discover that if you have too infrequent a meeting, they can head off down the wrong path and be a long way down it, if it’s three months. (Māori supervisor)
Some supervisors and students met at a steady pace across the whole supervision. The advantage of this practice was that they didn’t lose contact and it probably helped the student keep momentum. Also it was less likely that the student would head too far off track. Other supervisors were very clear that meetings should be paced in response to the student’s own needs and preferably at the student’s request.
Meeting frequency often varies across the research cycle
We try and meet face to face every two or three months, but it depends where they are in the process as well. If they’re earlier on, it might be once a month. If they’re further down, like the one that’s out of town finishing her final draft, we haven’t met face to face probably for three months. But we’re in contact every two to four weeks when she’s sending a chapter or a revision through to me. (Māori supervisor)
Most of my energy is at the front end and the back end of a student’s thesis journey. Even before they enrol: I’ve got two at the moment who’re nearly ready for registration, we meet regularly, we meet, like, every fortnight. I want this student to get ready to enrol when I know he knows exactly what he’s going to do, why he’s doing it, he’s read some of the literature he’s been avoiding, he’s confident he can do it. ’Cause to me part of it is eliminating stuff, it’s not just selecting what you’re gonna do, it’s consciously eliminating the stuff you’re not going to do. I need them to do that, consciously, and tell me. So that’s where I put a lot of my investment and time. Then once we’re through the ethics and they’ve got their research plan, I don’t expect to see them fortnightly. I just go back to monthly, or we’ll have a cup of coffee. Then I put a lot in at the back end when they’ve actually got several chapters. (Māori supervisor)
More frequent meetings are likely to take place in the early and later stages. In the early stages it is crucial to get the student off to a strong start, especially by making sure they have a sound and do-able research design and are confident with the literature. At the later stages, when the student is writing intensively, the supervisor’s feedback on draft chapters is indispensable for keeping momentum and ensuring the work is strong enough to go forward for examination.
Either students or supervisors might take responsibility for setting meetings
As chief supervisor, it’s my job to schedule the meetings and to determine kind of what the agenda of the meetings will be. We have got into a pattern where we’ve asked the student, at the end of the meeting, to go away and write a summary of what we discussed and look at milestones, head for the next meeting. Then he’ll email me it. That’s a good practice to get into. (Non-Māori supervisor)
Meetings are done on an individual basis, it’s totally individualised, and it’s individualised over time. Sometimes it’s more intense than others. (Non-Māori supervisor)
I’m really firm at the outset. If I don’t get the agenda, then there’s no point in having the meeting ’cause I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to focus on. And you stick to the student’s agenda. The supervisor asks if you’re wanting to add anything else to it. You don’t chuck in unexpected stuff about, you know, ‘So has someone died recently, or are you having marital problems?’ or whatever. (Māori supervisor)
In some supervisions, one of the supervisors took responsibility for setting up meetings. But other supervisors felt strongly that this was the student’s job. The same applied to the meeting agenda: sometimes supervisors led the agenda setting, but other supervisors thought this should be the student’s role and that the supervisor should ask if they can add things rather than presume they can. There are usually good reasons underlying these different stances around meetings—often coming from the supervisor’s own experience of being supervised or of supervising other students. Several supervisors talked about being laid back as new supervisors but coming to realise that they needed to put more structure into their supervision to help students make stronger progress.
It works well to submit written work in advance of meeting
We meet as a group and usually the student’s got something to show us. I’ve asked repeatedly that we should be given this a week before the meetings, but it hasn’t happened yet. We look at what she’s done, make suggestions about it, read it afterwards and return comment after the meetings. At the meetings we’re inclined to sort of thrash out some of the bits that she draws attention to and talk about them more, suggest other things that she might look at in the same kind of light. (Non-Māori supervisor)
I’ve gotten good at getting to a point that I actually plan when I’m gonna need some support. I will put an email together, for example, and say, ‘On such and such a date, I will be at this point, and I will need you to do this, this and that. You will receive my work on this day and then I will contact you a few days after—or can we now please plan for you to have read that work on this date, at which point we will meet?’ In the last month we’ve probably had two meetings but that’s because we’re at this stage. When I was getting close to finishing, I sent an email to both supervisors and said, ‘This is where I’m up to. In order to get to there, I’m gonna need some really hard-out supervision.’ (Student)
That’s my emphasis: writing. Because I find also with many students, with Māori students in particular, a lot of talking is great fun and exciting, but I really don’t want to hear the words much. I do some of that, but it’s more social. When we have our monthly meetings, it’s like we’re working on a product. And so that’s the gaze, always, rather than this (to the face), it’s this (to the page). (NonMāori supervisor)
Receiving written work in good time for a meeting and getting useful feedback during the meeting are complementary issues that came up in our research. Some supervisors thought that it was only worth having meetings when there was written work to respond to. If there was written work to be discussed, most supervisors wanted it in advance of meetings so they had time to read it and think carefully about what feedback they might give. And students, not surprisingly, wanted the supervisor to have read the work and be prepared to give substantive feedback that would support the momentum of their project.
Meeting with all supervisors
Meetings with the three of us were a lot of the time called by me. Usually I would meet separately with my main supervisor and he would give me feedback on my writing. We didn’t really sit and discuss ideas, I didn’t do that with either of them. Then I’d get feedback from my second supervisor on the same piece of writing and each of the pieces of feedback would be steering me in slightly different directions. So when I found that happening, I’d say, ‘I think we need to meet, so I can determine where I’m going.’ (Student)
We had relatively regular meetings, the three of us, we talked about the kaupapa. The other supervisor would probably describe our relationship as me being the good cop and her the bad cop. She’s probably a lot more direct in terms of saying, ‘This is what you need to do, bom, bom, bom.’ I was a lot more flexible. So the student would then come to me and we’d work through those things. I think the team worked well. (Māori supervisor)
Here again we found a wide variety in what went on. Sometimes all the supervisors met almost every time with the student, sometimes taking quite different roles, and contributing different strengths. Sometimes they almost never met together, especially if the second supervisor had a very narrowly defined contribution to make, or they met just once a year. We also heard about second supervisors stepping up to take a more central role either in the absence of the main supervisor or if things weren’t going so well between the main supervisor and student.
Strategies students told us about for making the most of meetings
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Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this resource appeared as:
Grant, B. M. (2008). “Ask the Professor” about … meetings with your supervisor(s). MAI Review 2008/1, Supervision Workshop 1 (Te Kokonga).
