Selecting a Doctoral Dissertation Supervisor: Analytical Hierarchy Approach to the Multiple Criteria Problem

Abstract

Perhaps the most significant decision a doctoral student makes in the beginning of her research career is the selection of a thesis supervisor. Most often these decisions are in the form of a selection problem from a finite number of choices. The selection is based on a set of criteria, such as professors’ reputation, knowledge, and matching of interests among others. However, the application of these criteria in selecting a supervisor is often done in an unplanned manner, which can become one of the reasons for regret, lack of motivation, and poor quality of research output. The need for having a supervisor who fits well with the students’ preferences can hardly be overemphasized. This requires that students should select their supervisor in an objective manner, taking all factors and their own priorities into account. In order to address this need of doctoral students, the paper aims to demonstrate the use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) in the selection of a thesis supervisor. A survey of doctoral students is conducted to obtain a list of criteria that are significant for selection of a research guide and then modeled as an AHP problem. A survey of junior and senior doctoral students is also conducted to ascertain the relative weights of the criteria elements to demonstrate the application of the proposed method.