Gina Wisker

Postgraduate research success: communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors and online communities

Traditionally, supervisors work with students on an individual basis and postgraduate development programmes are run on site. However, with increasing numbers of part‐time and international students, supervisory relationships are likely to be conducted at a distance as students study alongside other commitments. Isolation can often be a key feature for many postgraduates, whether based in the same institution as the supervisor and more particularly for international students or those studying at a distance. It can also be an issue for their supervisors. However, in this age of electronic communication, interactions at a distance should be able to be at least as robust as many of those conducted face to face. More broadly, the international research community is something generally cited as the context for research work, supervision, study and publication more generally. Entry firstly into the university academic community, and then into the larger global research community can be enabled, we would argue, by the support of communities of practice from the outset of postgraduate students’ and supervisors’ interactions. In this context, considerable numbers of international postgraduates at Anglia Ruskin University (UK) and their supervisors are being effectively supported through three innovations which build institutionally related communities of practice: (1) Guardian supervisors work with the students on research development programmes, with accompanying meetings organised during and round programme workshops, which focus throughout on strategies of meta‐learning. Subsequently they support students’ work at a distance with emails, and webcam correspondence. (2) PhD students are empowered to develop mutual, critically focused support for each other’s work through the enhanced use of the cohort in the compulsory research development workshops and through ongoing discussion lists, self‐help groups and symposia. (3) Supervisors of international postgraduates are supported as a community of practice through the revision of online supervisory discussion and development. This paper is based on action research carried out with current and graduate students, guardian supervisors and supervisors as collaborators to explore the rationale, problems, practices and the richness of the experience of working with a system which fosters communities of practice, involving guardian supervisors, distance supervisors and postgraduate cohorts.

The good supervisor

This research based book explores theories and practices of supervision. Based on action research 1998-2004 research interviews with supervisors workshop work and literature reviewing in the subject with UK and international students and supervisors (qualitative, some quantitative research conducted with supervisors on Israeli PhD programmes, and in Australasia, UK), It develops theories and practices of supervisory dialogues, working with a diversity of learners, supervising stages of a research degree, masters or PhD. establishing research evidence based arguments for and examples of good practice in supervision. The book explores supervisor practices in helping students develop strategies of working, writing and defending their work orally at a conceptual level, preparing for the viva, skills development and publications beyond the PhD, building on published theories and supervisory practices discovered through interview and email questions it contributes new knowledge about communities of practice and the development of supervisory roles.

Recognising and Overcoming Dissonance in Postgraduate Student Research

Most research indicating dissonant forms of student learning engagement, leading to problems in the achievement of learning outcomes, is with undergraduates. Action research at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU) involving questionnaires, focus groups and supervisory dialogues, conducted with Israeli and UK postgraduate students between 1998 and 2001, indicates that dissonance in research seen as a form of learning produces potentially significant difficulties for students at different stages in their work. These difficulties emerge principally when developing a proposal, deciding on research methodologies and methods, undertaking the research, and developing and maintaining links between findings, analysis and conclusions, specifically those which aim to lead to transformative research outcomes. A research development programme and supervisory dialogues provide support, enabling some PhD students to overcome dissonance and succeed in their studies.

Encouraging postgraduate students of literature and art to cross conceptual thresholds

Much research into postgraduate student learning focuses on generic issues of research development. Early work, reported here, uses threshold concept theories and theories of conceptual threshold crossing to focus on the learning and supervisory support of postgraduates researching in the fields of literature and art. This paper is based on interviews with postgraduate students, postdoctorates and supervisors. It considers effective practices supporting postgraduate students and explores the reporting of experience, textual examples and dialogues to determine some of the characteristics in practice of both bringing threshold concepts into play in students’ research and supporting their crossing of conceptual thresholds. We argue that identifying and working towards the overcoming of blockages or ‘stuck places’ in research can lead to conceptualised, critical and creative work in literature and art PhDs.

Priceless conceptual thresholds: beyond the ‘stuck place’ in writing

This paper explores the idea of conceptual threshold crossing in the writing process and in particular stuck moments and the process of moving on, valuing the pricelessness of preliminality, the vision of a possible movement through a portal and the creative learning leap into focused, formed writing. Our work to date is based on formal and less formal collections of narratives from academics who write, including ourselves, and from those who support and supervise the writing of both academic staff and doctoral students.

The Learning Experience of Postgraduate Students: Matching Methods to Aims.

Action research with international Masters in Business Administration students reported here builds on action research carried out at Anglia Polytechnic University to better enable international postgraduate students develop learning and research strategies and research methods to succeed in their study. The Reflection on Learning Inventory (Meyer and Boulton-Lewis, 1997) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) examination, which tests competence in reading, writing, listening and speaking skills,1 identify student learning styles and language levels from which conclusions about teaching and learning needs are deduced. A programme of academic-oriented language support, including both the APU-originated CD-ROM Excel at Academic English and specific workshop sessions, has been developed. This programme is piloted with the 2000-2001 cohort, and accompanied by action research which includes focus group interviews and mid-year evaluation of the support and development programme. It has led to radical overhaul of elements of the course itself, with widespread implications for support and development for international postgraduates studying at APU.

Achieving a doctorate: metalearning and research development programmes supporting success for international distance students

Most studies on metalearning and metacognition have focused on undergraduates where reflective and active awareness of learning practices and achievements, or metalearning, has been seen to be useful, indeed essential for the learning achievement of undergraduates (Biggs et al., 2001; Veenman & Verheig, 2003). This paper reports on the latest development in action research carried out at Anglia Polytechnic University for the last seven years and concentrates on developing and supporting the successful research‐as‐learning of international postgraduates studying at a distance. It argues that students encouraged to develop metalearning through reflection upon results of the Reflections on Learning Inventory (RoLI) (Meyer & Boulton‐Lewis, 1997), supervisory dialogues from groups and research development workshops are likely to achieve success in their research as learning, while others who are less able to develop metalearning are less successful.

Developing doctoral authors: engaging with theoretical perspectives through the literature review

The literature review is arguably the place in a thesis where doctoral authors convincingly engage with theory and theoretical perspectives underlying their research, situating their own contribution to knowledge in established and ongoing dialogues in the field. One difficulty doctoral candidates encounter in their learning to be researchers is articulating this understanding and engagement, how their work grows from literature informing and underpinning their research. Writing confidently at doctoral level in the discipline discourse, and breaking writing blocks are key features of engagement and articulation. Most research into academic writing concentrates on undergraduate writing development, while research on doctoral students looks at relationships with supervisors, communities and the doctoral learning journey. This research on doctoral writing in the literature review uses work on conceptual threshold crossings to identify ways in which doctoral students engage with and indicate their understanding of theoretical perspectives through successful doctoral writing.

Professional learning: lessons for supervision from doctoral examining

Most research into research supervision practice focuses on functional, collegial or problematic power-related experiences. Work developing the supervisory role concentrates on new supervisors, and on taught development and support programmes. Most literature on academics’ professional learning concentrates on learning to be a university teacher and, latterly, a researcher. However, the research supervisor’s role is constantly evolving in response to experiences with students, and reflection on this can contribute to professional learning. Initial research suggests examiners learn from examining experiences feeding back into supervisory roles. We argue that being a thesis examiner provides academic staff with opportunities to learn about their own supervisory practices, enhancing their professional learning. Our research reports on examiner perceptions of learning from examining doctoral theses, which can be taken back into supervisory practice, and translated into advice for other supervisors and doctoral students.

Assessment for Learning: Encouraging Personal Development and Critical Response on a Writing Module by Student‐Centred Assessment and Teaching/ Learning Strategies

SUMMARY This paper considers ways in which an analytical and personal response can be encouraged on a literary or writing module. It explores the use in particular of portfolio and log assessment strategies which work in tandem with more learner‐centred teaching and learning strategies to encourage both personal development and critical response. It focuses on Black and Asian Womens Writing, a third level (yrs 2 and 3) module on literature/writing in a cultural and critical context which I devised and teach at Anglia Polytechnic University, in Cambridge. The learning outcomes for the module on Black and Asian Womens Writing stress the development of awareness of, and critical response to, a variety of writing in cultural context, and the centrality of a critically focused personal response. Teaching and learning strategies such as the use of interactive, full lecture handouts, a course reader, syndicate work and exploratory talk are discussed. In relation to these learning outcomes and the teaching and ...