Reflecting on RSRP with Professor Gale Macleod and Dr Fiona O’Hanlon

Professor Macleod has previously been chair of the UKCGE working group on postgraduate student experience and is a coordinator of the Higher Education Research Group at University of Edinburgh; she has supervised 21 PhD candidates through completion. Dr O’Hanlon is Senior Lecturer in Language Education at the University of Edinburgh; she has ushered two PhD candidates through completion.

They reflect on RSRP as experienced and early career supervisors, with Professor Macleod and Dr O’Hanlon receiving Full recognition. Their reflections touch on the importance of reflective practice in supervision throughout career stage and the critical nature of community in reflection.

Can you please start by describing your experience with the Research Supervision Recognition Programme process? What aspects did you find most beneficial? 

Gale Macleod: I worked through the programme with Fiona and found that really useful. We agreed times to meet monthly and went through the sections one by one. We then read over each other’s drafts and when we met we talked about the reading we’d been doing. By going through it with a colleague, I think this helped me stay on track and gave me an excuse to carve out time to do it – if I hadn’t been answerable to my colleague, I think other tasks would have taken over. I found the web-based resources really helpful. The exemplars gave a good sense of the kind of thing that was required. I liked the excuse to spend time on the reading 

Fiona O’Hanlon: I loved working through the UKCGE Research Supervision Recognition Programme process. I appreciated the focus that the ten areas of supervisory practice gave to my professional reflection, and found the Handbook for Doctoral Supervisors (Taylor, Kiley & Humphrey, 2017) to be an excellent starting point for thinking about each area. The extended reading list was also really useful in identifying relevant further reading. The other element that really supported me through the process was creating a ​‘community of practice’ with a colleague — Gale, where we met monthly to discuss our reading and supervisory practice in relation to each section of the UKCGE supervisory framework. 

Why do you think reflecting on your pedagogical and supervisory practices is valuable?

GM: I’m based in Education, and I think reflexive practice is built into the DNA of the discipline, though I’m aware that’s not the case in all other disciplines. So, for me, as a former teacher, I’m very used to thinking about my pedagogical practice and reading to inform my practice. I guess I’m tuned in to monitoring what I’m doing and how effective my practice is being. What this offered was some structure to that, and I think made me reflect on some aspects of supervisory practice which perhaps I don’t naturally reflect on — so, things like, how do I interact with applicants? What message does my staff web page send about my openness to supervision? A big area I hadn’t really reflected on much before is my relationship with co-supervisors, so I found working on that section particularly interesting. 

FO: I found reflecting on my pedagogical and supervisory practices to be valuable in recognising areas of strength in my current practice, and in identifying areas for development. I feel that I have a professional responsibility to my PhD students to engage with the latest research and theory in this area of higher education practice to ensure that their PhD experience is the best it can be. As a result of the UKCGE professional reflection, I incorporate time at various points in the PhD journey for discussion of the supervisor-supervisee relationship (using discussion frameworks recommended in the UKCGE readings), in order to discuss how I could improve my practice to better support individual students. The UKCGE reflection also encouraged me to reflect on my relationships with co-supervisors and recommended tools for clarification of each supervisor’s expectations and roles in the supervisory team, which have been very useful for structuring discussions with co-supervisors. 

How did the writing process contribute to your reflections?

FO: The writing process gave a structure to my reflections, which helped me to distil the key points from reading that were most relevant to my current and future supervisory practice. In fact, I found it difficult to keep to the word count for each of the ten sections (approx. 500 words each), as there were so many interesting areas identified in the exemplar reflective document provided! 

GM: I tend to think through writing, and then re-writing, rather than thinking first and then writing, so for me the writing process was integral to the whole exercise….sometimes it’s not until I’ve written something down that I can see where there are gaps in my reasoning, and it is often through writing (and re-writing) that I really get clarity on the concepts that I’m using. 

How did you find the institutional support for the RSRP, and how well does it align with the other resources, tools, and support available for supervisors?

GM: To be honest I don’t think there was much from my institution. We do have ​‘in-house’ training which I attend regularly to keep up to date with the regs, but that isn’t really at the depth of reflection that the RSRP promotes. I found the UKCGE website really useful. 

FO: My School was very supportive of my application for the Research Supervisor Recognition Programme, and celebrated my and Gale’s achievement in our Staff newsletter. This has raised awareness of, and interest in, the RSRP scheme amongst our colleagues. The RSRP has also recently been incorporated into our university-wide online Fundamentals of PhD supervision course for new supervisors, which is now structured according to the topics of the RSRP reflection, and which encourages supervisors to engage in professional reading and to reflect on their supervisory practice from the outset. 

Do you have any advice for early-career supervisors or those applying for the Research Supervision Recognition Programme?

FO: I’d definitely recommend engaging with the UKCGE Research Supervision Recognition Programme whether you’re an early career supervisor or a more experienced supervisor. Engaging with the RSRP has had a profound impact on my understandings and practices in relation to PGR supervision – I just wish that it had been available ten years ago to inform and support my early supervisory practice! 

GM: Just do it…and do it with a pal!