Relationship between doctoral supervisors’ competencies, engagement in supervisory development and experienced support from research community

Abstract

Supervision is one of the most important determinants of a successful doctoral process. However, there have been few large-scale survey studies on the development of PhD supervisors. In this study, doctoral supervisors’ perceptions of their supervisory competence, professional development activities and professional support from the research community are explored. A total of 561 doctoral supervisors from a large multi-field research-intensive university in Finland responded to the survey. The data were analysed with statistical methods. The results showed that the supervisors perceived their supervisory competence as being high. More experienced supervisors were more confident with their supervisory competence than less experienced ones. Support from the scholarly community was also related to positive perceptions of one’s supervisory competencies. The results further showed that engaging in supervisory development activities was also related to perceived supervisory competence. Some gendered and disciplinary differences in supervisors’ engagement in professional development activities were detected.