PhD student satisfaction – Does being a good PhD supervisor matter?
On May 1st 2025, the Co-Chairs of our Research Supervisors’ Network, Dr Nicola Palmer and Professor Craig Martin, held an event where they invited Dr Florence Phua (Associate Professor at the School of the Built Environment, University of Reading) to explore the role of supervisors’ supportiveness, rather than their academic ability, as a key driver of PhD student satisfaction.
Professor Martin welcomed attendees and introduced Dr Phua who presented a talk entitled ‘PGR supervision supportiveness – what is it, how to bring it about and how can it be measured?’
She explained that the rationale behind her interest and research was her first-hand experience of supervising doctoral candidates and her role as School Director of Postgraduate Research Studies where she had observed the differences between the UG and PGR journeys. She felt that the focus on using the National Student Survey (NSS), to measure the level of student satisfaction has dominated the Higher Education agenda, whereas there are few mechanisms for PGR students to report back on their experiences. Although a mention was made in the chat about the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), Dr Phua went on to make the broader point that surveys are unable to give us a complete and accurate picture. For example, her own research shows that there is a 24% of variance in student satisfaction score which can be accounted for by innate happiness alone (in other words, “satisfied students are simply happier people”).
How, then, could we properly record and measure satisfaction amongst PGR students? Dr Phua remarked that much of the literature on PGR supervision success focuses on the role of the supervisor and their quality. She argued that while this is good, what was needed was to “zoom out from the supervisor perspective” and look at the education environment as well. She cited a list of common reasons why PGR students terminate their studies, as follows:
- Mental health issues.
- Supervisory relationships.
- Financial constraints.
- Departmental support.
- Academic challenges.
She asked how we can understand these issues more effectively and how the broad concept of ‘supervisor supportiveness’ can be understood. She recommended that an analysis of this topic should not simply be about anecdotes – systematic evidence needs to be curated to understand the bigger picture, which would, in turn, help with exercises such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Having concluded her talk, attendees were asked to think critically and discuss the following three interconnected points using an Action Learning Set approach. This session was devoted to addressing only the first point and the remaining two points will to be addressed separately in future sessions:
- What meaningful [supervision] supportiveness looks like in practice.
- How can it be supported?
- How it can be measured (thinking about REF in particular)?
Amongst the many useful reflections were the following:
I think good supervision also involves helping support the student integrate with the wider research area (Networking) so they can make their own connections.
You need to have clear expectations for students and supervisors to be able to effectively measure satisfaction. A fair share of the dissatisfaction is due to false expectations which may or may not be because they haven’t been set clearly and equitably in the first place.
It very much depends on the organisation and the type of candidates they get, some candidates are more independent than others and some require more basic support and coaching. Some support is about scientific processes, some about the technical subject, and some on emotional support.
Once the attendees had returned after their discussion, Dr Palmer helped to round up the key takeaways. She added: “An interesting point for me was the perception that supervisors should prepare the PhD student for uncertainty, which can create unhappiness. There are lots of other things to consider around the human and the individual. It’s unrealistic to expect people to be perfect.”