lynne roberts

The Importance of Honours Supervision in Supporting Students Transitioning from Undergraduate Coursework to

Postgraduate Research Degrees

Lynne Roberts

THE AUSTRALIAN HONOURS CONTEXT

QPR 2014: Honours Supervision Supporting Transitioning to HDR

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Honours the Preferred Pathway to PhD

• the ‘Gold Standard’ pathway, especially at Go8 universities (Kiley, 2013)

• The ‘predetermined’ pathway (Draper & Hitchcock, 2013)


Honours No Longer THE Pathway to HDR Studies

• Only 20.3% of students enrolled in honours in year immediately prior to commencing HDR (Edwards, Bexley & Richardson, 2011, p. 18)

1 in 5QPR 2014: Honours Supervision Supporting Transitioning to HDR

HDR Enrolment No Longer THE Outcome of Honours

• Only 26.9% of honours graduates from 2012 were in full-time study at time of Graduate Destination survey the following year (Graduate Destinations 2012)

1 in 4


…Or the Preferred Immediate Outcome

• 25% would consider enrolling in PhD in following year if awarded 1st class honours

• 20.8% if 2A honours (Roberts, Blosfelds & Gasson, 2014)

1 in 4

1 in 5QPR 2014: Honours Supervision Supporting Transitioning to HDR

…Or the Primary Reason for Enrolling in Honours

1. To widen opportunities2. Eligibility for Masters3. Improve job prospects

.

.

.

8. Eligibility for PhD (Roberts, et al., 2014)

“I mainly applied for Honours to increase my chance of getting into a Master of Clinical Psychology course as it is very competitive”


Honours Students are Not Discounting Later HDR Studies

• 58.3% anticipate returning to HDR studies at a later date

• Further 25% ‘may’ do so (Roberts, et al., 2014)


Honours Programs Disappearing

• Following Bologna model, 3+2+3 pathways adopted


http://mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/mhpir/modern_history/masters_of_research-mres/

Despite This, Until Recently…

“… in policy discussions in Australia there persists the implicit assumption of a stereotypical doctoral candidate as young, male, full-time, with few other commitments, proceeding from an honours degree and preparing for workforce entry after the doctorate, preferably as an academic” (Pearson, Cumming, Evans, Macauley, & Ryland , 2011, p. 528)


New Pathways to PhD

• Masters by coursework (Kiley & Cumming, 2014)

• Returning to study after/during professional career– Many part-time

Do these routes provide the same level of research training as honours?


Research Learning OutcomesAQF Level 8Bachelor Honours Masters (Coursework)

Apply a body of knowledge in a specific context ….as a pathway for research and further learning*Knowledge: research principles & methods*Skills: technical skills to design and use research in a project*Application: plan and execute project work and/or a piece of researchand scholarship with some independence

Apply an advanced body of knowledge in a range of contexts … as a pathway for further learning *Knowledge: research principles & methods *Application: plan and execute a substantial research-based project, capstone experience and/or piece of scholarship

Masters (Research)

AQF Level 9

Apply advanced body of knowledge in a range of contexts for research .. and as a pathway for further learning *Knowledge: advanced research principles & methods*Skills: cognitive, technical & communication skills to design, use, evaluate and disseminate research and research methods*Application: plan and execute substantialpiece of research

Source: Adapted from Australian Qualifications Framework Second Edition January 2013 pp 16-17

MY RESEARCH

Semi-Structured Interviews14 Honours students

6 new Honours supervisors5 Honours coordinators


Honours Supervisors Support Development of Research Skills

I’m like this new fresh lamb and these are my shepherds. <laughs> They’re helping me along like, “Here’s the best grass over here.” Without telling me what to do.

She knows how much she has to herd me and how much she can sort of just let me do my thing, and she knows she doesn’t have to sort of mollycoddle me or anything.


Honours Develops Students’ Independence

(Honours) teaches you that independence…at that really early, fledgling level, you know, where they’re really green to doing research. They’re just not prepared for that type of situation, and they’re just not equipped with the skills or the confidence to be able to say to their supervisor, “Look, this is my project. I’m in charge of this, not you.”


Encouraging Ownership of Research

….having to transition, I suppose, between being a student at undergraduate level to … Honours level. A lot of it was that transitionary stuff that students had to learn ... focusing on building the confidence within students to actually take charge of the relationship with their supervisors. Because I think until you actually get to that stage of being confident and being – you know, feeling empowered – you’re never really gonna have the ownership of the project that’s required.


Changing Role of Supervisor Over Time Facilitates Independence

He was initially like, I guess, sort of a repository of experiential knowledge and information and that. But he soon became a bit more of a mentor or a coach, and I felt he would kind of facilitate my own learning rather than tell me what to do. Toward the end, … it took on, say, more of a supportive role. I felt like my supervisor knew I was capable of completing the dissertation and was just there to sort of allay any concerns I had, those sorts of things.


Students Recognise own Development

My approach was very naive in the beginning and perhaps still is, but I’m on a journey.


I can truly say that my research, this current project, is my own. [Supervisor] offers guidance but it’s done so cleverly that it’s all coming from me.

Students Report Increased Confidence in Research Ability

You know what? That year was hard but it was great. I feel like I've really developed as a researcher and I feel like I've really developed and ready to take on the next step.

I always felt that they wanted me to do well. … I really felt that they put a lot of effort into me and I think that made a lot of difference for me, like it made a lot of difference for my confidence and … it made me feel like I could do it and I could do well … it felt that they were going to ensure that I did well.


New PhD Students Reflecting Back on Honours Supervision

Our relationship has matured a lot more and I think I feel a lot more like a colleague than a student as I was before. I think fourth year was great because you really did feel like a colleague and that was a big step up from third year.

I would say my supervisor’s … a lot less of a coach and more of a mentor now … I think I’ve kind of demonstrated that I can do it now … So I feel a lot more autonomous again now.


Honours Provides the Training Ground for PhD’s

Honours is all about training, whereas PhD is very short bit of training followed by a journey for the student, an assisted journey … An Honours student, you would expect to sit down with them and talk them through how to achieve X, Y, and Z and then go through with the lab … With the PhD student, you’d be able to say, “Hmm, I wonder if such and such program would do that job?” And you would expect them to go out and tell you could it or not.


Honours Supervision as Harder than PhD Supervision

I think Honours (supervision) is harder! Well, I just think in terms of the commitment to the student and in some ways Honours’ students actually take more time because they know less. They have less experience. They’re less mature. They’re under a lot more time

pressure. They're starting to own their projects, and drive it, and find out what that means.


Supervisors Aware of Importance of Honours Year

I must admit, in may ways I feel supervising honours students extremely stressful because the consequences for the honours students are so profound that if you haven’t helped them devise an appropriate project, if you stuff up anything in the supervision process then it has real consequences for what the student is able to do later on. And that I found extremely stressful in honours supervision.


Honours Supervisors Encourage PhD Enrolment

… they are almost shy about bringing up the fact that they might want to do a PhD. It's like there's so much status about doing that that they almost feel embarrassed to have the conversation to say, “I might be wanting to do future research.” So if I put on the table beforehand, they don’t have to have the embarrassment or don’t have to feel that anxiety of embarrassment


Concluding Thoughts

• For many, honours provides first opportunity to design and conduct research.

• Honours supervision supports students transitioning from ‘taught’ undergraduate degrees to HDR

• Guidance and support by supervisors provides strong foundation for postgraduate research– development of research skills – internalising of researcher identity

• Unclear whether alternative pathways will deliver same degree of research preparation


Website: http://www.dissertationsupervision.org/

References• Draper, P. & Hitchcock, M. (2013). Between practice and research: The honours

undergraduate experience at an Australian conservatorium. EDULEARN13 Proceedings (pp. 5381-5390).

• Edwards, D., Bexley, E., & Richardson, S. (2011). Regenerating the academic workforce. Retrieved from http://www.innovation.gov.au/ HigherEducation/ResourcesAndPublications/Documents/RAW.pdf

• Guthrie, B. (2013). Graduate Destinations 2012: A report on the work and study outcomes of recent higher education graduates. Melbourne: Graduate Careers Australia.

• Kiley, M. (2013). I’ve done a coursework masters now I’d like to do a doctorate: Can I?. Final report 2013. Retrieved from http://courseworkmasters.anu.edu.au/

• Kiley, M. & Cumming, J. (2014). The impact of changing government policies and institutional practices on master’s by coursework students in Australia: A viable pathway to the PhD? Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 36, 99-111. doi:10.1080/1360080X.2013.861052

• Pearson, M., Cumming, J., Evans, T., Macauley, P. & Ryland, K. (2011). How shall we know them? Capturing the diversity of difference in Australian doctoral candidates and their experiences. Studies in Higher Education, 36, 527-542. doi:10.1080/03075079.2011.594591


http://library.iated.org/publications/EDULEARN13