Guest editorial

Citation

Green, P. and Bowden, J. (2012), "Guest editorial", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 20 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/qae.2012.12020aaa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Quality Assurance in Education, Volume 20, Issue 1

The world’s economies continue to battle against recession in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and there is much discussion of the role that innovation in products and services can contribute to improved productivity. Improved productivity is viewed as an essential component in the return to economic growth. Research and development activity is seen as the driver of innovation and business expenditure on research and development activity is essential to bring new and improved products and services to the marketplace. However, research technology organisations and academic institutions also make a significant contribution. In the case of Universities, this contribution takes the form of producing the scientific and technological precursors to innovation as well as providing the educated and trained workforce that is able to carry out the research and development leading to innovation and commercial products.

A key component of a country’s “innovation system” is, therefore, the country’s universities where research and research education and training are carried out. Much of the research in universities is actually done by candidates engaged in higher degree by research for Master’s or Doctoral degrees. The pursuit of higher degrees by research has changed in both process and content over the past three decades. The focus has moved from one of research training for its own sake to one of timely completion of theses. A parallel change has been an increased interest in the activities of supervisors of higher degree by research candidates. In some institutions, the custom was to have one supervisor with little or no oversight of the progress of the candidate or conduct of the supervision process. More recently, the change in focus has resulted in the appointment of “supervisory teams”, supervisor register and accreditation, supervisor training and much greater monitoring of candidate progress by Schools, Departments or Faculties. The evolution of supervisory teams has also introduced an element of peer review into the supervision process.

This special issue of Quality Assurance in Education, edited by Guest Editors Professor Pamela Green and Professor John Bowden, addresses the supervision of higher degree by research candidates. The papers highlight the increasing diversity involved in research supervision and illustrate the significant change from the past when research higher degree candidates were predominantly young Honours degree graduates researching fulltime in a laboratory or office adjacent to the supervisor’s office.

The first paper, by Nita Cherry sets the scene for this special issue by highlighting the challenges that face supervisors in the modern world of the academy. The challenges of the rate of change, the interdisciplinarity, the instability and the expectations of society all converge to produce an environment of ambiguity and complexity that exceeds anything in prior experience. Drawing on a wide range of literature, the author takes the reader through a great variety of thought on the nature of the development of the candidate into the researcher and the challenges of achieving that whilst meeting the recently added requirements of on time completion.

The second paper by Margaret Zeegers and Deirdre Barron lead the reader through a discussion of the development of thought on the research higher degree candidate’s experiences and makes the case that pedagogy seems to be missing from much of the discourse on research training. The underlying dangers that arise from this absence of pedagogy are outlined and concern is expressed about the effects on the experience and development of an increasing number of higher degree by research candidates. The paper concludes that there is a need for a pedagogical framework around research supervision.

In the third paper, Eddie Blass, Anne Jasman and Roger Levy report on the experience of a group of academics who embarked on supervision in an innovative practice-based Doctoral program. The reflections are based on the experiences of the academic staff involved in the supervision process from the candidate’s starting their Doctoral research through to completion. The paper concludes by comparing the experiences of the supervisors with the experiences of the supervised and noting the similarities.

The paper by Martin Andrew continues the theme of practice-based research. This paper involves a single supervisor of part time candidates being supervised, in distance mode, to complete a higher degree by research by artefact and exegesis. This is an example of modern supervision of candidates whose experience of higher degrees by research would have been unimaginable even a couple of decades ago. The author reflects on the benefits and challenges of supervision at a distance as well as the means to improve supervision at a distance. The paper concludes with reflections on the nature of the candidates and how they are suited to this model of supervision.

The next paper by Quynh Le introduces the use of e-Portfolio as an enhancement of the higher degree by research experience. The author outlines the various different types of e-Portfolio and illustrates how its use may enhance the candidate’s research learning. This leads on to a description of the ways in which research supervision can be enhanced by the use of e-Portfolios. The paper concludes that the use of e-Portfolio can assist in the process of moving from supervisor centred learning to candidate centred learning.

The final paper by Pamela Green and John Bowden addresses the current requirement for on time completion of higher degree by research theses. The authors illustrate the changing context in which higher degrees by research are supervised and indicate the pressures that have changed the focus from research training to timely completion. The move to a supervisory team is seen as an important component of improved supervision practice. Based on interviews with candidates and supervisors from a variety of different disciplines, the authors develop an earlier model based on relationships in an intellectual and physical context of supervision to include an element that they term a “completion mindset”.

The papers in this issue cover a range of topics in the supervision of higher degree by research candidates and the Guest Editors and the Editor trust that this issue will contribute to the understanding of effective supervisory practices.

Pamela Green, John BowdenGuest Editors

John DalrympleEditor, QAE