Author(s): Gonçalves, Susana Filipa ; Sanches, Tatiana ; Batista, Mariana ; Duarte, Cristina ; Miranda, Joana P
Date: 2021
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/49335
Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
Subject(s): Doctoral Supervision; Doctoral Students; Ph.D.
This paper aims to understand the perceptions, expectations, and needs of Ph.D. students regarding the guidance received along the third cycle of higher education (doctoral degree). This goal is framed by the growth of challenges faced by higher education institutions, such as, the increasing number of doctoral programs and its demand. This has led to global competition, based also on the number of doctoral graduates and relevant research developed and published. In this context, it is crucial to understand how the supervision process might play a role in the thesis success, especially from the doctoral students' and doctoral recent graduates' point of view. The inspiration and starting point of this research, also used as a theoretical framework to the professional work of doctoral supervision, includes five interrelated facets, in a holistic perspective, that can be applied from the individual to the group, and in different types of disciplines and institutions. These five facets include the learning alliance, habits of mind, scholarly expertise, technê, and contextual expertise; and structured the approach of questionnaires applied to graduated doctorates or to doctoral students with at least two years of thesis work. Based on the analysis of responses of students/doctorates within different fields of research (health sciences, natural sciences and social sciences & arts), the results show the areas that students value most and recognize as important in doctoral guidance, namely learning alliance and habits of mind, as well as the existing gaps or less developed facets. Depending on the differentiated practice, that reflects several approaches and styles of supervision, it's also possible to understand if supervision guidance impacted the research path and its completion. Recommendations are also presented so that doctoral supervision can be optimized, to develop convergent strategies between supervisors and students.
