PhD Candidates and Supervisor Feedback

Worldwide concern about high attrition rates in the PhD has led educators to critically examine the PhD process, in particular the supervisory relationship. Much of this research has been from an outsider's perspective and has concentrated on objective factors such as the number of meetings between supervisor and candidate. This book provides an insider's look at the PhD experience by examining over four hundred supervisory meetings from the candidate's perspective. It describes how specific elements of meetings impact on candidates' immediate affective responses. It documents how candidates continue to process and reinterpret what happened at the meeting over the course of the following week and demonstrates that candidate self- concept and the number and type of people spoken to about the meeting are instrumental in determining the candidates' residual feelings. The book finishes by presenting strategies that can be employed to improve the affective and educational outcomes of the PhD process for candidates. This book will be helpful to supervisors, academic administrators, PhD candidates and others who wish to improve the quality of their academic mentoring.