Introduction
Research about doctoral students, supervisors and programs is extensive, and continues to grow rapidly. As we elaborate below, the propositions and themes emerging from that research are diverse, and represent assumptions and perspectives from multiple disciplines and paradigms. At the same time, it is possible to discern some common concerns and abiding interests in that research that constitute stable landmarks that in turn facilitate efforts directed at “traversing the doctorate”.
This chapter presents a necessarily distilled overview of selected literature relating to doctoral study and supervision, including highlighting some significant foci of that scholarship. This overview is followed by an account of the book’s structure and organising questions, as well as of the strategies for maximising the rigour of its chapters.
Situating the Scholarship and Identifying Its Issues
The literature related to doctoral study and supervision is both extensive and growing. Moreover, this literature reflects the separate and shared viewpoints of students and supervisors. Some publications highlight the micro-level experiences of individual doctoral research teams, while others draw attention to the wider contexts in which such teams carry out their work.
More specifically, one of the recurring foci in the scholarship pertaining to doctoral study and supervision is the increasing professionalisation of such study and supervision. This professionalisation refers to a move from a largely individualised and private intellectual space to a more clearly defined, visible and accountable set of relationships geared towards the attainment of prespecified outcomes. While some researchers have examined these changes in terms of heightened control and managerialism (e.g., Matos, 2013) and vocationalism (Dahan, 2007), others have viewed such developments as explicit research training, codes of research practice and supervisor training workshops more positively (e.g., Humphrey, Marshall, & Leonardo, 2012; McCulloch & Loeser, 2016). Other indicators of enhanced professionalisation include positing “…that the goal of doctoral supervision is praxis and that this involves a learning alliance between multiple institutional agents grounded in a relational ethics of mutual responsibility” (Halse & Bansel, 2012, p. 377).
Another important focus of the doctoral study and supervision scholarship is the increased concentration on the significance of understanding the experiential knowledge of doctoral students and supervisors. For example, Bastalich (2017) noted “…the need for a greater emphasis on content and context learning within future research and practice around doctoral education” (p. 1145). Engaging with this challenge, Fulton and Hayes (2017) elaborated a “based superstructure model” (p. 1) of a professional doctoral program that included retrospective experiential knowledge. Meloy (2012) presented a lively account of doctoral students’ decision-making processes, reflections on methodology and academic writing strategies. From a different perspective, Gray, Agllias, Schubert and Boddy (2015) applied three feminist research principles to accentuate the centrality of women’s experiences in doctoral study, and Dortch (2016) researched the academic self-efficacy of African American women in doctoral education, while Naidoo (2015) explored the experiences of non-traditional doctoral students through the lens of their habitus. Whitehead (2019) confirmed the wider relevance of self-studies and other publications that explicate the experiential dimension with his assertion that such work contributes “…to creating and democratizing knowledge” (p. 97). We concur that the demystification of doctoral study and supervision through such means as highlighting the experiential dimension can indeed contribute to democratising such study and supervision and to maximising its social impact.
A third significant focus of the doctoral study and supervision scholarship is related to the associations between such doctoral study and supervision on the one hand and broader issues connected with the national and international knowledge economy on the other hand. For instance, Wildy, Peden and Chan (2015) linked the increased popularity of professional doctorates with the respective knowledge economies in Australia, China and Iceland, while Armsby, Costley and Cranfield (2018) stressed the broader significance of doctoral programs: “…a wider understanding of the values and purpose of doctoral education within and beyond the academy that recognises the production of knowledge through practice, and supports ethical social action” (p. 2226). Two different perspectives on conceptualising this broader significance were provided by focusing on knowledge management (Stamou, 2017) and on moral positions (Hancock, Hughes, & Walsh, 2017).
Finally in this section of the chapter, while most of the literature pertaining to doctoral study is understandably written by and for doctoral students and supervisors, it is appropriate to acknowledge the subset of that literature composed from the standpoint of administrators. For example, Pifer and Baker (2016) included program administrators as a distinct group as being able and required to enact distinctive strategies in the authors’ proposed stage-based approach to support in doctoral education. Zhou and Okahana (2019) investigated the relative impact of academic and financial support provided by departmental administrators on doctoral students’ completion times in the United States, while Rockinson-Szapkiw, Spaulding and Spaulding (2016) considered a broader range of administrative and other support services for online doctoral students, also in the United States. Still in the United States, the perceptions of administrators of a doctoral program for nursing students were recorded in relation to the program’s impact on academic staff members (Smeltzer et al., 2017). Likewise, a study by McGovern and Zimmerman (2018) found that administrators play an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of social work doctoral programs in the United States. More widely, Johnson, Nicola and Hobson (2018) evaluated the utility of a whole-of-institution, extended orientation program for doctoral students at an Australian university, concluding that the program “…demonstrates the ways in which ALL practitioners can lead such programs by combining the roles of specialists in academic language and learning and content deliverers with the roles of partnerships and collaboration” (p. A175).
These four foci of the doctoral study and supervision literature—the increasing professionalisation of such study and supervision, understanding doctoral students’ and supervisors’ experiences, links with the national and international knowledge economy, and the influence and interests of program administrators—help to situate the doctoral study and supervision sch...